Company Profile

SNV is a not-for-profit international development organisation that applies practical know-how to make a lasting difference in the lives of people living in poverty. We use our extensive and long-term in-country presence to apply and adapt our top-notch expertise in agriculture, energy, and WASH to local contexts. SNV has an annual turnover of €130 million, over 1,250 staff in more than 25 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. We are proud to be a not-for-profit organisation that uses project financing to implement our mission. This requires us to work efficiently and to invest in operational excellence.

SNV has worked in Ghana since the 1992 and currently has offices in Accra, Tamale, and Nandom. 

For more information on SNV, visit our website: www.snv.org

Job Description

• Project Title: Transformative Land Investment Project
• Duty Station: Ghana
• Start date: 4^th November, 2024
• End date: 13^th December, 2024
• Estimated duration: It is expected that the consultancy will take a total of 1 month and a week to wrap up.
• Location: Ghana
• Reports to: Multicountry Project Manager, supported by national GESI advisors in Ethiopia and Mozambique with overall technical support from GESI Global Advisor (SNV).
• Additional comments: Review reports from Ethiopia and Mozambique and collate recommendations from the three countries, that is, Ghana, Ethiopia and Mozambique.

Brief Background

At SNV, we envision a world where, across every society, all people live with dignity and have equitable opportunities to thrive sustainably. We apply our strong foundations and technical expertise within and across three inter-related sectors of agri-food, energy, and water, which are critical to enabling people to lead dignified lives and thrive. Within and across these sectors, we work on three core themes: Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI), climate adaptation and mitigation, and strong institutions and effective governance. Across these sectors and themes, we also focus on impact driven finance, digitalization, systems change, and youth.

Global principles for responsible land-based investments such as the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT), and the Responsible Agriculture Investments (RAI) have been developed and accepted as relevant guide in the implementation of land-based investments, they have not fully addressed the risks and challenges land-based investments bring. Working with over 100 agribusinesses, the Centre for International Forestry Assessment (CIFOR) generated valuable insights into the type of business models and conditions that enable investors to better reconcile social, environmental, and economic interests. It, among others, found that while many investors are highly committed to innovating toward more impactful business models, most are confronted by large internal resource and capacity gaps. Only investors that succeed in closing this gap by forging cross-sector partnerships with government, civil society, assessment organizations and/or other agribusinesses are generally able to effectively create shared value.

In view of the above challenges, SNV has joined up with CIFOR, ICRAF, LEI, and RECOFTC, to constitute a consortium that is implementing the Transformative Land-based Investment (TLI) project. The project seeks to address investors’ need for independent technical backstopping, partnership identification, development and brokering of support. United by common vision, yet each bringing unique skills and expertise, with a distinct collaborative advantage, mixing technical, developmental, public policy and value chain development expertise. The first phase of the TLI program (2022–2025) is supported by Swiss Development Cooperation.

Noting that tradition and culture shape land tenure system and largely influence the norms around the application of laws and global principles, the TLI Project team seeks to assess the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion dimensions of Land Based Investments in agriculture and forestry in Ghana.  The outcome of the GESI assessment will guide the TLI project team in mainstreaming GESI considerations in the implementation of the project and more specifically, in supporting selected Land Based Investors (LBIs) to enhance GESI perspectives in their models.  The TLI team in Ghana is seeking the services of suitably qualified consultant/firm to conduct the above stated assignment.

The consultant will therefore act as the multi-country consultant based in Ghana to be supported by 2 national GESI consultants in Ethiopia and Mozambique. The consultant must demonstrate the ability to hire and oversee local assessment team for the purposes of primary data collection and analysis from the LBIs.

Consultancy Objective

The purpose of the SNV-led multi-Country GESI analysis is to Conduct a GESI needs assessment with selected LBI Champions to ascertain and analyse GESI issues within land investment operations, with a minimum of 4 companies in Ghana, 3 companies in Ethiopia and 3 companies in Mozambique. The TLI project responds to Swiss Development Cooperation’s (SDC) commitment to a sustainable food system transition, as outlined in its Global Program for Food Security. This Program recognizes that such as transition demands an integrated, holistic approach that requires action across all four sustainable food system components, namely (1) enhanced global governance; (2) agroecological production; (3) inclusive agricultural and food market systems; and (4) healthy diets and nutrition. It is important that the assignment is understood within this context. The specific objectives of the assignment are outlined below:

1. Assess context specific gender and social gaps, roles, culture, and norms that LBIs must take into consideration in their business operations, corporate social responsibility and other activities to ensure that interventions are equitable and aim for sustainable impact for all beneficiaries and value actors regardless of age, gender, socioeconomic level, ethnic/religious status, migration status, disability as well as other social determinants,
2. Ascertain the major challenges limiting the participation of specific groups (including women and youth, migrants and smallholder farmers, etc.) in the adoption of innovations, technologies, practices related to transformative land investment as well as their participation in land-based investments.
3. Conduct in-depth review of key national level LBI regulatory documents and analyse gaps and opportunities they present for addressing gender and social exclusion factors in LBI implementation in Ghana, Ethiopia and Mozambique.
4. Provide practical recommendations and a strategy/action plan document for LBIs to enhance their GESI- responsive operations that target staff and partners. 
5. Provide guidance, review country reports and consolidating the GESI report for Ghana, Ethiopia and Mozambique.

Activity Details

• Onboarding/orientation meeting with SNV team- The consultant will have physical and virtual meetings with relevant team members and partner on the planned consultancy, security briefings, expectations etc
• Develop Inception Report- The inception report will detail the assessment methodology with description of survey tool, work plan, timeline, budget, and assessment tools for mixed method data collection data based on the selected LBIs. The report will explain the consultant’s approach to working with SNV’s local staff and partners and target communities.
• Conduct literature Review/analysis- Consult with staff, review existing project documents, reports from relevant projects, studies, policies, and literature on GESI to gain understanding of LBI Champions business model, objectives and expected outcome. It also aims to identify gaps in information and focus the data collection plans. Through the literature review and in consultation with the project team, the consultant will identify LBIs, marginalized groups (women and youth) and individuals who work with the LBIs or are in the host communities, civil society organizations (CSOs), and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), as well as local government officials, and community members.
• Recruitment/selection of data collectors- The consultant will outsource the data collection to local organizations/individuals who understand the local context and nuances.
• Training of data collectors- The training is to familiarize the assessment team with the assessment methodology, tools, ethics of assessment and concept of GESI.
• Oversee quantitative and qualitative data collect from primary sources- The consultant will collect data from identified 4 Business Champions (LBIs) in Ghana using relevant languages and applying a mixed methods approach for field assessment, which will be informed by the initial literature review. The assessment will include semi-structured key informant interviews (KIIs) taking into considerations gender norms and cultural sensitivity. Data collection tools will be tailored to each country context/province as appropriate. Data collected from various LBIs will cover the GESI domains.
• Data cleaning and analysis workshop- The consultant in collaboration with assessment team will clean the data, review the interview notes and identify key themes. Analyze and interpret the data and draw conclusions around the main assessment questions and write up the analysis and findings.
• Conduct data validation workshop- The activity will present findings to relevant stakeholders for validation
• Drafting of final GESI analysis report using SNV’s reporting template and updated GESI strategy/toolkit
• Generation of knowledge output in the form of policy brief from assessment and development of GESI training manuals.

Expected Deliverables:

1. Inception report with a assessment methodology and approach- Electronic Microsoft word document with detailed methodology, detailed work plan and timeline. Report should be maximum of 10 pages
2. GESI assessment report of publishable quality that addresses knowledge gaps in the land-based investments- Report must not exceed 20 pages in length (without executive summary, appendices, lists of key informants, etc.). Font is Times New Roman; font size is 12 and 1.5 single spacing. The report should include infographics, tables etc,).
3. Business Champion-level GESI Strategy- The strategy outlines the objectives, guiding principles, actions, and mechanisms to promote gender equality and social inclusion within the LBIs Business Models. It will provide practical and context specific recommendations for LBIs in monitoring the strategy.
4. GESI Knowledge output generated in the form of LBIs Policy brief and GESI training manual for LBIs from the assessment.

All rights to resulting Intellectual Assets as knowledge output under the assessment assignment under the TLI project shall be solely owned by the SNV Transformative Land Investment (TLI) project.

Required Skills or Experience

Selection criteria:

The proposal must demonstrate that it will have the personnel for the key positions that meet the following requirements:

• Advance degree in Land Economy and governance, natural resource management, sociology, anthropology Forestry, Gender equality and any related course with at least 10 years of demonstrable experience working in a multi-cultural context especially in the region or Ph.D. in sociology, anthropology, or other related topic with at least 5 years of demonstrable experience working in a multi-cultural context especially in the Sahel region.
• Experience with gender equality and social inclusion analysis or related work in Africa and the sub-region
• Experience in Natural resources/landscape management, local governance and community development in rural areas.
• Experience in rigorous data collection and GESI analysis (qualitative and quantitative methods)
• Good understanding of land sector and customary land governance systems and ability to follow a strict time frame.
• Strong evidence of experience using the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) domains of analysis is an asset.
• Demonstrable ability to hire and oversee local organisations, data collection services and enumerators in Ghana.
• Fluent in English and other Ghanaian languages.