Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) is organizing the first-ever Global YPARD Café from the 16th to 30th of November 2020. The YPARD Café within the YPARD Country Chapters has been a platform for discourse by Young Professionals on key youth issues in sustainable food systems. This has been an engagement, which highlights youths perspectives on the issues as well as the bottlenecks of youths contribution to sustainable food systems within the countries and the way forward.
Across the globe, the progressively changing times in the wake of the COVID-19 situation have compounded the challenges facing youth engagement in agriculture. It is against this background that YPARD seeks to hold the global forum dubbed the Global YPARD Café: Youth Engagement in Agribusiness Post-COVID 19. This is aimed at informing the focus of youth engagement in contemporary times through fostering interaction between youth and experts in agriculture and agribusiness about opportunities for enhancing youth employability and contributions to socio-economic recovery. Additionally, the café offers opportunities for young professionals to highlight emerging innovations within the intersection of income-generation opportunities and sustainable food systems, which can enable needed post-COVID 19 recoveries in our society.
Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD) is organizing the first-ever Global YPARD Café from the 16th to 30th of November 2020. The YPARD Café within the YPARD Country Chapters has been a platform for discourse by Young Professionals on key youth issues in sustainable food systems. This has been an engagement, which highlights youths perspectives on the issues as well as the bottlenecks of youths contribution to sustainable food systems within the countries and the way forward.
Across the globe, the progressively changing times in the wake of the COVID-19 situation have compounded the challenges facing youth engagement in agriculture. It is against this background that YPARD seeks to hold the global forum dubbed the Global YPARD Café: Youth Engagement in Agribusiness Post-COVID 19. This is aimed at informing the focus of youth engagement in contemporary times through fostering interaction between youth and experts in agriculture and agribusiness about opportunities for enhancing youth employability and contributions to socio-economic recovery. Additionally, the café offers opportunities for young professionals to highlight emerging innovations within the intersection of income-generation opportunities and sustainable food systems, which can enable needed post-COVID 19 recoveries in our society.
The Global Café will be organized on the country level among several chapters of YPARD. The events will be in the forms of workshops, discussions, exhibitions, or E-forums/online discussions depending on the prevailing circumstances associated with physical meetings in the chapter due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The country-based events will showcase active and inspirational Young Professionals involved in sustainable food systems in the context of the forum. The events will be streamed online, and each is expected to run within a maximum of 2 hours within two weeks from 16th to 30th November 2020.
As a follow up on the café, the representatives of the participating YPARD chapters across the globe are expected to document the proceedings of their respective country-based cafés. These will focus on the following:
- Identification of policy-relevant advice to enable the scaling up of innovative employment opportunities in sustainable food systems value chain and
- Highlight and promote best practices in agribusiness and other youth employment opportunities.
The consultants role
In relation to this, the services of four individual consultants are needed to compile this information to provide a comprehensive cross-country reference (within a regional/continental context: Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) for various stakeholders in building their system of youth engagement. This will effectively position youth as agents of youth engagement within youth-led initiatives. It is therefore crucial to ensure that the main findings of this consultation are appropriately organized and communicated in an accessible language and highlighted clearly for external audiences.
The services of individual consultants are required to compile, edit, and produce a knowledge product from the online engagements and the documents to be received by the Global and Regional Coordinating Units from the country chapters. (One consultant for each Region: Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe, LAC).
Objectives
The aims of this consultancy are to:
- Compile, edit, and proofread the knowledge product and produce a final version ready to be formatted for publication.
- Identify and extract from the knowledge product key messages to be condensed into a short advocacy brief document written in a journalistic and accessible style, to be disseminated to audiences.
Key tasks to be accomplished by the consultant(s)
1. Compilation, editing and proof-reading of draft regional knowledge product:
Compile the documents received, carry out any additional consultation with the country reps via electronic communication, re-organize the contents into a draft knowledge product for discussion with YPARD.
Engage with key literature on topics relevant to the content of the draft regional knowledge products and incorporate insights that further establish the knowledge products as relevant materials for our understanding of emerging innovations within the intersections of sustainable food systems, opportunities for socio-economic recovery (e.g. innovations for income-generation) and youth/young professionals.
Following discussion with the Global/ Regional Coordinating Units, edit, and proofread the draft knowledge product and produce a final version that will be ready for design and publication. The editing process includes substantive re-drafting and synthesis of parts of the existing text to make the knowledge product more understandable to various audiences.
2. Drafting of brief document on the contents and findings of the knowledge product (approx. 4 pages):
Identify key messages to be extracted from the draft knowledge product.
Deliverables
- The main document: one edited and proofread knowledge product by 15th December 2020 at 17:00 CET.
- One summarized or brief or a quick-to-read version of the document drafted and edited (4 pages), by 28th December 2020 at 17:00 CET.
Timeframe
The consultant will be hired under the corresponding YPARD Regional Coordinating Units individual contract (CAAS, CZU (for Europe and LAC), FARA). The deadline for completion of the exercise and submitting the two deliverables is 28th December 2020 at 17:00 CET.
Team dynamics
The consultants will report to the Digital Communication Officer. The Regional Coordinators or assigned program officers will be closely associated with the discussions with the consultant and review of draft and final products.
Communication and travel
This is a home-based consultancy. The consultant is expected to interact with the YPARD Team via teleconference and emails. Costs related to communication are included in the professional fees.
Qualifications
- Under 40 years old.
- Registered member of YPARD.
- Demonstrated communication experience in report and/or summary writing and editing.
- Excellent knowledge of youth engagement in agriculture realities, agribusiness and youth employability in the contemporary food systems sector.
- Excellent working knowledge of English with any of French, Spanish and Chinese an advantage.
- Regional/continental experience of working in one of these contexts: Africa, Asia, Europe, LAC.
- Ability to synthesize complex documents into key messages.
- Experience with editing and proofreading conference proceedings, workshop reports and familiarity with YPARDs style is an asset.
- Experience with communicating matters related to youth in agriculture through reports, summaries and conference briefs is an asset.
Proprietary rights
Outputs delivered under this consultancy contract will remain the property of YPARD (and regional hosting institutions), as per YPARD (and regional hosting institution) General Conditions of Contract for Consultants and Individual Contractors.
How to apply
Interested consultants should send:
- An up-to-date CV
- A one-page letter of motivation and
- The above (CV and letter of motivation) documents should be sent in a single PDF file by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. no later than November 8th, 2020, at 23:00 CET with the email subject in this format: YPARD Global Café Consultants Expression of Interest: Region where the region of interest can be Africa, Asia and Pacific, Europe, or LAC.
All applications will be acknowledged but only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an interview.