Terms of Reference: Consultancy Services for the Provision of Capacity Building and Technical Assistance to Women’s Cooperatives and Associations in Benin and Burkina Faso

1.0 Le Fonds d'encouragement aux entreprises africaines

The AECF, LLC (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a leading non-profit development organisation 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. We also focus on the most vulnerable, including women, youth, and those living in fragile contexts.

To date, we have supported over 510 businesses in 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacted on more than 36 million lives and created over 38,000 direct jobs. AECF is headquartered in Kenya and has offices in Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Sudan, Benin, and Somalia.

2.0 About the Investing in Women Program – Investing in Women Benin and Burkina Faso

The Investing in Women in Benin and Burkina Faso (IIW-B&BF) is a six-year gender transformation and economic inclusion programme implemented by AECF with funding from Global Affairs Canada. The programme aims to economically empower women as entrepreneurs in sectors of activity with a high positive impact on the climate in the fields of technological innovation, digital technology, agriculture, production, processing, crafts and trade to remove the obstacles preventing them from contributing to the development of their activities.

The programme aims to improve the participation and economic resilience of women entrepreneurs in a greener economy in Benin and Burkina Faso. These include access to finance for women-owned SMEs, women’s cooperatives and emerging women entrepreneurs emerging women entrepreneurs; improving the capacity of women owners and managers of SMEs and women’s cooperatives to sustainably develop the value chains in which they primarily value chains in which they mainly work, using climate-smart approaches; and overcome entrenched social and cultural resistance to women’s empowerment at national, sectoral and community levels.

3.0 About the Assignment

This assignment is intended to support the delivery of practical, demand-driven capacity building and technical assistance to women’s cooperatives and associations participating in programme-supported value chains under the IIW-B&BF programme. Under IIW-B&BF, selected women’s cooperatives receive non-repayable grants to invest in production, processing, and marketing services for their members;

This technical assistance accompanies those grants to ensure cooperatives have the financial, operational, and governance capacity to deliver on their mandates and meet member needs. The support will focus on strengthening cooperative governance and member engagement, financial and operational management, climate-smart agricultural production and processing practices, market readiness and commercial linkages, women’s leadership, and prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) within cooperative structures. Interventions will be responsive to the specific barriers faced by women, including limited access to professional advisory services, mobility constraints, and competing time demands.

The Technical Assistance Provider will primarily support a defined cohort of at least 10 women’s cooperatives and associations (5 in Benin and 5 in Burkina Faso), selected by AECF through a parallel competitive process. Where relevant, and only as agreed by AECF, the assignment may also provide light-touch support tools, coaching, or referrals for women-led micro-enterprises and women’s groups linked to the supported cooperatives and value chains.

Against this backdrop, AECF seeks to engage a highly experienced Technical Assistance Provider to strengthen the governance, financial and operational management capacity, climate-smart practices, and service delivery capability of selected women’s cooperatives under the IIW-B&BF programme.

1. The assignment will focus first on diagnosing cooperative-level constraints in governance, finance, operations, and member service delivery that could slow delivery of programme-supported activities, and on designing practical capacity-building plans to address them.
2. The Technical Assistance Provider will then support implementation of the agreed capacity-building plans through hands-on advisory, coaching, training of trainers, and monitoring of cooperative-level capacity-building actions, while flagging material risks and support needs to AECF.

Through this combined support, the programme aims to strengthen cooperative performance and member service delivery while nurturing a portfolio of women-led cooperatives that demonstrate sound governance, climate-smart agricultural practices, market-oriented service delivery and value chain development in Benin and Burkina Faso.

4.0 Objectives of the Assignment

Overall Objective: To strengthen the governance, financial and operational management capacity, climate-smart agricultural practices, and member service delivery of selected women’s cooperatives under the IIW-B&BF through cooperative diagnostics, tailored capacity-building plans, and hands-on implementation support that improves their ability to deliver on their mandate, serve their members, and sustain climate-smart investments.

Specific Objectives (Expected Outcomes):

The specific objectives of the assignment are to:

• Diagnose cooperative-level governance, financial, operational, technical, and member service delivery gaps that may affect implementation, performance, and use of programme grants.
• Develop practical, cooperative-specific capacity-building plans with clear priorities, actions, and support needs.
• Equip cooperatives with the governance, financial, operational, and technical capacity to deliver on their mandates, manage grant-funded investments, and meet the needs of their members.
• Strengthen women’s leadership within cooperatives and build leaders’ capacity to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
• Cascade technical knowledge to wider membership through training of trainers (ToT) approaches in agricultural production, processing, climate-smart agriculture, marketing, and financial and operational management.
• Generate practical lessons and portfolio insights for AECF on common cooperative constraints, support priorities, and emerging risks.

5.0 Scope of Work

The assignment shall be implemented as a two-step process comprising cooperative diagnostics and capacity-building planning, followed by implementation support, training delivery, and monitoring of agreed capacity-building actions.

5.1 Phase 1: Cooperative Diagnostics and Capacity-Building Planning

Under this phase, the Technical Assistance Provider will review relevant cooperative and programme information and undertake cooperative assessments to identify weaknesses that may constrain implementation, performance, and use of programme grants.

The Technical Assistance Provider shall:

• Review relevant cooperative documents, grant agreements, investment plans, statutes, member registers, prior assessments, and other materials made available by AECF.
• Undertake cooperative diagnostics covering governance and member engagement, financial and operational management, procurement systems, technical and production capacity, climate risk and resilience (including vulnerability and adaptation needs), environmental and social (E&S) risk screening, market readiness, and SGBV-related risks and safeguards and cooperative-level ESG risk governance, including roles, oversight arrangements, accountability mechanisms, grievance/referral pathways, and integration of ESG commitments into cooperative decision-making and management.
• Assess cooperative capacity to operationalize grant-funded investments and identify constraints that could slow or weaken results.
• Identify material cooperative-level risks, bottlenecks, and capability gaps requiring support.
• Classify and prioritize support needs by cooperative type, maturity, value chain, and urgency.
• Develop cooperative-specific capacity-building plans with clear actions, timelines, responsibilities, and expected results.
• Validate proposed support plans with AECF and the relevant cooperatives.
• Recommend where specialist support or referrals may be required beyond the Technical Assistance Provider’s core mandate.
• Prepare concise diagnostic summaries highlighting the main issues, risks, and priority actions for each supported cooperative.
• Provide AECF with a portfolio-level synthesis of recurring cooperative constraints and recommended support priorities.

5.2 Phase 2: Implementation Support, Training, and Monitoring of Capacity-Building Plans

Under this phase, the Technical Assistance Provider will provide practical advisory, training, and coaching support to help selected cooperatives implement agreed capacity-building plans. The Technical Assistance Provider will monitor progress on those plans and flag material cooperative-level risks or support needs to AECF.

The Technical Assistance Provider shall:

• Support cooperatives to strengthen governance, leadership, member engagement, planning, and decision-making.
• Strengthen financial management and procurement systems, including budgeting, cash flow management, costing, pricing, internal controls, and reporting against grant requirements.
• Support improvement of organizational systems, internal coordination, member records, statutory compliance, and performance management.
• Improve operational efficiency, agricultural production planning, processing workflow, aggregation, inventory management, and quality assurance.
• Support cooperatives to improve market readiness, buyer orientation, product positioning, branding, and packaging of cooperative outputs.
• Facilitate compliance with relevant market, quality, and cooperative regulatory standards required for member income growth and market access.
• Promote practical climate-smart and climate-resilient agricultural production, processing, and post-harvest practices suited to the supported cooperatives and value chains.
• Support each cooperative to develop, implement, and monitor a cooperative level
• Environmental and Social (ESG) Plan – covering environmental risk mitigation, sustainable resource use, climate-smart technology adoption, and compliance with applicable environmental standards — integrated into day-to-day cooperative management and grant performance monitoring and aligned with the IIW-B&BF Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP) and applicable Global Affairs Canada (GAC) environmental requirements.
• Embed ESG risk management into cooperative capacity-building plans by ensuring that identified environmental, social, safeguarding, governance, procurement, and climate-related risks are translated into practical mitigation actions, responsible persons, timelines, monitoring indicators, and reporting requirements.
• Deliver training of trainers (ToT) to cooperative leaders and designated member representatives in agricultural production, processing, climate-smart agriculture, marketing, and financial and operational management, so that knowledge cascades to wider membership.
• Train cooperative women leaders on the prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), including referral pathways and survivor-centred approaches.
• Facilitate linkages to buyers, input suppliers, financial institutions, technical experts, and other ecosystem actors relevant to cooperative service delivery.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to cooperative leadership and management committees to strengthen leadership capability and execution discipline.
• Monitor implementation of agreed capacity-building actions and document progress, challenges, and support adjustments required.
• Flag material cooperative-level risks, delays, or capability constraints to AECF for further action.

5.3 Cross-Cutting Delivery Requirements

Across both workstreams, the Technical Assistance Provider shall:

• Apply gender-responsive delivery approaches that recognize the time, mobility, and access constraints faced by women cooperative members and leaders.
• Ensure support is adapted to the differing capacities, sizes, governance structures, and maturity levels of the supported cooperatives.
• Use strong local context knowledge and market understanding in both Benin and Burkina Faso.
• Deliver support in a manner that is sensitive to climate risks, local value chain realities, and the rural operating environments in which cooperatives function.
• Coordinate closely with AECF and relevant stakeholders to ensure alignment, avoid duplication, and strengthen programme effectiveness.
• Align all environmental, climate, gender, safeguarding and cooperative governance support with the IIW-B&BF Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP) and Global Affairs Canada (GAC) environmental sustainability requirements applicable to the programme and relevant AECF ESG requirements applicable to the programme, ensuring that ESG risks, mitigation actions, responsibilities, and monitoring indicators are embedded in cooperative capacity-building plans and periodic reporting.
• Document key lessons, success factors, and recurring challenges emerging from the assignment to inform programme learning and adaptive management.

6. Les produits à livrer

The successful firm will be expected to deliver, at a minimum:

• Inception deliverables — an inception report setting out the methodology, work plan, staffing, beneficiary engagement approach, and reporting framework, accompanied by a portfolio scan and cooperative profiling note that segments the supported cooperatives by type, maturity, and value chain.
• Diagnostic deliverables (Objective 1) — cooperative diagnostic reports and/or diagnostic summaries for each supported cooperative, covering governance and member engagement, financial and operational management, procurement systems, technical and production capacity, climate risk and resilience (including vulnerability and adaptation needs), environmental and social (E&S) risk screening, market readiness, and SGBV-related risks and safeguards, plus a portfolio-level synthesis of recurring constraints and recommended support priorities.
• Planning deliverables (Objective 2) — cooperative-specific capacity-building plans with clear actions, timelines, responsibilities, costed support needs, and expected results, validated with each cooperative and AECF.
• Capacity-strengthening deliverables (Objective 3) — periodic implementation progress reports tracking delivery of the agreed capacity-building plans against governance, financial, operational, and technical milestones, including key issues, risks, and support adjustments; and technical assistance completion notes for each supported cooperative at end of engagement.
• Women’s leadership and SGBV deliverables (Objective 4) — a women’s leadership and SGBV training package (curriculum, facilitator guide, participant materials, and referral pathway map) and training completion reports documenting cooperative women leaders trained, attendance, and post-training competency observations.
• Training of trainers (ToT) deliverables (Objective 5) — ToT curricula and facilitator materials covering agricultural production, processing, climate-smart agriculture, marketing, and financial and operational management; ToT delivery reports listing trainers trained per cooperative; and brief cascade-monitoring notes documenting onward training delivered by ToT graduates to wider membership.
• Climate and environmental deliverables — cooperative-level Environmental and Social (ESG) Plan and environmental and social management system (ESMS) (one per supported cooperative); climate risk and vulnerability assessments per cooperative; and a portfolio-level summary of environmental and social risks, mitigation measures, climate adaptation priorities, and ESG plan implementation status, aligned with the IIW-B&BF ESMP and GAC environmental requirements.
• Learning and portfolio deliverables (Objective 6) — brief case studies, lessons learned notes, or success stories from supported cooperatives; and a final report summarizing diagnostics conducted, support delivered, cooperative progress against capacity-building plans, unresolved risks, lessons learned, and recommendations for AECF.

All cooperative-level monitoring data shall be captured using the IIW-B&BF Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) data collection tools provided by AECF, including the Climate Technology Adoption Survey (Indicator 1120), the Cooperative Training Register (Indicator 1122), the Management Capacity Survey (Indicator 1130), and the Leadership and SGBV Training Register (Indicator 1132). The Technical Assistance Provider shall populate and submit these instruments to AECF on the agreed reporting cycle.

AECF reserves the right to refine the final list, format, and frequency of deliverables during contracting.

7.0 Duration and Institutional Arrangements

The assignment is expected to be implemented over a period of 12 months. The first phase will focus on diagnostics and capacity-building planning, while the remaining period will focus on implementation support, training of trainers, and monitoring of agreed capacity-building plans. The consultant shall propose a realistic level of effort and sequencing aligned to the number and profile of cooperatives selected by AECF.

The Technical Assistance Provider will work alongside AECF programme staff, who retain responsibility for cooperative selection, administrative checks, and overall grant management. AECF staff will brief the Technical Assistance Provider on the programme application process, eligibility, and grant requirements, and will coordinate the cooperative-level activities to ensure alignment with broader programme management and operational monitoring support provided directly by AECF.

8.0 Reporting

The Technical Assistance Provider will be accountable and report to the Program Managers IIW-B&BF and the Senior Advisory Specialist.

9.0 Qualifications and experience from the Firm and Team

9.1 Firm-Level Experience

The Technical Assistance Provider should demonstrate:

• Over 7 years proven experience supporting cooperatives, producer associations, women’s groups, or community-based enterprises.
• Strong capability in cooperative governance, financial and operational management, member service delivery, market access, and capacity-building support to producer organizations.
• Demonstrated understanding of women’s economic empowerment, women’s leadership development, and SGBV-responsive programming in community settings.
• Experience supporting climate-smart agricultural production, processing, and resilience practices among smallholder cooperatives or producer groups, including environmental and social (E&S) risk assessment, ESG plan development, cooperative-level ESG governance, safeguarding and social risk management, grievance or referral mechanisms, and alignment with donor environmental safeguards (e.g., Global Affairs Canada or equivalent).
• Experience working in West Africa, preferably in Benin and/or Burkina Faso.
• Strong English and French language capability across the team members.
• Ability to deploy multidisciplinary expertise, including cooperative governance, finance, operations, climate-smart agriculture, market systems support, and SGBV-responsive programming.

9.2 Team-Level Experience

The proposal must include CVs for the following key experts:

• Team Lead / Assignment Coordinator: At least 10 years of experience in cooperative development, producer organization support, portfolio oversight, or rural enterprise advisory, with proven ability to lead multi-entity technical assistance assignments.
• Cooperative Business Model and Growth Expert: Experience in cooperative business model strengthening, member value proposition design, enterprise diagnostics, commercialization, and market readiness support for cooperatives and producer associations.
• Financial Management and Grants Readiness Expert: Experience in budgeting, cash flow management, costing, pricing, financial controls, financial reporting, grant fund management, and procurement support for cooperatives and community-based organizations.
• Agricultural Production, Processing, Climate-Smart Agriculture and ESG Expert: Experience in smallholder production systems, post-harvest handling and processing, quality standards, climate-smart agricultural practices, environmental and social (E&S) risk assessment and ESG plan development and monitoring, cooperative- level ESG governance, training of trainers (ToT), and market linkages for cooperatives and producer groups. or value chain expert.
• Cooperative Governance and Member Engagement Expert: At least 5 years of experience in cooperative or association governance, by-laws and statutes, leadership structures, member participation and democratic decision-making, internal controls, compliance, and formalization of cooperative entities.
• Gender, Women’s Leadership and SGBV Response Expert: Experience in women’s economic empowerment, gender-responsive cooperative support, women’s leadership development, and prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), including survivor-centred approaches, referral pathways, and SGBV-sensitive training delivery within community and cooperative settings.

10.0 Proposal Submission

Les consultants qualifiés sont invités à soumettre une proposition comprenant les éléments suivants :

• Une compréhension des exigences en matière de consultance.
• Méthodologie et plan de travail pour l'exécution de la mission.
• Liste de références détaillée indiquant la portée et l'ampleur de missions similaires.
• Signed letters of reference from 3 previous institutions/programmes.
• Registration and other relevant statutory documents.
• The technical and financial proposals are to be submitted separately in pdf format.
• The financial (USD) proposal must clearly show the budgeted cost for the work to be conducted by the Technical Assistance Provider under the scope of the work above.

The technical and financial proposals will need to be submitted as separate documents. NO LINKS.

N/B : LA SOUMISSION DU DOCUMENT FINANCIER ET DU DOCUMENT TECHNIQUE EN UN SEUL DOCUMENT ENTRAÎNERA AUTOMATIQUEMENT LA DISQUALIFICATION DU DEMANDEUR.

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

12.0 Evaluation Criteria
MANADATORY EVALUATION CRITERIA.
a) Mandatory Requirements for firms: –
1. Company profile.
2. Trading license or Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration and other statutory documents.
3. Valid Tax Compliance certificate or an Equivalent document. (Applicable to firms).
4. Passport/National Identification of the lead consultant.
5. Curriculum Vitae (CV) / Resume for the Consultant
The above documents must be valid at the time of submission through to the duration of the tender process.

N/B : LE FAIT DE NE PAS JOINDRE ET DE NE PAS RESPECTER LES EXIGENCES CI-DESSUS ENTRAÎNERA UNE DISQUALIFICATION AUTOMATIQUE.

b) 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 Technical Assistance Provider should ensure that they fully respond to all criteria to be comprehensively evaluated.

L'AECF peut demander et recevoir des éclaircissements de la part de tout consultant lors de l'évaluation d'une proposition. Le comité d'évaluation peut inviter certains ou tous les consultants à se présenter devant le comité pour clarifier leurs propositions. Dans ce cas, le comité d'évaluation peut tenir compte de ces éclaircissements lors de l'évaluation des propositions.

In deciding the final selection of qualified bidder, the technical quality of the proposal will be given a weighting of 70% 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 30% and the proposals will be ranked in terms of total points scored.

Les critères obligatoires et souhaitables sur la base desquels les propositions seront évaluées sont indiqués dans le tableau ci-dessous.

Les critères obligatoires et souhaitables sur la base desquels les propositions seront évaluées sont indiqués dans le tableau ci-dessous.

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

•  Interested firms/consultants or consortia are requested to submit their technical and financial proposal via the procurement portal https://procurement.aecfafrica.org/ by 30th September 2026, 5pm (EAT).
• All questions should be directed to the procurement email aecfprocurement@aecfafrica.org by 22nd September 2026, 5pm (EAT).
• The subject of the email should be ‘TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR CONSULTANCY SERVICES FOR PROVISION OF CAPACITY BUILDING AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO WOMEN’S COOPERATIVES AND ASSOCIATIONS IN BENIN AND BURKINA FASO”. 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.

14.0 Disclaimer

L'AECF se réserve le droit de déterminer la structure du processus, le nombre de participants présélectionnés, le droit de se retirer du processus de proposition, le droit de modifier ce calendrier à tout moment sans préavis et se réserve le droit de retirer cet appel d'offres à tout moment, sans préavis et sans obligation de dédommagement et/ou de remboursement à l'égard de toute partie.

L'AECF ne demande pas de frais de candidature pour participer à la procédure d'appel d'offres et n'a pas désigné d'agents ou d'intermédiaires pour faciliter les candidatures. Il est conseillé aux candidats de s'adresser directement au département des achats de l'AECF.