Request for Proposal (RFP) - Development of the Inclusive Markets and Trade Workstream Theory at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

AGRA is an alliance led by Africans with roots in farming communities across the continent. We understand that African farmers need uniquely African solutions designed to meet their specific environmental and agricultural needs so they can sustainably boost production and gain access to rapidly growing agriculture markets.

Applications are invited for:

Title: Request for Proposal (RFP) - Development of the Inclusive Markets and Trade Workstream Theory of Change and Theory of Action

A successful Inclusive Agriculture Transformation (IAT) agenda is premised on a few preconditions, including large-scale dissemination and adoption of land and labor productivity-enhancing technologies and inputs, access to the financial capital, improved input and output markets and incentives that allow for the full realization of the value of increased production; and a well-resourced and competitive private sector that can manage and allocate skill and capital to drive the long-term and sustainable agribusiness sector growth. Since its inception in 2006, AGRA has promoted IAT agenda by strengthening agricultural systems with relative success and lessons.

AGRA’s efforts to strengthening agricultural output markets used various approaches that enabled the organization to learn and adapt. During its initial phase, PIATA 1.0, AGRA championed a few approaches aimed at increasing productivity and production levels through enhanced access to productivity enhancing inputs such as seeds and fertilizers. With the increased productivity, access to output markets became critical as the surplus production was of low quality and was not aggregated to meet market requirements. AGRA supported farmers to improve the quality and quantity of their produce through improved post-harvest management and aggregation to meet buyers’ requirements. However, due to breakdowns along supply chains occasioned by information asymmetry, high levels of informality, lack of infrastructure and price discovery mechanisms, AGRA embarked on a value chain coordination and integration approach through identification of key actors i.e. input providers, financiers and off-takers to match supply and demand in a more structured and coordinated fashion. The following two models were adopted:

For quasi-cash crops such as rice and soybeans, AGRA supported processors to build inclusive supply chains by providing market shaping technical assistance and de-risking their investments in smallholder farming systems through matching grants. For food crops (loose value chains), AGRA worked with agribusinesses operating in different but complementing markets (input, output, finance, support goods and services) to integrate agricultural systems through consortia for improved value chain coordination and governance.

More recently, through its regional food trade program, AGRA initiated a demand-pull supply chain development approach enabling smallholder farmers and SMEs to access regional markets. This approach further highlighted unique challenges around policy inconsistencies and regulatory blockages between countries and validated the importance of addressing domestic market gaps to upgrade skills of farmers and SMEs alike and leverage capital for regional market penetration.

The past year also saw AGRA acquire the VALUE4HER initiative, a gender leaning market shaping platform aimed at increasing women’s market/trade inclusion and integration while transforming the agri-business environment towards equity.

On the supply side, AGRA has learned that increasing the capacity of farmers to supply high quality produce to the market without a critical mass of off-takers who pay for quality is not sustainable. Farmers can only sustain their effort and investments in post-harvest management handling if high-quality produce attract better profit margins. On the demand side, AGRA has learned that traders and processors who have assured and growing end markets for their products tend to provide support to farmers, especially input finance. However, to minimize incidences of side selling, these off-takers need an improved enabling policy and regulatory environment, improved access to working capital and trade finance as well as nimble logistic arrangements that enable them to be in the markets (farm gate or factory gate) whenever farmers are ready to sell their harvest. On pricing, AGRA has learnt that weak price discovery mechanisms prevent farmers and off-takers from making informed decisions on what to grow, quantities to produce, and when to supply the markets.
 

In fact, low farm-gate prices discourage farmers from sustaining their investments in yield-enhancing technologies. Furthermore, AGRA has learned that persistent market data gaps and information asymmetry has contributed to ad hoc policy and business decisions by governments and private players respectively creating a highly unpredictable policy and market environment suppressing investments.

Going forward, AGRA intends to take a paradigm shift in the way it intervenes in the market system in order to realise the desired inclusive agriculture transformation impact. AGRA will no longer focus on retail grant making towards individual agri-food companies or SMEs but rather aim to catalyse and impact an ecosystem under which these SMEs operate. Similarly, direct farmer level interventions by AGRA will be discouraged in favour of enabling and leveraging the inclusive and effective reach of market actors to achieve scale. AGRA will also seek to boost its engagement with market and trade institutions and platforms (meso level), local, national, and regional policy officials and private sector in order to promote and scale private sector, climate-friendly and nutrition and gender sensitive policies and regulations (macro level). Women and youth empowerment to enable them fully participate and benefit from upgraded agricultural value chains and market systems will also be prioritized.

There is need for investing in interventions that help resolve market failures, install, and scale inclusive business models and address policy and regulatory impediments to propel innovation, skills building and injection of capital into the agriculture value chains generating jobs, incomes, and healthy diets. AGRA therefore anticipates implementing effective interventions around the following broad categories:

Functioning meso-level institutions and platforms that enable the assessment of farmers’ and SMEs’ needs and aggregated delivery of services. These institutions include Agri-food industry associations or commodity associations, commodity exchanges and warehouse receipt systems, and coalitions for improved food and Agricultural markets. Larger markets and trade supported by credible data and price discovery mechanisms provide sustainable incentives for the adoption of yield and quality-enhancing technologies. Innovative financial products coupled with innovative delivery systems that can effectively reduce risks and costs of lending to the Agricultural markets. Integration of small holder farmers, women and youth, within markets and trade systems, featuring top notch approaches that balance inclusion and economic viability Policies and regulations that strengthen the operations of structured markets and key market platforms such as warehouse receipt systems (WRS) and commodity exchanges (COMEX); however, some trade remedial policy dispensations such as trade bans and inconsistent application of quality standards among other non-tariff barriers negatively affect the entire Agri-food industry and prevent it from becoming competitive.

It is against this background that AGRA would like to engage services of a qualified consultancy firm to assist in identifying the critical pillars of this work, the impact pathways and indicators, the successful models or approaches and key stakeholders to engage in the delivery of an inclusive agriculture transformation agenda via inclusive markets and trade.

Objective of the Assignment

The objective of this assignment is to review and validate the draft Theory of Change and Theory of Action prepared by AGRA to establish interventions for its inclusive markets and trade workstream under its new strategy for the 2023-2030 period. This assignment will therefore seek to synthesise existing knowledge, findings, and reports with the aim of identifying the key value chains, pillars of the markets and trade workstream, intervention (or impact) pathways, indicators, and targets, successful or effective models and/or practices as well as stakeholders that will need to be engaged and supported to deliver the desired impact.

Key Principles of the Assignment:

The scope of the consultancy will involve stakeholder consultations and analytical approaches aimed at achieving the following tasks which should all be based and make use of AGRA’s existing knowledge base (research documents, knowledge papers, evaluations), stakeholder maps, implemented models and in house expertise:

The consultancy will be expected to deliver, the following outputs:

24th February, 2022.

The proposals SHALL be submitted to: procurement@agra.org by the deadline indicated in the synopsis. Please include the subject line “RFP/025/MARKETS/2022” of the email.

Note

Click Here (Ms Word) for a detailed description of the RFP.