Consultancy Jobs – Terms Of Reference For Assessment and Building Capacity Of Cooperatives In Internal Policies and Standard Operating Procedures – Farm Africa
Organisation: Farm Africa
Duty Station: Uganda
About Farm Africa:
Farm Africa is an innovative charity that reduces poverty in rural eastern Africa by helping farmers grow more, sell more and sell for more: we help farmers to not only boost yields, but also gain access to markets, and add value to their produce. We place a high priority on environmental sustainability and develop approaches that help farmers to improve their yields and incomes without degrading their natural resources. Our programmes vary hugely, ranging from helping crops farmers to boost harvests, livestock keepers to improve animal health, and forest coffee growers to reach export markets, but core to all of them is a focus on the financial sustainability of the farmers’ businesses and environmental sustainability. We currently work in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.
About the project
Farm Africa is currently implementing a three-year project supporting coffee farmers in Western Uganda’s Kanungu district. The project comprises of two distinct parts. The first part, funded by the European Union, is already under way and focuses on building the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to create employment and self-employment opportunities within the coffee value chain for 4,800 young women and men Kanungu district. A broad range of CSOs are engaged ranging from coffee growers’ cooperatives (4) to national stakeholder platforms representing both young farmers and coffee farmers. The second part, funded by UK aid, started in September 2019 and is focussing on ensuring that women are empowered and able to fully benefit from support given to coffee farmers in Kanungu, as well as financially benefit from their contributions to the coffee value chain.
Scope of Work
In this regard this, Farm Africa is seeking services of a consultant to undertake a comprehensive
review of internal policies and standard operating procedures (SoPs) of four Coffee Growing
Cooperatives (CGCs) in Kanungu district;
- Design the tool for review of CGGs internal policies and SoPs
- Conduct assessment of the CGGs internal policies and SoPs.
- Support the four CGCs to develop their internal policies and SOPs
This is a 20 days’ assignment scheduled from 16th – 20th Dec 2019, and 6th-24th Jan 2020. The indicative budget for this assignment is UGX 12,000,000.
Objectives of the Consultancy Assignment:
The project is working with four cooperatives with the aim of building capacity to ensure women can leverage from the market opportunities. This include conducting a comprehensive review of internal policies and standard operating procedures (SoPs), focusing on how to improve gender equity for improved institutional equality. Policies and SoPs will be amended and/or re-drafted as a result
Specific objectives of the assignment
- Develop tools for assessing cooperative internal policies and SoPs
- Map out the current situation for each of CGCs with regards to internal policies and SoPs, and these might include;
- gender policy,
- credit policy;
- financial policy;
- governance policy;
- assets policy;
- human resources policy;
- membership policy etc.
- SOPs skewed on coffee value chain.
- Design a plan for capacity building these cooperatives on their internal polices and SOPs based on the mapping exercise
- Capacity build each of the four CGs on developing internal polices and SOPs
- Produce draft policies and SoPs developed by the CGGs
- Refine and produce and final CGCs polices and SOPs
Approach and Methodology
This will involve collecting and analyzing primary data on CGCs policies and SoPs, capacity building CGCs to develop the policies and coming up with final policies and SoPs. The consultant is expected to employ robust cooperative capacity assessment techniques for data collection and analysis to ensure a comprehensive assessment exercise.
Expected Deliverables and Timeline
All written documentation is to be submitted in English using Microsoft Word in soft copy. The main body of all reports should be written in simple, non-technical language, with any technical material being presented in annexes. All primary data collected and analysis conducted for the purpose of the study will remain the property of Farm Africa and must be submitted electronically and in a clear and comprehensible.
The consultant will provide the following deliverables within the timeframe stated:
- Inception Report (including tools): within 2 working days of the contract start date. This will include the consultants understanding and interpretation of the Terms of Reference (ToR), proposed work plan, methodology, assessment tools and indicative list of interviews. The inception report will be discussed and agreed upon with the Farm Africa project team before the consultant commences the work.
- Revised Inception Report: within 1 working day after receiving feedback from Farm Africa. Revised inception report will incorporate revisions and recommendations from Farm Africa
- Draft report: following data collection, the consultant should submit the first draft of the report to Farm Africa, within 5 working days after Farm Africa’s approval of the revised inception report. This report should incorporate specific, practical and feasible recommendations on internal policies and SoPs that each of the four cooperatives should develop. The content and structure of the report shall include but not necessarily limited to executive summary, introduction, methodology, findings and analysis, and any subsequent recommendations. Any data collection tools used should be included as Annexes.
- Capacity Building of Cooperatives: The consultant will build capacities of the four cooperatives in developing their internal policies and within 8 working days, ensuring that each of the four cooperatives is able to develop draft policies and standard operating procedures.
- Final Report: The consultant will submit a final report to Farm Africa within 4 working days after completion of developing draft policies for each of the cooperatives. This report should follow similar structure like the draft report, attaching all the draft policies developed for each of the cooperatives as annexes. Farm Africa will provide feedback which must be incorporated into the final report. This process will continue until Farm Africa is satisfied with the final report.
- Management and Implementation Responsibilities
The consultant will report directly to the Gender Specialist. However, s/he will also be expected work closely with the Project Coordinator (PC).
Farm Africa will provide:
- Guidance and technical support as required throughout the assessment;
- Copies of all relevant background resources identified;
- A list of cooperatives and cooperative members to be engaged by consultant;
- Introductory meetings with cooperatives;
- Provide transport from Kanungu to field sites.
- Comments and feedback on, and approval of, all deliverables within agreed timeline;
- Payment in accordance with the contract.
- Provide the refreshment and transport refund for the participants during training
- Provide stationeries, training venue and all associated training materials
The consultant will be responsible for:
- Developing a detailed methodology;
- Finalising all the data collection tools;
- Conducting all data collection, analysis and reporting
- Data analysis and reporting in a clear and accessible format;
- Capacity building cooperatives to develop draft policies and SoPs
- Regular progress reporting to the Gender Specialist, including responding to any comments or technical inputs wherever reasonable;
- Production of deliverables within the agreed timeline and in accordance with quality requirements;
- Transport to/from Kanungu and any living/accommodation expenses incurred.
Farm Africa Evaluation Principles
Farm Africa follows five basic principles of sound evaluation practice and the consultant is expected to adhere to these throughout the evaluation process. These are:
- Confidentiality and informed consent – all data collected during the evaluation will be treated as confidential and cannot be shared outside of Farm Africa. All respondents must be advised as such and always given the opportunity not to participate, or to terminate or pause the interview at any time. The purpose of the study should also be clearly explained before commencing any interviews. Data collection must conform to Farm Africa’s minimum standards on Informed Consent, which will be shared with the successful consultant.
- Independence and impartiality – Farm Africa is committed to impartial and objective evaluation of our projects. All evaluation findings and conclusions must be grounded in evidence. Researchers are expected to design data collection tools and systems that mitigate as far as possible against potential sources of bias.
- Credibility – Farm Africa is committed to learning based on credible evidence. The credibility of evaluations depends on the professional expertise and independence of evaluators and full transparency in the methods and process followed. Evaluations should clearly distinguish between findings and recommendations, with the former clearly supported by sound evidence. Methodologies should be explained in sufficient detail to allow replication, and evidence of failures should be reported as well as of successes.
- Participation – the views and experiences of beneficiary households, groups and partners should form an integral part of all evaluations.
- Openness – To maximise the learning potential of the evaluation process, Farm Africa may publish full evaluation reports or excerpts from them or may otherwise share them with interested parties.
Qualifications of Consultant
Essential
- Extensive experience of farmer institutional capacity assessments and capacity building especially on internal policies.
- Extensive knowledge of relevant cooperative policies and standard operating procedures
- Knowledge & experience in gender mainstreaming for cooperatives,
- Experience conducting similar studies in Uganda
- Understanding of the coffee value chain and the dynamics of coffee cooperatives,
- Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Economics, Agribusiness, Agriculture and Rural Development, or other relevant field.
- Strong analytical, facilitation and communication skills
- Excellent reporting and presentation skills
Desirable
- Candidates with demonstrable practical experience in Agribusiness development and coffee product value addition will be preferred
- Fluency in Rukiga,
Where applicants fail to meet any of the above criteria, for example, fluency in Rukiga or experience in coffee, gender or farmer institutional development, the proposal should state how they expect to overcome this e.g. additional team members, translation services etc. Any proposed changes to the personnel listed in the application or their respective levels of involvement in the assignment must be approved by Farm Africa.
Submission of Proposals
Interested consultants or firms are requested to submit:
- A covering letter detailing how the consultancy team meets the required qualifications and competencies
- A full technical proposal detailing their interpretation of the TOR including report structure, proposed methodology, and work schedule,
- Copies of all relevant Curriculum Vitae (CVs).
- A sample of report for a similar assignment (this will be treated as confidential and only used for the purposes of quality assurance)
- Contact details for two references (including one from your last client/employer).
- A full financial proposal, providing a detailed budget breakdown of consultancy costs and expenses. Please note consultancy costs provided will be subject to WHT.
- Proof of licenses to operate in Uganda (if required). Please attach these as annexes to your technical proposal.
All documents must be submitted by email to our ‘sealed’ email address tenders@farmafrica.org
The Email Subject Line Should Clearly Indicate the
Email Subject Line Should Clearly Indicate ‘Bid for Assessment and Capacity Building of Cooperatives on Internal Policies and Standard Operating Procedures.
Failure to include any of the above documents could result in disqualification from the selection process.
Selection Process
The selection procedure by Farm Africa will be a two-stage process consisting of technical and financial review.
Technical Review: the technical score will be assessed against the following criteria:
- Understanding of the TOR – 40%
- Project scope (20%)
- Scope of the work (20%)
- Methodology – 20%
- Work-plan and Consultant Responsibilities – 15%
- Consultant(s) qualifications – 15%
- Quality of sample report submitted – 10%
Financial Review: Only technical scores of higher than 70% will be assessed at the financial stage.
The financial proposal will be scored in the following way:
- Total Price (Proximity to Farm Africa’s expected cost) – 50%
- Accuracy of Pricing – 50%
- Accurate reflection of the technical proposal – 18%
- Reasonableness of unit costs (including day rates) – 16%
- Reasonableness of number of units (including number of days)– 16%
Overall Score: once the financial proposals have been assessed, the technical and financial scores will be combined into a final score in accordance with the following weights:
- Technical Score (70%)
- Financial Score (30%)
It is intended that the successful applicant will be notified by 13th December 2019.
Deadline: Sunday 8th December 2019 at 6.00PM EAT.