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Call for independent contractors to work with Root Capital on a periodic basis. Target applicant pool is professionals with experience in gender mainstreaming, gender in organizational development, agriculture, or sustainable development within agricultural companies.

NOTE: This is a call for applications for independent contracting on a periodic basis. This is not a call for an open position of employment with Root Capital.

Organizational Background

Root Capital invests in the growth of agricultural businesses so they can transform rural communities. These companies buy crops such as coffee, cocoa, or macadamia nuts from smallholder farmers. With growth, they become impact drivers that can increase incomes, create jobs, empower women and youth, maintain peace, and preserve vulnerable ecosystems.

We provide these companies with vital resources: access to capital, business and technical partners, financial training, and conservation practices. We work in geographies that are difficult to serve where others do not. To date, we have distributed $1.5 billion to improve the lives of more than ten million people in farming communities.

Women in farming communities often face barriers that men do not. They own the land and have more limited access to capital than men. Without these resources, women cannot prosper and remain trapped in a cycle of poverty. When climate change causes crop diseases, many women lack the resources to help them recover, so sustainable prosperity for themselves and their families is even more elusive. In addition to this, women have no or limited access to advisory services to improve their business and financial practices that contribute to intelligent business growth. Root Capital promotes continuous improvement in the social performance of our clients in order to advance gender equality and climate change.

The Women in Agriculture Initiative (WAI) is consistent with Root Capital's commitment to act as an ally in comprehensive development for agricultural businesses, and with the use of a blended financing approach, leveraging complementary financial and non-financial tools to increase rural incomes, provide stable jobs and contribute to women's economic empowerment, this helps differentiate Root Capital by providing a unique value-added service.

With twenty years of experience providing financing to small agricultural businesses, Root Capital has learned that sometimes credit alone does not help them grow and strengthen. Therefore, in addition to access to capital, it offers financial, agronomic, business intelligence, climate resilience, and gender and youth training and advice in difficult-to-serve geographies. Companies that receive our advisory services learn how to implement best business and financial practices for smart growth and continued success. We use a practical and participatory learning methodology, since our objective is for the company's staff to acquire new knowledge and skills and be able to implement them in the short term.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Root Capital currently has partner offices in Costa Rica, Kenya, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. Root Capital's clients are located in more than 10 countries across Mexico and Central America, South America, East and West Africa, as well as Southeast Asia.

Main goal

Train and advise cooperatives and agricultural companies in finance and business management using Root Capital's participatory training methodology. Develop personalized financial advice for clients based on diagnostic information that positively impacts their economic growth, productivity and resilience.

Main Consultancy Deliverables

• Conduct gender gap diagnostics that include measuring business performance in various management areas and identifying strengths, weaknesses and potential development opportunities to influence client work plans from a gender perspective.
• Prepare reports and write responsive recommendations based on diagnostic results and develop a customized gender equity training and counseling plan with clients.
• Support clients to develop gender policies in line with the requirements of value chain certifications such as the Rainforest Alliance Certification. Provide support in developing an effective strategy and monitoring framework for the gender policies.
• Provide gender equity advisory services and training to clients in accordance with the Root Capital methodology and in coordination with clients on topics including, but not limited to: good practices of gender inclusion in agribusiness policies, systems and processes and practices, modules adapted for women (such as financial literacy for women), the impact of climate change and women, entrepreneurship, leadership and organizational development, etc. Be familiar with the participatory processes and methodologies including, for instance, the Gender Action Learning System (GALS) framework and provide training to the agribusinesses on the same.
  • Maintain records of workshop attendees, evaluate training results, and prepare activity reports.
  • Note: Your role as a facilitator may be at a centralized event or workshop where multiple clients or organizations attend or conducting a 1-1 session with an individual client in their offices. May lead sessions or serve as a secondary facilitator supporting the workshop/session.
• Monitor gender equity work plans and related grants, document and validate strategies used, and advise clients on implementation.
• Record activities carried out with clients (using digital data collection tools and Excel), preparing monthly activity reports, and capturing learnings.
• Deliver reports with key impact information, including results, challenges, lessons learned, customer success stories, and photographs.
• Promote innovation through contributions to the development and piloting of new instruments, methodologies, and training tools.
• Effectively understand, integrate, and model gender-inclusive approaches and gender mainstreaming best practices to clients and other relevant stakeholders to ensure that women equitably participate in and benefit from services being offered by both the clients and Root Capital.
• Provide consulting support to Root Capital in the design and validation of specific tools and curricula for training targeted audiences.
• Serve as a resource and coach regarding inclusion and gender issues. You may observe and provide feedback to fellow advisors, assisting them in planning and implementing gender-lensed Advisory services.
• Coordinate with fellow advisors to explain the gender equity advisory services a client receives when necessary.

This role will be supervised by Gender Equity Advisory Service Coordinator for Africa.

Note: You must be willing to travel to the field and conduct consulting services (individually with a single client or multi-client workshops) both online/ remotely and in person.

Required Qualifications

• University degree in women and gender development, education, sociology, social work, intercultural studies, psychology, or any women and gender development-related studies.
• Experience with gender mainstreaming, gender in organizational development, agriculture or sustainable development.
• More than 4 years of experience focused on gender policies or programs and capacity building with a
• gender perspective, particularly in rural areas
• 3 - 4+ years of experience in training and/ or work with business development in rural agricultural areas
• and/ or with smallholder farmers, agribusinesses and/ or cooperatives
• More than 4 years of experience with application of participatory training methodologies and processes including GALS framework

Skills, Knowledge and Abilities required

• Personal conviction for gender justice - evident interest and commitment to gender equality
• Planning and time management skills - ability to meet deadlines
• Problem-solving and critical thinking skills - ability to synthesize complex concepts and transmit them clearly
• Team player - ability to work collaboratively to design and deliver services/ products
• Creativity and innovative skills - commitment to the development of innovative solutions and results oriented
• Flexibility and adaptive skills
• Ability to manage your work independently with a high degree of responsibility and proactive outreach for support as needed
• Ability to travel and work in different parts of the country
• Knowledge of administration tools including: MS Office Suite (especially Excel), Google Apps (email,
• shared calendars and collaborative documents) and Zoom
• Knowledge and application of adult learning and facilitation

Duration

The independent consulting contract will be for a duration of anywhere between 3 and 12 month periods, dependent upon the needs of Root Capital and the unique professional skills of the applicant. Each month it takes an average of 8- 15 days to complete assignments and deliverables work, with 15 being the maximum number of consulting days per month.

Application Instructions

• If interested in the role, please submit a curriculum vitae/ resume and compelling cover letter to afradvisoryrecruitments@rootcapital.org.
• The subject of your email should follow this convention: “GEA Advisor - Country Name - Applicant First Name and Last Name”.
• Inquires that do not follow this convention will not be reviewed.
• The cover letter should explain why you are a fit for Root Capital, your experience working with agri-small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and your expertise in digital business solutions. Specific examples of your impact and achievements should be included.

Application Process

• 1^st Stage: Review of resume and cover letter
• 2^nd Stage: First Interview
• 3^rd Stage: Technical Assessment
• 4^th Stage: Final interview

Application deadline: March 31st, 2024

Root Capital offers equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees, consultants and/or collaborative opportunity applicants without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, active military status or veteran, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy (including pregnancy, childbirth, medical conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth, and breastfeeding and expressing breast milk), sexual orientation, gender, identity gender, gender expression, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by law. Root Capital is committed to creating a dynamic work environment that respects our leadership principles: empowerment, equity, integrity, service and transparency.