Terms of reference consultancy for the refinement and compilation of success stories for Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund (KKCF) investee impact

1.0 The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund

The AECF, LLC (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a leading non-profit development organization that supports innovative enterprises in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors with the aim of reducing rural poverty, promoting climate-resilient communities, and creating jobs.

We catalyze the private sector by surfacing and commercializing new ideas, business models, and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve resilience to the effects of climate change. We finance high-risk businesses that struggle to access commercial funding; we are committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go.

To date, we have supported over 510 businesses in 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacted more than 33million lives, and created over 35,000 direct jobs.

AECF is headquartered in Kenya and has offices in Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Sudan, Benin, and Somalia.

2.0 About Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund (KKCF)

Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund (KKCF) is a five-year Program of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), implemented with Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF), Turkana County Government, and UNHCR. KKCF originates from the market data from IFC’s “Kakuma as a Marketplace” study, which quantified Kakuma’s economy and confirmed that it was a dynamic and potential marketplace, triggering a lot of interest that resulted in the  Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund being developed as an initiative supported by multiple partners.

KKCF is designed to support private sector investment and unlock the economic potential of refugees and their hosts in the Kakuma Kalobeyei refugee hosting area in Turkana West District of Turkana County. KKCF aims to attract private companies and grow the local entrepreneurship potential to create jobs and improve service provision in the Kakuma Kalobeyei area. KKCF targets all private sector players from small companies to medium-sized family businesses to social enterprises and large firms. For more information, visit https://kkcfke.org/

The KKCF applies a competitive financing mechanism for disbursing donor funding to incentivize for-profit companies, social enterprises, and local and refugee entrepreneurs to start or scale existing operations in the Kakuma-Kalobeyei area. This is achieved through advertising for a call for proposals during which interested businesses submit their proposals and business models, which are then subjected to a competitive selection process leading to the identification of those businesses that are best aligned to the market dynamics and pose the highest socio-economic impact to the host and refugee communities in Kakuma.

Attracting the private sector to the area and supporting local entrepreneurs creates more job opportunities for refugees and the host community, creates more consumption choices, and potentially reduces the prices of commodities and consumables. This, in turn, enhances the self-reliance and socioeconomic integration of refugee and host communities while also contributing to the development of Turkana County.

With Kakuma being a marginalized and fragile setting, KKCF is designed to support the private sector to manage business limitations prevalent in such challenging environments including limited access to financing, low availability of technically qualified and experienced staff, complex social and cultural conditions, slow and bureaucratic regulatory environment and fragmented, low-income, and remote markets with poor infrastructure. KKCF supports established companies, social enterprises, and local entrepreneurs to address these challenges by providing concessionally costed capital, technical assistance, and support at the policy level to encourage new businesses to emerge and existing businesses to move into the operating environment. This collaborative project focuses on building commercially viable and sustainable businesses that can:

• Increase incomes for both refugees and host communities.
• Provide essential goods and services.
• Create jobs and stimulate economic growth.
• Improve living standards for those in the refugee camp and surrounding communities.

The KKCF program, therefore, fosters socioeconomic integration and self-sufficiency for displaced populations and host communities within Kakuma/Kalobeyei. This is achieved by supporting the development of 104 commercially viable and sustainable micro enterprises and 19 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) across diverse economic sectors.

3.0 Rationale for this consultancy

This assignment involves documenting the KKCF’s investees’ impact stories. The objective is to highlight KKCF’s role in attracting private sector investment and nurturing local entrepreneurial potential to generate employment and enhance service delivery in the Kakuma-Kalobeyei area. The documentation will also illustrate how the program supports the growth and expansion of private companies and social enterprises already operating in the region, while fostering the development of refugee- and host-led businesses. Additionally, the exercise aims to strengthen program learning, enhance resource utilization, and offer feedback mechanisms for AECF and its partners. The documentation also intends to inform of the scaling up of successful practices, particularly in promoting gender-inclusive solutions in displacement-affected contexts across Africa.

Additionally, the initiative demonstrates AECF’s value in gender lens investing in overall thought leadership and resource mobilization efforts. Through this consultancy, AECF seeks to identify the specific factors of success, understand the actual actions being undertaken on the ground, and the impact of interventions on the lives of the programme beneficiaries. The documentation will also propose some promising practices that can be maintained and replicated or scaled up in the future, and combine human stories and voices of beneficiaries and accounts of the investee’s technical staff. These digital stories will be shared with private sector players, development partners, and the public.

4.0 Scope of work

The objective of this assignment is to support the finalization and compilation of success stories from the Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund (KKCF) portfolio. These stories aim to capture the transformation of the investees throughout the programme and will form part of an updated KKCF Investee Handbook. The AECF team will lead the initial drafting of stories and capture Project photos. The consultant will subsequently refine and enhance this content into a professional, digital publication.

The consultant will work under the overall guidance of the KKCF Programme Manager and in close collaboration with the AECF Impact and Communications team to:

• Review and refine 104 draft success stories developed by AECF to enhance clarity, coherence, and consistency in tone and structure.
• Conduct follow-ups with AECF staff or investees to gather additional details where necessary.
• Standardize story formats to ensure consistency across all success stories.
• Develop infographics and visual summaries to complement story content.
• Curate and integrate high-quality photographs into the stories, ensuring alignment with the narrative.
• Collaborate with the AECF Impact Team during internal story validation and incorporate relevant feedback.
• Ensure all stories meet ethical standards and that consent documentation is properly in place.
• Compile edited stories, visuals, and infographics into a professionally designed digital handbook.
• Deliver the final publication in both PDF and editable formats suitable for dissemination.

Specific deliverables and expected output

5.0 Duration of the assignment

The assignment will be conducted within 48 days from the date of signing the contract.

6.0 Reporting

The consultant will report to the Program Manager KKCF, AECF Communications, and the Impact team.

7.0 Qualifications and experience

The consultant /firm should have.

• • At least 5 years of writing experience in digital storytelling in a creative way for diverse audiences.
  • A consultancy firm with a team of experts in technical writing, storytelling, photography, and copy editing.
  • Professional experience in investigative and human impact story writing, in agribusiness, education, healthcare, trade, renewable energy, gender mainstreaming, and sustainable development.
  • A strong grasp or hands-on experience in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Competitive Business Challenge models, particularly in leveraging private sector investment to unlock the economic potential of fragile or underserved regions in Kenya or Sub-Saharan Africa, is an added advantage.
  • Familiarity with current sectoral trends, challenges, and opportunities, as well as a deep understanding of local community dynamics and their role in driving economic growth, is highly desirable.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey complex concepts compellingly and engagingly.
  • Possesses strong research and analytical skills to gather relevant information, conduct interviews, and extract meaningful insights from data. They should be able to identify key milestones, challenges, and lessons learned from the selected companies.
  • Ability to navigate diverse cultural contexts and effectively engage with businesses from different backgrounds. Given the diverse communities and contexts involved, the consultant should possess cultural sensitivity and the ability to work with people from different backgrounds. This will facilitate effective communication, collaboration, and understanding of local perspectives.
  • Prior experience in documenting similar stories or working on Private sector-focused initiatives
  • Ability to manage timelines, prioritize tasks, and ensure deliverables are met within the agreed scope.
  • Have work experience in refugee setups. Country-based consultants will be an added advantage.

8.0 Evaluation criteria

Mandatory requirements for firms: –

• Company profile.
• A trading license or Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration, and other statutory documents.
• Valid Tax Compliance certificate (Applicable to firms).
• Passport/National Identification of the lead consultant and key personnel.
• All documents related to the technical & financial proposal MUST be compiled and submitted separately as PDF documents, organized with a clear Table of Contents.

N/B: Failure to attach and adhere to the above requirements will result in automatic disqualification

An evaluation committee will be formed by the AECF and may include employees of the businesses to be supported. All members will be bound by the same standards of confidentiality. The consultant should ensure that they fully respond to all criteria to be comprehensively evaluated.

The AECF may request and receive clarification from any consultant when evaluating a proposal. The evaluation committee may invite some or all the consultants to appear before the committee to clarify their proposals. In such an event, the evaluation committee may consider such clarifications in evaluating proposals.

In deciding the final selection of a qualified bidder, the technical quality of the proposal will be given a weighting of 80% based on the evaluation criteria. Only the financial proposal of those bidders who qualify technically will be opened. The financial proposal will be allocated a weighting of 20% and the proposals will be ranked in terms of total points scored.

The mandatory and desirable criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are identified in the table below.

9.0 Proposal Submission 

Interested companies/individuals must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. A technical proposal, including the following:

• A profile of the lead consultant explaining why they are the most suitable for the work
• CVs of the team composition.
• An understanding of the consultancy requirements.
• Methodology and work plan for performing the assignment.
• Detailed reference list indicating the scope and magnitude of similar assignments.
• Signed letters of reference/recommendation and contacts from previous companies/assignments
• Relevant services undertaken. Sample of past work: applicants are requested to submit a sample of previous projects and/or links to demonstrate the experiences required by these Terms of Reference
• Registration and other relevant statutory documents (this applies to Institutional consultants).

2. A financial proposal

• A financial proposal (in KES) clearly showing the proposed team member, roles, and proposed days, and the proposed professional fee (daily rate and total amount per team member). The financial proposal shall also include an indication of reimbursables (travel, communication, etc.)

N/B: Submitting the financial and technical documents as one document will automatically lead to the disqualification of the applicant

10. Pricing

AECF is obliged by the Kenyan tax authorities to withhold taxes on service contract fees as well as ensure VAT, at 16%, is charged where applicable. Applicants are advised to ensure that they have a clear understanding of their tax position with regard to the provisions of the Kenya tax legislation when developing their proposals.

11. Application

The AECF is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The AECF considers all interested candidates based on merit without regard to race, gender, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

• Interested consultancies are requested to submit their technical and financial proposal to aecfprocurement@aecfafrica.org by 26^th August 2025, 5 pm EAT
• All questions should be directed to the procurement email by 18^th August 2025, 5pm EAT
• The subject of the email should be Consultancy for Documenting Digital Stories on Impact and Gender in the Kakuma Kalobeyei Challenge Fund (KKCF) – Kenya Portfolio.
• The AECF shall not be liable for not opening proposals that are submitted with a different subject or responding to questions that did not meet the deadline as indicated.

 12. Disclaimer

AECF reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice, and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party.

The AECF does not charge an application fee for participation in the tender process and has not appointed any agents or intermediaries to facilitate applications. Applicants are advised to reach out directly to the AECF.