Heifer International Kenya
Project
/ Activity Name: Strengthening Farmer Visibility Program
Country: Kenya
REQUEST
FOR PROPOSAL: 20230101KE
COMMERCIAL PROGRAM OWNER FOR STRENGTHENING FARMER VISIBILITY FOR
IMPACT PROJECT
RFP
Release Date: 13th January 2023
Performance
Period: 14 Days
Proposal
Submission Deadline: 27th January 2023
Question
/ Inquiry Submission Deadline: 20th January 2023
Electronic
submission to the attention of: Procurement Kenya
Electronic
submission: procurement-ke@heifer.org
Contact
information for inquiries about this RFP: procurement-ke@heifer.org
1. INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT
Heifer
International (Heifer) has long recognized the centrality of human development
as one of the main aspects of its drive to end hunger, poverty, and the need to
take care of the earth.
Heifer’s
values-based holistic community development model, with its 12 cornerstones for
fair and sustainable development, is the basis of his work.
With
this solid foundation, Heifer focuses his work on pro-poor wealth by creating
value chains that exploit the social capital of communities to stimulate market
development.
The
fight against poverty and food and nutrition insecurity is an obligatory
gateway for any economic development strategy for African countries.
The
agriculture sector is an important economic sector; it contributes to 14% of
the GDP and accounts for about 50% of the labour force. Despite this, more than
half of rural people, usually very small farmers engaged in subsistence
agriculture, live below the poverty line and 30% of them are affected by food
insecurity (World Bank, 2014).
These
farmers have limited access to finance despite the promotion of rural financial
inclusion over the past decades.
A
lot of initiatives have gone into providing access to finance for smallholder
farmers; however, smallholder farmers are not benefitting because these
initiatives are not tailored to smallholder farmer needs. In most cases, there
is a mismatch between formal financial products and the needs of these farmers
resulting in a lack of trust.
Smallholder
farmers suffer a lack of visibility and transparency in their transactions and
cannot provide a physical asset as collateral. This is further elevated by the
lack of data infrastructure that collects, collates, and churns SHF data into a
digital record that creates visibility to real-time transaction patterns and
historic performance.
So,
strengthening the visibility of smallholder farmers will integrate them into
markets by creating traceability to sales transactions, advance their
recognition and rights, enable visibility to other service providers, unlock
access to finance for farmers and their cooperatives, and shape policies for
agriculture and sustainable development. Despite these important roles, farmers
face many constraints that limit their access to profitable economic
activities.
One
major barrier is the lack of visibility, resulting in these farmers operating
in isolation and preventing them from engaging in rural economies and
partnerships. The signature program model allows us to address value chain
issues but there are systemic constraints that do not allow digital inclusion
to get to the last mile.
MasterCard
has realized that data is the future and have leveraged its strength to create
a product that provides an ecosystem that allows data to flow across all actors
and within numerous sectors to make both financial and non-financial decisions.
Heifer,
therefore, has decided to leverage the technological advancement and Community
Pass ecosystem to drive access to finance for smallholder farmers through the
program titled Strengthening Farmers Visibility for Impact.
Recognizing
that it is often a challenge to identify and obtain reliable data and
creditworthiness on existing farmers, the Strengthening Farmers Visibility for
Impact intervention in Africa will fill this critical information gap.
For
remote communities, technology is also increasingly woven into everyday life,
from rural farms and medical clinics to schools and businesses. However,
technology adoption, usage and management have yet to bring the deep
transformative systemic change we believe is possible.
Mastercard
has a clear strategy of driving digital inclusion and supporting governments,
financial institutions, and other value chain actors in communities to access
better livelihoods.
To
implement this strategy, Mastercard has designed a platform called Community
Pass, which unlocks services for the underserved population as well as those
who may not have a formal identity document such as a birth certificate or
passport.
Mastercard,
in partnership with Heifer International, will be providing digital identity
and transaction visibility for our smallholder farmers in all African
countries, with an initial pilot in Kenya, Malawi, and Tanzania.
The
Farmers’ Visibility initiative will enable Heifer International to leverage
Mastercard technologies to scale up digital inclusion and transaction
visibility with 5 million smallholder farmers across nine African countries.
The
interventions will result in:
· Increased
access to finance and other economic services especially in remote communities,
including farmers ones with limited connectivity and electricity.
· Reduced
cost of service delivery through a shared digital infrastructure for use across
sectors enabling service providers to reduce the cost-of-service delivery.
· Improved
operational efficiency through the design of interoperable infrastructure that
connects smallholder farmers to service providers, while placing the user at
the centre.
· Access
to segment data provided that will secure data management, aggregate, and
anonymize data analytics to provide critical insights on remote communities and
program performance — enabling financial institutions to extend credit and
other financial services to digitally excluded consumers and merchants.
Expected
project outcomes
· At
least 700,000 dairy, beef and poultry smallholder farmers, 40% of whom are
women and 20% youth (18– 35 years old) are sustainably linked to reliable
off-taker markets and with a reduced living income gap.
· At
least 3,500 jobs created (every 200 SHFs creating at least 1 direct job) with
at least 60% are youth (boys and girls), 20% women (beyond 35 years old)
serving as Digital Agriculture Champions, MSME merchants, Agrodealers and
inputs distributors, etc
· Establish
and/or strengthen and support BDS services to 3806 businesses including
Agrodealers and Medium and Large Agri-buyers (off-takers) and input suppliers
within the market system through digital Innovation and access to financial
services.
· 60% of
the smallholder farmers have access to extension, inputs, markets and finance
through digital farm infrastructure.
Proposed
project outputs
· Increase
income of 700,000 dairy, beef and poultry smallholder farmers, 40% of whom are
women and 20% youth (18 – 35 years old) through improved farm yield and access
to reliable markets as a result of using Community Pass
· Improve
last-mile extension delivery to at least 75% through digital agriculture
champions.
· Increase
the number of and connect Agri-buyers to FPOs, and establish at least 306
digitized Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to assure all farmers have
better access to services, information, inputs, and finance.
· 75% of
the SHFs have and are using cards (powered by Mastercard) to access services,
and information and do transactions.
· FPO to
have gender and youth integration policies.
Heifer
International Kenya seeks to recruit a Commercial Program Partner (CPP) to
build and drive commercial engagement on Mastercard’s Community Pass platform
through revenue generation.
2.
SCOPE OF WORK FOR THE CPP
· Mobilize
smallholder farmers (SHFs) into functional groups, establish Farmer Producer
Organizations (FPOs) and connect to Agrodealers, Agri-buyers, input providers
and Financial Institutions.
· Conduct
digital marketing and awareness campaigns among farmers in collaboration with
key stakeholders.
· Build
the capacity of the farmers on financial literacy programs to educate farmers
on the value of digital and financial inclusions
· Recruit
Digital Agriculture Champions (DACs) and develop performance-based incentives
programs for them to drive activation and usage
· Organize
procurement of Point of Interaction (POI) terminal devices and cards for
farmers and FPO agents.
· Train
DACS on solution functionalities, customer care, adoption of digital and
agronomic productivity-enhancing technologies, FPO group and business
management and financial literacy
· Establish
a DACS network made up of DACS and super agents providing last-mile service to
farmers, FPOs, Agri buyers and financial institutions
· Develop
and implement a marketing campaign (media campaigns, last mile materials,
agent’s user guides) targeted at farmers and agribusinesses and other value
chain actors.
· Facilitate
the establishment of community-based farmer groups and reference farms to
enhance learning and adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies among SHFs
· Advocate
gender equity and youth inclusion in agriculture through FPO and farmer groups
platforms to reach the overall targets of 40% women and 20% youth farmers.
· Program
management reporting to Heifer.
CLICK HERE to download the detailed Terms
of Reference
3.3 How
to Apply
Interested
firms legally eligible to implement this assignment in Kenya are requested to
submit a proposal including a contract as well as your telephone and email
contact information.
Submissions
must be in English and typed single-spaced using Times New Roman font size 12,
with a complete set of appendices/attachments as applicable. All pages must be
numbered and include the SOW reference number on the cover page, and the name
of the organization at the bottom of each page.
The
proposal (duly signed) from the consultants should comprise a technical and
financial proposal.
The
Proposal will be accepted as a soft copy through email and mentioning the
subject line; “Strengthening Farmer Visibility for Impact” to
procurement-ke@heifer.org not later than 27th January 2023.
Proposals
received after the submission deadline will not be considered.
Applicants
are responsible to ensure their proposals are submitted according to the
instructions stated herein.
Heifer
retains the right to terminate this RFP or modify the requirements upon
notification to the Offerors.