BASELINE SURVEY: ACCESS TO AGRICULTURAL FINANCE BY WOMEN IN KENYA

Background

Agriculture continues to be the backbone of the economies of most countries in Africa. Empirical evidence shows that women represent over half of the agricultural labour force in Sub-Saharan Africa (UNEP, UN Women, PBSO and UNDP, 2013).  Women’s substantive contribution to agriculture and their vital role in ensuring family food security have been widely documented; however, gender-based inequalities in access to and control of productive and financial resources inhibit agricultural productivity and undermine resilience and sustainability efforts. 

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality are translated into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts while building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

Socio-economic inequalities are becoming more pronounced, with women and ethnic minorities much more likely than others to be excluded from economic opportunities. According to FSDK (2013), women use of formal financial services has lagged behind that of men. Lack of ownership creates barriers to not only accessing mainstream agricultural finances as land is the most widely accepted collateral, but also prevents women from accessing market platforms such as contract farming and farming cooperatives that would help them interact with other people who could help them improve production or sales. Women are therefore restricted from accessing start-up capital, working capital, expansion capital or equipment financing and hence a continued circle of poverty among women. Similarly, women living in rural areas have lagged behind those in urban areas in accessing financial services[1]

Agricultural Finance Corporation is therefore ambitiously undertaking affirmative financing that will seek to propel the women loan portfolio from approximately Ksh. 25 million to Ksh.1 billion in 2 years through the Women Affirmative Access Window (WAAW) and which targets all the 47 counties. The Women Affirmative Access Window initiative will enhance the financing of women in agriculture at production, mechanization, post-harvest management, value addition and access to local and export markets.To implement this model, there is need for a deeper understanding of the access to agricultural finance by women in Kenya.

This project is in alignment to the focus area of the Socio-Economic Empowerment of women department under the State Department of Gender Affairs.  The baseline information will be used in the finalization of the Women Economic Empowerment draft strategy by SDGA which they are embarking on doing with support from UN Women. 

This project falls under UN Women’s Socio-economic empowerment unit which is aligned to UN Women’s global and regional strategic plans (2014 – 2018) Development Results Impact Areas and the strategic note for UN Women Kenya (2019 – 2022) that recognizes Gender inequalities can be attributed to limited access and control over productive resources, access to financial services, insufficient access to education, inadequate skills, limited access to technology, cultural impediments, gender roles and other constraints limiting employment options and participation in decision making. All these constrain women’s ability to effectively participate in and benefit from economic development. 

Therefore, UN Women and FAO have partnered together with AFC to support a baseline survey that will generate baseline data on women’s access to agriculture finance so as to facilitate monitoring impact and transformational development for women funded under WAAW project.                                                                              

1. Objectives

The objective of this assignment is to guide AFC in undertaking a National Baseline Survey to understand Access to Agricultural Finance by Women in Kenya.The Survey is expected to clearly bring out the following aspects on women’s access to agricultural Finance;

1. Better understanding on the priorities of rural women in terms of agri-finance and the level of satisfaction with what agri-finance opportunities are there in Kenya;
2. Better understanding of current status of access to agricultural finance and the constraints in accessing agri-finance in Kenya. Number of women/Households accessing financial products – disaggregated by FIs, Gender etc;
3. Greater understanding of awareness of channels of agri-finance in Kenya. Number of channels available for accessing agri-finance and their strengths/weaknesses;
4. Enriched understanding of current status of financial literacy and access to agribusiness information by women in Kenya;
5. Understanding of availability of possible collateral for rural women and innovative forms of collateral that could be used by rural women to facilitate their access to agri- finance? Number of women with land as collateral and other collateral acceptable by financial institutions;
6. Appropriate understanding of the agri-finance needs and the required scale of intervention;
7. Understanding of key agricultural value chains and access to market linkages for women and for each of these value chains, what kind of agri-finance is needed for rural women?;
8. Track current status of relevant indicators that will assist in tracking progress of the Country’s Big 4 Agenda.(Food security, Nutrition and Manufacturing)-Focus specific to women and youth;

• Access to finance- Target 20,000 farmers
• Increase in acreage in cotton, maize, potatoes, rice, feeds and aquaculture
• Post Harvest losses management-Access to drying equipment, silos and other storage facilities

       9. Track current status of relevant indicators that will assist in tracking progress of the Country’s SDGs progress.-To input in KNBS tracking.             -)-Focus specific to women and youth;

• Goal No.5: Gender Equality-Indicators-5.a.1 (Proportion of total agricultural Population with ownership and secure rights  over agricultural land,by sex; and (b)share of women among owners or rights-bearers of agricultural land, by type of tenure, 5.a.2 Proportion of countries where the legal framework (including customary law) guarantees women’s equal rights to land ownership and/or control
• Goal No 1: No Poverty -Indicator-1.2.1 Proportion of population living below the national poverty line, by sex and age, 1.4.2 Proportion of total adult population with secure tenure rights to land, with legally recognized documentation and who perceive their rights to land as secure, by sex and by type of tenure)
• Goal No 2:  Zero Hunger -Indicator- 2.3.1 Volume of production per labour unit by classes of farming/pastoral/forestry enterprise size, 2.3.2 Average income of small-scale food producers, by sex and indigenous status
• Goal No. 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth-Indicator: 8.2.1- Annual growth rate of real GDP per employed person, 8.3.1 Proportion of informal employment in non-agriculture employment, by sex
• Goal No 12: Responsible Consumption& Production- Indicator-12.3.1 Reduction in post-harvest losses.

[1]Financial regulation in Kenya:Balancing inclusive growth with financial stability, Francis M. Mwega November 2014https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/9279.pdf last accessed 2 July 2018

Duties and Responsibilities

To meet the above objective, the following outputs should be achieved:

1. Prepare an inception report detailing the understanding of the assignment including how this contributes to achievement of the Strategic Development Goals (SDGs), Kenya’s MTP III, The Kenya vision 2030 and the Government’s Big Four Agenda on food security and growth of agricultural manufacturing;
2. In consultation with AFC, develop a detailed Baseline Survey methodology that incorporates both quantitative and qualitative tools;
3. In consultation with AFC, develop data collection tool/tools;
4. In conjunction with AFC, train enumerators on data collection according to the developed methodology;
5. Guide AFC enumerators on data collection;
6. Advise AFC on the acquisition of the appropriate data capturing and analysis software;
7. Guide AFC in data cleaning and analysis;
8. Guide and prepare quality final Baseline Survey on Access to Agricultural Finance in Kenya;
9. Lead in validation of the Baseline Survey.

Conduct of the work

The work will be undertaken with support from the technical Committee comprising of FAO, UN-Women -Kenya and AFC Management and staff. A draw down contract will be put in place and input to the project provided as per the outline above and as may be agreed with AFC.  The entire support is expected to be provided on-site, off-site, through telephone and online communication whenever necessary. The consultant will manage their own time in consultation with the AFC and UN-Women Kenya and keep a timesheet indicating level of input under this contract and the specific nature of support. 

FAO, AFC and UN women will be available to work closely alongside the consultants to share data, research and relevant documents and analysis throughout the process. Physical space, if required will be made available for the project team to work with in AFC’s offices as well as UN Women Offices.

Outcomes and deliverables

The desired outcome is the finalization of the each of the outputs listed in section three above.  The key deliverables will include

• Inception report detailing the understanding of the assignment and a plan on how the assignment will be carried out;
• Draft Methodology for the baseline Survey;
• Data collection tool/tools;
• Training report for Enumerators;
• Data analysis report;
• Draft and final Baseline Survey on Access to Agricultural Finance in Kenya.

TERMS OF PAYMENT

Payment will be made based on the deliverables below.

• The initial payments to a maximum of 40% would be made upon signing of the contract and delivery of an acceptable project inception report;
• Second payment of to a maximum of 30% upon presentation and acceptance of survey methodology, tools and data enumerator training report;
• The final payment to a maximum of 30% would be paid upon finalization of the assignment and delivery of final survey report;
• The above payments would be accompanied by related timesheets

OWNERSHIP OF CONSULTANCY MATERIALS:

The copyright for all material prepared under this terms of reference will pass to FAO, UN-Women Kenya and AFC and any publishing of any material or reports be in FAO, AFC’s or UN-Women’s own house style.  There is therefore no requirement for material to be extensively formatted beyond that required to indicate how material should be logically presented in the final report.  All final reports should be presented in an electronic format allowing the text and graphics to be manipulated in preparation for publication.  Where a final report is presented in a portable document format (pdf) generated from another format (such as Microsoft Word) it should be accompanied by the original file from which it is generated.  All representations of graphic material (tables, figures, drawings, charts, graphs and photographs) must be able to be reproduced at high print resolution.  Tables, figures, drawings, charts, graphs should be provided in Microsoft Excel or Adobe Illustrator format.  Photographs must be provided in high-resolution JPG images set to minimum of 300 dots per inch (dpi). 

Competencies

Required Skills and Experience

NB: AFC, FAO and UN Women reserves the right to contact the listed contact person for purposes of clarification

1. Time FRAME

The assignment is expected to start November until mid-December 2018 (for a maximum of 45 days) and to deliver as indicated in the table below. The bidder is expected to provide an indication of availability and detailed work workplan showing the time frame they think they will take to complete the assignment. 

1. Confidentiality:

All the outputs - baseline reports, data base, etc. produced by this assignment will not be disseminated in part or whole without express authority from AFC, UN Women and FAO. Thus, the consultant shall not produce in these materials in any form (electronic, hard copies, etc) to a third party without a written permission from the three Institutions.