CORPORATE GOVERNANCE TRAINING CONSULTANT

ABOUT FAIRTRADE AFRICA

Established in 2005, Fairtrade Africa is the independent non-profit umbrella organization representing all Fairtrade certified producers in Africa. Currently, the organization represents over 1,083,139 producers across 28 countries in Africa.

Fairtrade Africa is owned by its members, who are African producer organizations certified against international Fairtrade Standards producing traditional export commodities such as coffee, cocoa, tea, cut flowers, cane sugar, wine, cotton, bananas, mango, pineapples and non-traditional commodities including shea butter, rooibos tea, vegetables and fresh and dry fruits. Fairtrade Africa is made up of both Small Producer Organizations (SPOs) and Hired Labour Organizations (HLO). In HLOs, the focus is on supporting companies that employ hired labour to supply better working conditions for their workers while in SPOs the focus is on members who are smallholders who run their farms mainly using their own and their family labour.
The Fairtrade Africa secretariat is located in Nairobi, Kenya and supports fairtrade certified producer organisations from four regional networks as follows: West Africa Network(WAN), Eastern and Central Africa Network(ECAN), Southern Africa Network(SAN) and the Middle East and Northern Africa Network(MENA).
FTA is governed by a Board of Directors which is comprised of seven (7) members as follows: four (4) producer representatives (one per region) as well as three (3) independent members recruited to provide specific skills and experience.
Small producer organizations (SPOs) are member-based organisations with a foundation on democratic principles and values for effective representation and participation of members. Upholding these principles and values provide a conducive platform for members’ collective interests, which is also key for advancing Fairtrade values and objectives.
Effective governance, therefore, is at the core of Fairtrade social standards and comprises some of the most critical issues in social audits……Fairtrade also strives in building more inclusive development through effective representation and participation.
At Fairtrade, we are keen on supporting the SPOs to develop, strengthen and sustain good governance as they strive to meet small-holder farmers’ needs. At ECAN Fairtrade has up to 36 POs (1 union) in Kenya, Uganda 24 PO (4 unions).
Our small producer organizations have democratic structures in place and transparent administration structures that allow members and the board to have effective control over the management of the organization. The General Assembly at each SPO is the highest decision-making body with all members having equal voting rights. A board is chosen through free and fair elections with separate roles and responsibilities from the management. The board usually constitutes of the chairman, the vice-chairman, a secretary, a treasurer and 3 or 5 additional committee members.

ASSIGNMENT OBJECTIVE

Fairtrade Africa is seeking an experienced and dynamic team of specialized consultants to conduct a two (2) day workshop in two (2) series to build the capacity of the Co-operative Board of Directors in three areas (i) Effective Board Leadership in member-based organisations (ii) Strategic Board Planning (iii) Board and Business Continuity & Board Inclusivity (iv) Democratic Processes.
Through this assignment, the team of specialized consultants will support the development of the knowledge and skills of participants to approach managerial and leadership roles and tasks strategically and effectively. The end of the assignment will aim at improving the competence of Coffee Boards SPOs in Kenya and Uganda.
The assignment will target 14 SPOs in Uganda and 25 SPOs in Kenya with each SPO having 4 representatives from the Board and management attend the training.

ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS

To deliver the 2-day, 2- series workshop per country the team of specialized consultants will be required to develop a training program and materials on the following:
• Board Leadership: Strategic leadership; roles, governance, and accountability; management; oversight; corporate responsibility; managing board conflicts;
• Corporate Governance; best practices, Board tenure/elections, Principles of Corporate Governance
• Board and Business Continuity: succession planning fundamentals; best practices on committee roles and responsibilities;
• Records Management; Board Minutes, Legal documents record keeping, financial records
• Legal; Returns filling, taxes, Co-operatives Society Act, Updating records with the Registrar etc
• Democratic Governance: Member participation and involvement.
• Board Inclusivity: Gender; Youth; PWD’s; Minority vs Majority
• Breaking the Bias: Cultural bias, Gender, Age etc
A specialized team of consultants is required to deliver the training in person in Kenya and Uganda. The training dates and venue will be announced at a later stage.

ASSIGNMENT SPECIFIC DELIVERABLES

• Training materials including PowerPoint presentation, handouts, pre/post-tests, feedback/evaluation forms, etc. as well as a list of the training materials’ sources;
• Facilitation of a 2-days, 2-series of training on Governance per country;
• High quality and comprehensive training report that includes the aggregated findings of the pre/post-tests and feedback forms
• Sharing of materials after the training i.e. presentations, handouts.

QUALIFICATION &SKILLS
Demonstrate wide experience in the team for conducting training for boards on leadership, and corporate governance, particularly in member-based organisations
• Demonstrate relevant advanced education backgrounds in the team on the various topical issues covered by the training; Demonstrate experience in developing relevant training curriculum, writing excellent visually attractive and reader-friendly reports including training presentations;
• Excellent spoken and written English;
• Good judgement, attention to nuance and detail, takes initiative, high sense of responsibility, tact and discretion, with sensitivity to different cultures.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to interact with individuals across multi-functional disciplines