Background
The International Food Policy Research Institute with support from the Mastercard Foundation and in collaboration with the UN World Food Programme have begun a five-year partnership titled Strengthening food systems to promote increased value chain employment opportunities for youth. This initiative aims to strengthen local food systems and make them more efficient, sustainable, and inclusive for youth, in particular young women, and is being implemented in eight countries: Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal Tanzania, and Uganda. This work falls under the Young Africa Works Strategy, which aims to create dignified and fulfilling work for 30 million young people in Africa, with a specific focus on jobs for young women.
With these goals in mind, IFPRI is seeking an experienced data collection partner with expertise in qualitative methods to collaborate on a formative qualitative study that aims to examine the barriers and opportunities for young women and young men in agricultural value chains (AVCs).
Overview
IFPRI aims to conduct a qualitative formative study with the goal of answering the following research questions:
§ How are young women and young men currently experiencing work and job opportunities? (focused on, but not limited to, ag production and ag value chains)? With special focus on youth with disabilities.
§ How do young women and young men define and experience dignified and fulfilling work?
§ What obstacles do young women and young men face to equal participation in/access to/ and potential to benefit from the processing and marketing aspects of agricultural value chains? What are the facilitators to their equal participation in/access to/potential to benefit from processing and marketing? What are the potential roles of youth in unblocking these barriers?
§ What gender norms might limit the involvement of young women and young men in processing and marketing activities? How can these gender norms be either addressed or accommodated? (unpaid care norms included here)
§ How are youth and their potential integration into employment opportunities in agricultural value chains perceived by community members (especially non-youth)?
§ What types of financial services are young women and young men currently using? What obstacles do they face to accessing capital and safeguarding resources to enable their participation in AVCs? What specific support do they require to increase their access to financial services and increase their financial capital for their meaningful participation, exploitation and sustenance of job opportunities across various nodes in AVCs?
§ What are the key barriers and opportunities to enhancing the economic empowerment of young women and young men, specifically their decision making, use and control of their earnings (or other employment benefits), meaningful engagement in leadership, and ability to negotiate regarding economic activities?
To this end, we will conduct in-depth qualitative data collection in six communities (to be identified in consultation with the selected data collection firm and WFP-Kenya). The communities will be chosen to represent diversity in location, WFP implementation status, agri-food systems and priority value chains and gender-related characteristics.
The sample of individual respondents will be opportunistic and be supported by snowball sampling conducted by the data collection partner. The data collection partner will start with referrals from WFP’s local partners and community leaders and will recruit additional respondents according to their potential to diversify the sample and their willingness to participate. The in-depth data collection will take approximately 4 days in each community.
The table below provides more detail on the sample size for each type of instrument and actor:
Instrument
Anticipated sample size
A.1
Key informant interviews with farmer service center (FSC) leads
Sampling: 2 per county- 1 young men and 1 young woman (if any identified). If no young women available, just the interview with young men is fine.
Total sample: up to 12
A.2
Key informant interviews with the county-level disability lead
Sampling: 1 per county, if they exist
Total sample: approximately 6
A.3
Key informant interviews with value chain actors
Sampling: 3 per community (different types of actors at different value chain nodes to the extent possible).
Total sample: approximately 18 (spread out across different nodes and commodities.
A.4
Key informant interviews with financial service providers
Sampling: 1 per community
Total sample: approximately 6
A.5
Implementing program staff (front-line, local level)
Sampling: 1 per community
Total sample: approximately 6
B.1
Community profile
Sampling: 1 per community, drawing on interviews with 4-6 individuals
Total sample: approximately 6
B.2
Individual interviews with young women and young men working in agricultural value chains, including those who are active in processing or marketing of target commodities
(both entrepreneurs and laborers). Specific focus on youth with disabilities.
Sampling: 2 young women and 2 young men per community, preference (if feasible) for 1 in each category who has complete high school and 1 who has not. Priority to identify at least one person per community who has a disability and is active in ag value chains, aiming for an overall sample balance between young men and women with disabilities.
Total sample: 12 with young women and 12 with young men
B.3
Focus group discussions with young women and young men who are active in processing and marketing activities
Sampling: 1 focus group discussion with 6-8 young women and 1 focus group discussion with 6-8 young men per community.
Total sample: 6 with young women and 6 with young men
B.4
Focus group discussions with young women and young men who are not involved in processing and marketing activities
Sampling: 1 focus group discussions with 6-8 young women and 1 focus group discussions with 6-8 young men per community.
Total sample: 6 with young women and 6 with young men
B.5
Focus group discussions with non-youth community members
Sampling: 1 focus group discussions per community, approximately 6-8 individuals older than 40 with a mix of women and men.
Total sample: 6 focus group discussions
Activities
· Finalize sampling plan; identify respondent households.
· Submit study protocol to the national (Kenya) committees for research approval and permits.
· Provide input into the discussion guides and translate the interview guides and other materials into local languages as needed.
· Identify and select all interviewers, including both women and men so that interviewers and interviewees can be matched on gender.
· Lead the training of the field team, jointly with an IFPRI staff member (approximately 5 days).
· Pilot test the discussion guides and other data collection materials.
· Supply materials for data collection (e.g., paper copies of interviews guides, recorders (rented) and cameras (rented)
· Take primary responsibility for the logistical aspects of fieldwork (e.g., renting transportation, lodging, recruitment of respondents, seeking community-level approval as appropriate).
· Provide regular communication on data collection and data processing throughout the duration of the project.
· Transcribe and translate audio recordings of interviews and focus groups into English and respond to questions on the clarification of the content of the transcripts.
· Deliver final data and a field report that incorporates IFPRI’s feedback.
· Review for accuracy the qualitative report that IFPRI prepares.