Cooperative Establishment and Support Consultant

Background:

Concern Worldwide is an Irish International NGO working in the world’s poorest countries. Under the support of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM) fund, Lebanon Branch of Concern Worldwide along with the Environment and sustainable Development Unit (ESDU)-AUB are implementing a two years project in Akkar and T5 entitled “Value chains for improved socioeconomic well-being of Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities”.

The Project intends to provide capacity building on topics related to good agricultural practices for vulnerable population through each phase of the implementation of the Origanum Syriacum and Dairy value chain for Lebanese farmers and Syrian workers.  These two value chains aim to teach selected farmers on how to effectively grow Origanum Syriacum through applying good agricultural practices (GAP), use the best harvest and post-harvest and livestock management techniques in order to contribute to the production of a high quality Zaatar and dairy based products that meet the local and international market standards and demands.

In addition to supporting farmers in production and post production phases, the intervention seeks to provide capacity building to other Market actors involved in the production, processing and/or marketing phases of the value chain. The latter will be achieved through the technical support of cooperative, to be able to strengthen the market systems, create market linkages, job opportunities, and increase their profitability and income.

Scope of work

Concern Worldwide, in collaboration with ESDU will conduct an outreach using social media platforms and traditional door to door outreach in addition to other channels such as municipalities and local authorities to identify 3 potential cooperatives working in the dairy and herbs processing, that are located in Akkar and North Lebanon.

Established cooperatives will be supported to become more viable and sustainable through the provision of good governance, legal requirements and conflict resolution training that addresses the main obstacles to their cooperative acceleration, growth and sustainability. These sessions will aim to focus on improving their management structure, legal status, product development etc…

Good governance trainings will be provided by expert, having a similar previous experience mainly in cooperative support to be able to develop a tailored capacity building scheme optimized depending on the identified needs of the selected coops in line with the current economic crisis and with the context of the selected geographical area.

Adding to that, the consultant will have to assist in the establishment of a new herbs cooperative centralized in the project’s area of intervention. Based on that, the consultant shall do a rapid assessment in the 7 areas of intervention (Akkar Al Attiqa, Daoura, Kherbet Daoud, Bireh, Rahbe, Houaich and Fnaydek) to be able to identify the best location for the cooperative establishment. Afterwards, s/he will be responsible along with Concern in house lawyer to finalize needed documents and paperwork to establish the cooperative. Farmers willing to be part of the cooperative, will be receiving trainings on good governance, legal documents, conflict resolution and basic coop management to be able to initiate the coop.

Therefore, Concern is seeking local consultant to provide sessions listed above for the targeted group mentioned above to 3 previously established coop and 1 new coop. In addition to the creation of new cooperative in the general directory of cooperatives.

Main responsibilities

• Establishment of new herbs cooperative in Akkar
• Provision of 4 technical sessions for 2 group, with an average of 3 hours per session.
• Develop a clear outline and training agenda based on the needs and rapid assessment conducted with the selected cooperatives.
• Provision of a full training Curriculum before the start of delivering the program
• Development of progress monitoring forms and tools i.e. pre and post-test;

Geographic focus

Based on the project target areas, the geographic focus of the project will comprise cooperative in Akkar. Service provider must be able to travel frequently, several times per week to target areas to work with target coops on-site.

Timeframe

Support to cooperatives is expected to start in February 2022 and to last until end of August 2022.

Required expertise

• Minimum 5 years of experience in the cooperative domain
• Demonstrated experience in providing technical training to cooperatives
• Proven facilitation and training skills;
• Ability to deliver the good governance, legal sessions, conflict resolution training in Arabic
• Experience in working with cooperatives in similar contexts in Akkar and North Lebanon (Previous experience working with humanitarian sector is a plus).