Youth-DBI Impact Study Consultant at Root Capital

Job Type: Contract, a total of 8-10 weeks of work spanning October 1st 2021 - December 2022

We supply these businesses with vital credit and capacity building to foster their growth and resilience. We work in hard-to-serve communities where others don’t. To date, we’ve distributed $1.5 billion to improve the lives of over 10 million people in farming families.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Root Capital currently has associated offices in Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Ghana, and Kenya.

Background

Across low- and middle-income countries, the rural poor, who make up 75 percent of the 2.6 billion people living on less than $2 a day, are marginalized from the formal economy. Most depend on agriculture as their primary source of income. Without viable markets for their crops, millions of small-scale farmers remain trapped in enduring poverty.

Agricultural enterprises such as farmer cooperatives and agro processing businesses play an important role in improving farmer livelihoods by linking farmers to more reliable and better-paying markets than they can access on their own, and often providing essential auxiliary services to those farmers such as technical training and access to agricultural inputs and credit. Root Capital invests in the growth of these agricultural enterprises so that they can catalyze economic growth and transform rural communities.

One of the ways Root Capital measures its impact on agricultural enterprises and the impact of these enterprises on farmers, communities and the environment is through deep dive impact studies. We have conducted impact studies to measure the likely impact of our lending with over 30 clients to date. We are now launching our first study to assess the impact of our Youth Talent Partnerships and Digital Business Intelligence (DBI) Advisory services in EA on the knowledge, practices, growth, and resilience of rural agricultural enterprises.

Description of the Consultancy

Specifically, this evaluation will focus on 11 Root Capital Advisory clients (agricultural enterprises that are participating in the Youth Talent Partnership and DBI program in the East African coffee sector. It will include both a 1) process evaluation to help us understand whether the services were implemented as planned and identify successes and challenges to inform future programming; and 2) a mixed-method impact assessment to identify whether businesses participating in the program gain new knowledge and skills that leads to 1) the program contributing to closing the talent gap by fostering talent through improving workers technical and soft skills, attracting fresh talent to the industry and promoting new technologies and improving productivity, job satisfaction and increasing opportunities for future career and  professional growth; and 2) improved business-level decision-making and performance and strengthened relationships with external partners.

Proposed Methodology

The study will focus on the following cohorts of businesses in the coffee value chain:

1. 5 businesses that benefited from the talent partnership and  DBI in 2020/2021 in Rwanda
2. 3 businesses that will benefit from a talent partnership and DBI in 2022 in Rwanda
3. 3 businesses that will benefit from a talent partnership and DBI in 2022 in Uganda

. Data collection will mainly include four rounds spanning this approximately 15-month period:

• October-November 2021 – Baseline data collection  for 2022  DBI and Talent Partnerships cohort
• March- April 2022 – Endline-Post internship placement assessment of  2020/2021 Talent Partnership cohort
• July 2022 – Endline-Post evaluation of the 2020/2021 DBI cohort
• November- 2022 – Endline Assessment of 2022 DBI and Talent Partnership cohort

Additional data collection over the 15-month period may be required to monitor service delivery or conduct short surveys, requiring an additional 1-2 days of work per month, and visits to each of the four enterprises.

The consultant will perform the following functions:

• Review and advise on the development of survey instruments (baseline and endline);
• Coordinate translation of survey tools, interview guides and FGDs
• Travel to each enterprise/coordinate enumerators in Rwanda and Uganda for data collection (Based on prevailing Covid19 restrictions, to consider mix of remote and in person interviews).
• Coordinate assessments and interviews done by enumerators with relevant personnel, leadership and program beneficiaries at each enterprise
• Enter and code any data not collected electronically
• Translate and transcribe interviews
• Submit a debriefing memo following each round of data collection that describes the data collection process, challenges, and outcomes
• Depending on consultant interest and qualifications, there may be an opportunity to participate in data analysis as well
• Work in close collaboration with Advisory implementing teams (based in the Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda) and Impact study team (based in Kenya and the US).

Deliverables will include:

• Feedback on the design approach, methodology and data collection tools
• Cleaned data following each phase of data collection
• Debriefing memo following each phase of data collection (4 memos)
• Translated and transcribed interviews following each phase of data collection

Qualifications & Experience

The ideal candidate will possess the following qualifications:

• Minimum of Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Statistics, Sociology or related field.
• At least 3-5 years of experience conducting qualitative and quantitative data collection, ideally in the three East African Countries (Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda).
• Strong familiarity with monitoring and evaluation methodologies and study designs
• Extensive experience conducting studies focused on SMEs targeting youth employment and technical assistance programs, digital innovations in the agricultural space, standards and certification programs and climate resilience programs in East Africa.
• Experience of using in person and remote data collection methodologies.
• Knowledge of agricultural enterprises, small and growing enterprises (SMEs), and/or enterprise-level technical assistance provision
• Strong data entry and coding skills
• Ability to conduct interviews or recruit a team of qualified enumerators to conduct interviews in the respective countries and language.
• Available full time during the tentative data collection dates: October- November 2021, March- April 2022, July 2022 and November- December 2022.

Salary

Commensurate with experience; and reimbursement of qualifying expenses (transport, accommodation, meals and communication).