Background

Background:

The DAY-NRLM (Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihoods Mission) is the flagship program of the Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India relaunched in 2016 for promoting poverty reduction by building strong institutions of the poor, particularly women. The program creates and enables community-owned institutions of women to empower and make them economically self-reliant by improving their agency to access a range of livelihood and financial services and maximize their resources for creating sustainable livelihood opportunities. 

The state governments are mandated to set up dedicated Mission Management Units at the state, district, and village/community level for the effective implementation of the NRLM scheme.  The mission provides regular hand-holding support to SHG/federations for a period of 5-7 years.  At the end of a full implementation cycle, the SHGs/federations are well prepared to become resource institutions at the community level for providing evidence and support to other social initiatives. 

Karnataka State Rural Livelihood Promotion Society (KSRLPS)

The State Government is implementing the DAY-NRLM scheme in phases through Karnataka State Rural Livelihood Promotion Society in the name of “Sanjeevini”. The mission statement of KSRLPS is: “To reduce rural poverty by providing gainful wage and self-employment opportunities through community institutions resulting in sustainable improvement in their livelihoods”.

Sanjeevini is a community-driven and process-oriented program. The processes include different activities such as awareness building, social mobilization, development of Community Resource Persons (CRPs). Formation of CBOs, strengthening SHGs/ CBOs/federations/Livelihood Collectives, the establishment of linkages, and promotion of livelihoods. The conventional methods of monitoring focus on physical, financial, and logistic aspects of projects, but do not capture the processes of community perception, satisfaction with project services, inclusion, and institutional dynamics. As the community processes do not conform to pre-set rules, deadlines, targets, or blueprint approaches, a responsive and adaptive implementation is necessary.

It is in this context that the State government of Karnataka has partnered with UNDP to implement The National Rural Economic Transformation Project (NRETP) in Karnataka. NRETP proposes to implement higher-order economic activities which are cross-cutting in nature, for instance, the project design envisages that there will be an organic link between the model Cluster Level Federation (CFLs) and financial inclusion strategies, insurance and pension schemes, producer groups, and organizations, product marketing, and enterprise development. The financial inclusion strategy will also have a key role in the financing of farm and non-farm enterprises. UNDP will be uniquely positioned to quickly transfer the technical know-how gained at the national and state-level working across the country.  The state SMMU will be fully synchronized with the National level team working at the center, important for better alignment of state priorities with those of the national program while formulating the State-specific poverty reduction action plans.

Under the scheme, UNDP is looking for a Cluster Coordinator _ Organic Farming, Consultant to undertake the activities as provided below. The incumbent will be based at KSRLPS and will perform duties under the direct supervision of Block coordinator – organic farming and will also perform duties under the direct supervision of an official designated by the Mission Director.

Duties and Responsibilities

• The candidate should be willing to travel across the districts of the State of Karnataka
• Cluster level planning and roll-out of organic village cluster development activities
• Rolling out certification in the clusters and facilitate technical support agencies in the implementation
• Maintain information regarding products of the SHG members, markets (prices and trends), commodity-wise details.
• Executing capacity building plans for the project staff and community members on farm livelihoods and value chain development
• Identify best practices and communicate the same to the block level
• Ensuring data collection and entry into MIS for monitoring and evaluation.

Any other tasks/responsibilities as assigned by the Mission Director

Competencies

• Knowledge of organic certification standards – both third party and PGS certification systems would be preferred
• Knowledge of organic farming methods, agro-ecological practices

Ability to work effectively with community resource persons, community, and field staff to deliver results.

Required Skills and Experience