Healing Farm Sustainability Consultancy

TERMS OF REFERENCE/ EXPRESSION OF INTEREST (EOI)

Consultancy for the Feminist Republik Healing Farm

Background

Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF-Africa) is a feminist, pan-African, rapid response Fund committed to transforming power relations through resourcing African feminists and womn’s[1] human rights defenders and their formations as an act of solidarity. We are a part of the ecosystem of feminist and womn’s movements in Africa and globally. In character, we are bold and courageous, proactive, and responsive, creative, and rigorous, curious, alert, and agile, imaginative, and grounded, consistent, and reliable.

Operating as a virtual organisation, the Fund boasts of strategic presence in Africa’s five sub-regions- East Africa: Nairobi & Makuyu-Kenya, Kampala-Uganda and Addis Ababa-Ethiopia; North Africa: Cairo-Egypt; Central Africa: Bujumbura-Burundi; Southern Africa: Harare-Zimbabwe, Lilongwe-Malawi, Antananarivo-Madagascar, Johannesburg & Cape Town-South Africa; and West Africa: Benue & Abuja States -Nigeria, Accra-Ghana, Parakou-Benin, Yaoundé & Douala-Cameroon, and Lomé, Togo. Recognising the need to move resources rapidly on a continent where opportunities and threats arise and decline quickly, UAF-Africa established itself as a base for a Rapid response Grant-making mechanism.

The Feminist Republik platform is an initiative anchored by UAF-Africa geared towards learning and practice to inspire, mobilise, popularise, and build a care and Healing movement culture with feminists and African Womn’s Human Rights Defenders (AWHRDs). UAF-Africa believes that building a Platform focused on supporting AWHRDs is its legacy project, one that will honour AWHRDs, their struggles and dreams and give us an avenue to heal, connect with our bodies and with each other as well as to feel well. UAF-Africa is particularly thrilled to be building the Healing Farm as an integral part of the Feminist Republik initiative.

The Feminist Republik Healing Farm (hereinafter referred to as “The Farm”) is a UAF-Africa legacy initiative that gives back to African Womn Human Rights Defenders by providing a space that challenges patterns of collective care and well-being being experienced as events, by building the infrastructure for an institution to exist that AWHRDs own, can shape, creatively use, and resort to whenever they feel the need.

After a wide-ranging exploration process to identify pieces of land for the Healing Farm, in January 2021, UAF-Africa secured a piece of land. We envisage a space offering activists time to connect with their bodies, emotions, mind, soul, and earth to commence an internal journey of healing & regeneration (both for the self-and/or collectives they identify with).

The Objective of the Healing Farm Consultancy

UAF-Africa is searching for a qualified firm or a group of consultants with relevant experience to create a comprehensive business plan for the Farm. The consultants will collaborate with UAF-Africa to develop a sustainability model that guarantees the Farm’s long-term viability. The plan should concentrate on attaining social, political, and economic sustainability, which is crucial for any successful enterprise. The firm/consultants will be required to:

• Conduct a desktop review of UAF-Africa policies and strategic documents that inform the setting up of the Farm.

• Engage in conversations with the UAF-Africa team, AWHRDs, and thought leaders to understand the proposed sustainability business plan for the Farm.

• Conduct a sustainability assessment of the Farm, including an analysis of the Farm’s financial, environmental, and social impacts.

• Obtain insights from successful African social justice and feminist leaders who have launched and managed social enterprise initiatives alongside running and managing non-governmental organisations.

• Use the information from these conversations to create a sustainable business plan and model to help the Farm become self-sufficient. The business plan should:

  • Develop a sustainability plan outlining the steps the Farm needs to take to become self-sustaining during its operation.
  • Recommend a feasible legal framework for the registration of the Farm that considers critical factors such as legal status, regulatory framework, tax implications and related party considerations for the Farm and UAF-Africa.
  • Develop concrete strategies for income generation to cover the Farm’s operational costs.
  • Propose an appropriate governance structure for the Farm aligned with UAF-Africa’s mandate and structure.
  • Propose a transition plan for the Farm, clearly highlighting the short-, medium-, and long-term relationship between UAF-Africa and the Farm, clearly defining UAF-Africa’s role in each stage.
  • Propose marketing and branding strategies for the Farm that are inspired by African perspectives.
  • Propose a robust investment policy to govern the utilisation of the revenues from and for the Healing Farm.
  • Propose an efficient time to implement logistics and operations plans.
  • Include an overall path to long-term growth.
  • Document possible challenges that could be encountered and how to best mitigate them.
  • Share best practices from similar initiatives as lessons learnt and identify opportunities for this initiative that UAF-Africa can capitalise on.
  • Create a feasibility report detailing the sustainability model architecture.
  • Recommend viable resource mobilisation strategies for the Farm project (Create a list of potential funders and investors).

• Prepare and deliver presentations summarising the findings, recommendations, and content of the sustainability plan.

• Provide a comprehensive final report of the findings and recommendations of the research, incorporating feedback from UAF-Africa. This report will provide a roadmap for establishing the sustainability plan, including its design, operations, governance, funding and investment pathways, potential jurisdictions, and cost estimates for operation.

Qualifications: The consultants must have the following qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Business Studies, Economics, Social Sciences (especially Law), or related fields.
• Minimum 15 years’ experience working on similar assignments, in Africa.
• Experience in developing and implementing sustainability plans on the African continent and beyond. Prior experience with social enterprises will be advantageous.
• Strong research and analytical skills.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Sound business forecasting skills.

Timeline: The team of consultants will be expected to complete the assignment within 60 non-consecutive days from a period starting 1 October – December 2023.

[1] At the Fund, the use of womn is a simple act of challenging and replacing traditional ideas of what and who a womn is and can be and the links of womn to a system of patriarchy where womn are, in effect, subject to men or a sub-category of men. Additionally, womn’ for us also includes lesbian, bisexual womn and transwomn.