Rainforest

Alliance

CONSULTANCY : COCOA SPECIALIST

Reports to: Central Africa Manager

Location: Yaoundé, Cameroon

Contract Term: 9-months

Consultancy scope of Work Summary:

This consultancy will support cocoa activities under a Cameroon Community Forestry project by providing training on improving productivity and farmer business skills to cocoa farmers in community forests and cocoa landscapes in the Sangmelima-Djoum-Mintom corridor (South region). Consultant will also provide support to the Central Africa Manager in following up and implementing overall project activities.

Responsibilities:

• Collect and analyze data on farms, current practices, and potential to increase yields;
• Support the design of the training system and training tools per the SAN Standard, which is a requirement for Rainforest Alliance certification;
• Facilitate the establishment of Farmer Field Schools, i.e. a participatory learning model bringing together a group of farmers under the facilitation of the Cocoa Associate to share production challenges and opportunities, test and learn best management practices;
• Conduct trainings as part of the Farmer Field Schools focused on improving cocoa productivity, quality and environmental impact reduction;
• Provide individual coaching to farms to conduct a diagnosis, prepare an improvement plan, and then follow up on the implementation of best practices, and keep track of results;
• Disseminate information to cocoa value chain actors about Rainforest Alliance Certification for agricultural products;
• Report on project activities as per pre-defined deliverables;
• Provide support to the Central Africa Manager on project monitoring and implementation of the project’s activities, as needed, including activities related to timber and non-timber forest products, and the roll out of community forestry in target locations;
• Support communication efforts about the project, by contributing with success stories, pictures, blogs, etc.

Deliverables:

• A report on the socio-economic baseline situation of farmers and diagnostic of farm management practices around community forestry landscapes in the Sangmelima-Djoum-Mintom landscape;
• A report on the progress of Farmer Field Schools in each of the projects’ locations;
• Trainings reports for each location, including pictures and testimony from farmers; and
• Contributions to quarterly and end-of-year project reports evaluating project outputs and results.

Qualifications:

If Consultant Firm, a dedicated staff person with the following qualifications is required (if consultant is an individual, the following qualifications are required):

• Demonstrated experience in agronomy, rural sociology, development studies, farm management, farmer business skills and/or farmer training from working with producer groups and/or factories;
• Technical expertise in cocoa is essential;
• Understanding of cocoa business and value chains including major cocoa traders in Cameroon;
• Demonstrated ability to prepare quality progress and technical reports;
• Strong organizational and logistical skills to manage project activities and related travel in a time sensitive manner;
• Strong written, presentation and verbal skills in French; knowledge of English is a plus;
• Effective interpersonal and communication skills;
• Knowledge of common computer software programs (MS Office); and
• Authorization to work in Cameroon

Selection criteria:

Selection criteria includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Experience in providing similar services;
• past performance;
• technical fit to the technical specifications.

Salary: Commensurate with experience.

Application:

Send resume, cover letter, financial proposal (include daily rate and estimation of any expenses required to complete deliverables), and three professional references to E-mail: cameroonpersonnel@ra.org using the following format in the subject line: first name and last name, consultancy opportunity you are applying for. 

Deadline to apply: March 12, 2017