Background

AGRA is a not-for-profit organization working with African governments, other donors, NGOs, the private sector, and farmers to improve the productivity and incomes of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Africa. AGRA aims to catalyze an inclusive agricultural transformation in Africa by increasing incomes and improving food security for millions of smallholder farmers in Africa. For more information about AGRA, please visit www.agra.org.

Founded in 2006, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is an Africanled, African-based organization that seeks to catalyze Agriculture Transformation in Africa. In its current strategy (AGRA 3.0, 2023-2027), AGRA intends to influence and leverage its partners to build a robust enabling environment where private sector thrives, and all smallholder farmers are empowered to produce sufficient and healthy food. AGRA’s vision is therefore “to contribute to an inclusive agricultural transformation across Africa, to reduce hunger, improve nutrition, and adapt to climate change”. Its mission is “to catalyze the growth of sustainable food systems across Africa, by influencing and leveraging partners to build a robust enabling environment where private sector thrives, and all smallholder farmers are empowered to produce sufficient and healthy food”.

In most African countries including Kenya, women play a significant role in agriculture providing over 50% of the agricultural labor force by producing food while ensuring family nutrition and food security. Despite their contribution to agrifood systems, women continue to experience extensive gender-based inequalities in access to and control of productive and financial resources which inhibits their productivity and reduces food security and nutritional outcomes. Women often lack access to competitive markets; lack the technical capacity, leadership, and management capacities to lead agribusiness for growth and are often limited in accessing business intelligence necessary to prosper in a marketplace. Women also experience other gender-related barriers, including access to finance, to help grow their businesses and enable them to compete more effectively in the market.

In response to the above challenges, AGRA through its VALUE4HER initiative aims to increase the performance of female-led agribusiness enterprises in Africa by facilitating access to high-value markets and trade opportunities, providing access to finance and investments, building women’s leadership skills and capacities to grow their businesses and build voice and agency through socio- and collective capital. VALUE4HER is founded on the rationale and development evidence that women-owned businesses grow when their business development efforts are complemented and linked to national, regional, and global development agendas.

Objectives

VALUE4HER is designed to facilitate access to markets, finance, and capacity-building resources tailored specifically to the needs of women in agribusiness. Through these efforts, the initiative seeks to create a more inclusive and equitable agribusiness landscape, enabling women to leverage their potential within agricultural value chains fully. To strengthen women’s business skills and improve their access to relevant knowledge, AGRA is seeking the services of an individual consultant to develop and disseminate value chain-specific content in Kenya.

This consultancy will be instrumental in advancing VALUE4HER’s objectives within the Kenyan context by equipping women agripreneurs with essential tools and insights to thrive in agribusiness. The content will offer practical insights into navigating specific challenges within identified value chains, including strategies for financing, marketing, and overcoming structural barriers. The scope of work will include a thorough needs assessment to determine the most profitable value chains in Kenya and identify those where women are already active. This assessment will uncover critical information regarding the challenges and opportunities within these value chains, as well as the knowledge gaps that hinder women’s effective participation and growth. Based on these findings, the consultancy will produce relevant content tailored to each value chain, ensuring it is accessible and practical for women agripreneurs at various levels of experience and capacity.

Qualifications and Experience

The ideal consultant for this project should be a national or country-based individual, with a strong understanding of women and youth agripreneurship, agribusiness advocacy, community engagement, value chain development, and stakeholder engagement. A combination of technical expertise, practical experience, and a deep appreciation for the challenges and opportunities facing women agripreneurs in Kenya is preferred.

Professional Experience:

AGRA works to achieve a food secure and prosperous Africa through the promotion of rapid, sustainable agricultural growth based on smallholder farmers. Smallholders--the majority women--produce most of Africa's food, and do so with minimal resources and little government support. AGRA aims to ensure that smallholders have what they need to succeed: good seeds and healthy soils; access to markets, information, financing, storage and transport; and policies that provide them with comprehensive support. Through developing Africa's high-potential breadbasket areas, while also boosting farm productivity across more challenging environments, AGRA works to transform smallholder agriculture into a highly productive, efficient, sustainable and competitive system, and do so while protecting the environment.