Leveraging ICT for Irrigated Agricultural Extension – Training and Monitoring Field Consultant

Project/Consultancy Title:

Leveraging ICT for Irrigated Agricultural Extension – Training and Monitoring Field Consultant

Project Location(s):

Garut and Sukabumi Districts (West Java), Pasaman Barat (West Sumatera) and Lombok Timur (West Nusa Tenggara)

Background:

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing technical assistance (TA) to the Government of Indonesia to prepare “Leveraging Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Irrigated Agricultural Extension” project. The TA will improve the delivery of information to farmers to help enhance their livelihoods. The TA will strengthen the existing use of information and communication technology (ICT) to deliver low-cost, timely, and actionable extension information to smallholder farmers specific to their needs, to increase their ability to improve yields.

Mercy Corps Indonesia (MCI) was selected as TA partner and will be facilitating the public private collaboration model to deliver advisory, financial and market services to 100,000 rice, corn and chili farmers (40% are women) in four districts. During the TA implementation, MCI will be partnering with the national and local government agencies, ICT app providers, government and private extensions, value chain actors and local community groups, include: farmer organization, farmer cooperative, BUMDES, women groups, youth groups and village leaders.  

Purpose / Project Description:

To support the pilot implementation, Mercy Corps Indonesia is seeking eight local field consultants for training and monitoring in four project locations, namely: Garut, Sukabumi, Pasaman Barat and Lombok Timur Districts.

Consultant Objectives:

The consultants will be based in the four locations, support TA pilot implementation and undertake monitoring of all activities.

Consultant Activities:

The Consultant will:

·       Work closely with National Team Leader, consultants and others to monitor quality, scope, participation, and impact of program activities.

·       Support International TL, National TL and National Agriculture Advisory to conduct assessments to identify, target beneficiaries, locations, value chains, local community groups and other potential intermediaries/agents.

·       Identify farmer’s groups and facilitate farmer’s access of all the ICT/ mobile based services and manage day to day queries and support required.

·       Build knowledge and local networks on all input suppliers, markets/ buyers and MFIs and facilitate smooth access to and interface with farmers and as well as based on local contexts advise NTL and suggest updates to content and applications development.

·       Plan, coordinate and organize all trainings, workshops, and other events. Provide training to relevant stakeholders, on content, applications as well as on financial literacy.

·       Monitor and record all activities and submit bi-monthly (every 2 weeks) to the National TL and M&E specialist.

·      Undertake any other activity as required.

Consultant Deliverables:

• Workplan for users acquisition and training/education/capacity building for government extension, farmers, and local community groups.
• Progress report of partnership with local community groups.
• Bi-monthly report of pilot activities and progress of project achievements.
• Project data/information needed by the M&E Specialist for monitoring and impact assessment.
• Used case/Users story of ICT used by government extension and farmers.

Preferred Qualification and Experiences:

• University degree in Economic, Business, Social Studies, Agriculture or  related fields
• Community-based development activities with relevant field experience of at least 3 years in implementation and monitoring. Had experiences on PNPM Program or Village Fund Development will be an advantage.
• Good verbal and written English skills is required.
• Has capability to communicate with the local languages in TA project locations (Sundanese, Minangis, and Lombok).
• Experience in conducting trainings/education/capacity building to farmers.
• Experience using digital data collection tools for monitoring.
• Experience worked with district agriculture and extension offices and private sectors.
• Ability to take initiative, to anticipate and solve problems; and to work independently on multiple tasks with limited supervision, to work under pressure and meet deadlines.
• Computers skills with strong familiarity with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Timeframe / Schedule: 

The consultant will deliver the task for 6 months intermittent within 1 July, 2019 – 31 May 2020. 

The Consultant will report to:

National Team Leader

The Consultant will work closely with:

National Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and National Agriculture Expert/Advisory

           

Applicants should send their CV and mention the expected work area in the subject email to procurement@id.mercycorps.org before 21 April 2019