1. Background

The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) and its partners have been implementing the Mass Youth Employment in Apiculture (MaYEA) program since November 2023 to enhance the creation of about 1 million dignified and fulfilling jobs for youths through promotion of improved beekeeping and allied value chains and with financial support from the Mastercard Foundation. The programme expected to secure dignified and fulfilling employment opportunities for more than 1,050,000 young men and women (80% female and 10 vulnerable groups) in honey and allied value chains. The program is being implemented in ten Regional States of Ethiopia (Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Benishangul Gumuz, Sidama, Southern Ethiopia, Southwestern Ethiopia and Central Ethiopia Regions). This will be achieved through providing technical and business skills development trainings for youths in beekeeping, integrated enterprise development, and creating access to innovative financial, market, and information services in partnership with public and private actors.

The program seeks to achieve this overall objective through promoting the establishment of beekeeping and allied value chain enterprises and building the skills and capacity of youths and partners, linking them with input, and output markets, facilitating access to finance, and information services. The program implements 5 strategic components (increase national honey production and productivity, enhance honey quality for access to premium markets, Value addition, integrated value chain development and facilitate enabling environment for youths and apiculture sector development). The program is implemented in collaboration with 7 national and international NGOs with a proven track record in the development sector icipe being national coordinators. 

The program is implemented in about 135 woredas classified into two sub national hubs coordinated by ORDA Ethiopia and International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR). The sub national hubs are further classified into 11 clusters with additional implementing partners leading one or more clusters. 

The program has completed its first-year implementation and promising progress, and critical challenges and opportunities are identified. As per the Mastercard Foundation Program Quality Framework (PQF) lessons need to be documented and the sustainability of the results achieved need to be documented annually. Therefore, this ToR if prepared to guide prospective consultants with an annual sustainability and learning assessment to distill lessons from the first year of implementation and document sustainability and provide recommendation to solve critical challenges and tap existing opportunities. This TOR outlines the objectives, scope of the work, proposed methods and expected deliverables with timelines. 

2. Objectives

2.1 General objective 

The overall objective of this assignment is to analyze the experiences, results achieved and sustainability of the MaYEA program results and key learnings to inform the implementation and course correction of future interventions and assess the conditions for sustainability and scalability of programme interventions. 

2.2 Specific objective

Specific objectives include:

1. Identify high level achievements (results against the plan, system level changes both expected and unexpected) and the factors that contributed to the success or the shortcoming of the program.

2. Assess the sustainability of the programme’s model and its potential for achieving the ambitious targets and risks (challenges) to sustainability of results.

3. Detailed analysis of program’s role in driving systemic changes in the apiculture, allied value chains, and youth job creation sectors (both positive and negative changes).

4. Produce a knowledge product summarizing the key lessons learned, good practices and recommendations for future improved implementation.

3. Technical specifications 

3.1 Key tasks and Scope of Work

The consultant will undertake the following activities:

• Review programme documents, including programme proposal, Joint MEL Plan, Progress reports, baseline data and reports, and progress monitoring survey reports.

• Conduct targeted interviews with key stakeholders involved in the program, including participant youths, implementing partners, and the MaYEA program team.

• Analyze the data collected to identify key themes and trends related to programme implementation model, their sustainability, scalability, and key lessons learned so far.

• Prepare report outlining the lessons learned, sustainability factors/risks, challenges, and future directions.

• Present the report to the programme team and a stakeholder in regional and national learning and impact summits.

• Finalize the report incorporating stakeholder feedback, including recommendations for future interventions with a focus on learning and sustainability.

• Develop a knowledge product summarizing the key findings and recommendations in a user-friendly format (e.g., presentation, infographic).

• Document good practices identified by implementing partners and share.

4.  Expected Outcomes

4.1 Deliverables

• Inception report: this will include the background, objectives, scope of the work, methods and approach, data collection tools and timeline of the work.

• Draft report: a draft report must be submitted in accordance with an agreed-upon reporting template, including major findings, conclusions and recommendations.

• Final report: the consultant will present the key findings to stakeholders to collect feedback and submit the final report by incorporation the feedback. 

5. Methodology

The consultant is expected to apply mixed methods of assessment that need to be employed, including collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data from program participants at national, regional, woreda and kebele levels. The main data collection methods proposed are desk reviews, key informant interviews and Focus Group Discussions. Moreover, the consultant is expected to collect qualitative and quantitative data from implementing partners, honey processors and other value chain actors in the apiculture and allied sectors. Other quantitative data from reports, existing datasets and national statistics can be used as needed.

6. Timeframe

The duration of the assignment is 60 person-days distributed over three months from July to September 2025. The tentative timeline for each deliverable are as follows. 

Qualifications and experiences

     Qualifications

The consultant should possess the following qualifications:

• Minimum of master’s degree in economics, Development Economics, Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Extension, Monitoring and Evaluation, or other Learning and Knowledge management and related fields. PhD in any of these areas is preferred.

  Experience 

The consultant must have the following experiences:

• At least 15 years of hands-on experience working in programme evaluation, learning and research.

• Have experience in programme/project assessment, socioeconomic research, value chain studies, capacity building/assessment and evaluation preferably in the field of agriculture and rural development, youth livelihood development, value chain and financial inclusion.

• Specific experience and skills in research design, generating, capturing, storing and application of project and programme learning. 

• Specific experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis in programme monitoring & evaluation environment.

• Experience in preparing high quality research and evaluation reports, and policy brief writing skills. 

• An understanding of Ethiopia’s apiculture and allied sectors, with a broad perspective on how the entire system operates and how public, private, NGO and informal actors operate within the sectors.

• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and qualitative data gathering skills.

• Strong set of personal values including integrity, honesty, and desire to be of service

• Fluency in English is essential knowledge of other program area languages is a plus.

Mandatory Requirements

• Cover letter expressing interest in this assignment, experiences, including full contact details (name, tel. e-mail), and physical address, signed by an authorized representative.

• Detailed CV of the consultant including qualifications and training received and facilitated.

• Provide a competitive and detailed cost breakdown (in ETB) to perform the assignment, including daily rates and level of effort.

How To Apply

Application Procedure and Requirements

Interested applicants with the required qualifications and experience outlined above can submit technical and financial proposals separately to icipe Ethiopia before the deadlineat the below address. The financial proposal should include professional fees with a clear indication of the proposed daily rates and level of effort. Other costs such as transport, accompanying data collectors’ fee, daily subsistence allowance during fieldwork, accommodation, etc. will be covered by icipe based on icipe policies.   

Shortlisted applicants may be required to submit sample written materials or publications and participate in competency-based interviews. Only qualified individual consultants are invited to apply for this position.

The application should include a technical and financial proposal with the following contents. 

Technical proposal (maximum 10 pages, excluding annexes)

• Demonstrated experience in handling the assignment. 

• Understanding of the assignment 

• Brief methods of assessment (sampling, tools, timeline, etc.)

• Curriculum vitae as annex indicating most recent relevant experiences

Financial proposal (1 page) that indicates:

• Daily rate in ETB and total days allocated for the professional fee. 

• Total quotation in ETB

Individual consultants will be evaluated using the following criteria. 

Proposed approach and methods of assessment                           50%

Competencies and track record                                                      30%

Financial proposal                                                                            20%         

Candidates that scored below 70% in technical proposals will not be considered for financial proposal evaluation. Applicants should submit their applications individually. icipe will contact only short-listed applicants.

Submission deadline

Applicants must submit their application details via emails to icipe-ethiopia@icipe.org in PDF format by 23rd May 2025. Lately submitted applications will not be considered for evaluation.

icipe is an equal opportunity employer. It fosters a multicultural work environment that values gender equity, teamwork, and respect for diversity.