Consultancy to Develop Annual Credit Profiles and Graduation Model for 20 Self-Help Groups in Solio Settlement Scheme, Laikipia County.

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR CONSULTANCY TO DEVELOP ANNUAL CREDIT PROFILES AND GRADUATION MODEL FOR 20 SELF-HELP GROUPS IN SOLIO SETTLEMENT SCHEME, LAIKIPIA COUNTY. Assignment Title: Consultancy for Development of Annual Credit Profiles and Graduation Model for 20 Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in Solio Settlement Scheme, Laikipia County, Kenya

Contract Type: Short-Term Consultancy

Duration: 1 Month from the date of contract award

Target Groups: 20 Self-Help Groups comprising approximately 400 members across the four project villages

1. Background and Rationale

Habitat for Humanity Kenya (HFHK) is a national non-profit organization committed to enabling vulnerable families to access decent and affordable shelter as a foundation for improved livelihoods. Recognizing that sustainable housing is closely linked to resilient income systems, HFHK integrates shelter, water access, climate resilience, financial inclusion, and community capacity strengthening. Solio Settlement Scheme in Laikipia County is characterized by semi-arid climatic conditions, erratic rainfall, prolonged drought cycles, and increasing climate variability. Agriculture and livestock remain important sources of household income, but communities continue to face challenges including limited access to affordable finance, low levels of business capitalization, weak market linkages, and limited access to formal financial services. Through funding support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), HFHK is implementing a 39-month climate resilience project in Solio Settlement Scheme. The project seeks to strengthen household resilience and income security through climate-smart agriculture, improved water access, financial inclusion, savings groups, cooperative development, and livelihood strengthening. As part of the project's financial inclusion component, 20 Self-Help Groups (SHGs) have been established and are being supported by Social Mobilisation Workers. The groups maintain regular savings, loan, repayment, attendance, and financial records. Social Mobilisation Workers also submit monthly monitoring and group progress documentation, providing an ongoing source of information on group performance, financial behaviour, governance, membership, savings, internal lending, loan repayment, and other aspects of group development. To support the SHGs to transition from savings-based groups towards stronger and more economically viable community financial institutions, the project will develop an annual credit profile for each of the 20 SHGs. The profiles will consolidate information from group records, monthly Social Mobiliser reports, monitoring forms, group documentation, and direct engagement with the SHGs. The credit profiles will provide a structured assessment of each group's financial strength, governance, operational capacity, creditworthiness, risks, and readiness to engage with formal financial institutions. They will also identify gaps that need to be addressed before a group can appropriately access external financing. In addition, the consultant will develop a graduation model that categorizes the SHGs according to their current level of institutional and financial development and defines the actions required for each group to progress to the next level. To ensure that the profiles are relevant to actual financing opportunities, the consultant will engage banks, microfinance institutions (MFIs), SACCOs and other relevant financial service providers to understand their requirements for group lending and financing. The findings will be incorporated into the credit profiling and graduation framework. The consultancy will therefore provide HFHK with a practical tool for linking SHGs to appropriate financial services while strengthening the groups' internal capacity, financial discipline, governance, and long-term sustainability.

2. Purpose and Objectives

2.1 Overall Purpose The purpose of this consultancy is to develop comprehensive and evidence-based annual credit profiles for 20 SHGs and establish a practical graduation model that assesses their current capacity, credit readiness, institutional maturity, and financing needs. 2.2 Specific Objectives

The consultancy will seek to:

- Consolidate and analyze available financial, governance, membership, savings and loan information for each of the 20 SHGs. - Develop an individual annual credit profile for each SHG based on verified group records and monitoring data. - Assess the financial performance, management capacity, governance, creditworthiness and operational maturity of each group. - Identify strengths, weaknesses, risks and capacity gaps affecting the groups' ability to access external finance. - Develop a clear SHG graduation model with defined stages, criteria and actions required to progress from one level to the next. - Identify appropriate financing opportunities for different categories of SHGs based on their capacity and credit readiness. - Engage banks, MFIs, SACCOs and other financial institutions to document their requirements for lending to SHGs. - Map the financing requirements of the SHGs against the requirements of potential financial service providers. - Develop practical recommendations for improving the groups' credit readiness and economic sustainability. - Provide HFHK with a consolidated database and evidence base that can be used for future monitoring, financial inclusion programming and engagement with financial institutions.

3. Scope of Work

The Consultant shall undertake the following activities: 3.1 Inception and Desk Review

The consultant shall:

- Hold an inception meeting with HFHK's Livelihoods, Project and MEAL teams to agree on the assignment scope, methodology, tools and work plan. - Review the monthly reports and monitoring documentation submitted by Social Mobilization Workers. - Identi