Consulting Services for Strengthening the Global Crop Diversity Trust Capacity to Implement Project Activities in Africa

The Capitalisation of the Endowment Fund of the Global Crop Diversity Trust (GCDT) and Strengthening of National Seedbanks project aims to empower national seed collections, by safeguarding them in perpetuity through and endowment fund, documenting and managing them appropriately for conservation and use, and promoting their use, as a basis for climate adaptation of vulnerable African cropping systems. The project is supported by the Federal Republic of Germany through KfW and is conducted in Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana and Nigeria.

The project consists of three outputs:

• Essential operations of national seed collections in 5 African countries safeguarded in perpetuity through an endowment fund.
• National seed collections are managed and documented appropriately for conservation and use.
• Use of national seed collections for increasing the diversity of varietal options with which farmers can respond to climate change.

The expected outcomes of the project are:

• Increased number of seed samples in national seed collections available for distribution.
• Increased annual requests for seed samples from users successfully serviced.
• Two varieties or landraces identified for dissemination to farmers and traced back to seed samples from national seed collections.

Objective of consultancy assignment: to monitor and manage project activities with national partners, ensure timely delivery of project outputs, and to ensure compliance of project partners with all KfW requirements.