Description

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

Funded by:

Heifer International

RFP Release Date:

January 15th 2024

Question/ Inquiry Submission Deadline:

January 23rd 2024

Proposal Submission Deadline:

February 1st 2024

Performance Period:

March 25th – June 28th 2024

Electronic submission to the attention of:

[email protected]

Contact information for inquiries about this RFP:

[email protected]

[email protected]

Terms of Reference

I. General Information

This document is being issued to solicit applications from either an individual consultant or a consulting firm with key technical staff who have substantial experience in the implementation of annual surveys or similar studies/assessments. More specifically, the consultant or lead consultant should have a proven track record in the implementation of surveys/assessments/evaluations (baseline, midline and/or endline). The bidder is free to seek any clarification on the expected deliverables prior to the preparation and submission of the proposal. While Heifer understands that completing this assignment will require the experience of an individual or a single firm with all the requisite expertise, the successful candidate can sub-contract components of the assignment to appropriate qualified firms. However, Heifer Nigeria should be duly informed of the plan from the onset, and this should be clearly stated in the bid as appropriate. It should also be noted that Heifer will make payments to each of the contractors based on submission and Heifer’s approval of deliverables. The award agreement will include a payment schedule with specific deliverables; all payments require 15 business days for processing after approval of deliverables.

II. Background

About Heifer International

Heifer International (Heifer) is a global non-profit working to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth by using sustainable practices and engaging smallholder farmers in agricultural development. Since 1944, Heifer International through its work in 21 countries (in Africa, Asia, and the Americas) has supported more than 39 million people to end hunger and poverty in a sustainable way, and millions more now on a pathway to sustainable living income.

Working with rural communities across Africa for the past 48 years, Heifer International supports farmers and local food producers to strengthen local economies and build secured livelihoods that provide a sustainable living income through access to Values Based Holistic Community Development (VBHCD) training, appropriate technologies, and agricultural resources, which enable communities to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger on to a path of self-reliance and economic prosperity. Heifer’s foundation was built on the belief that ending hunger and poverty begins with giving people the means to feed themselves, generate income and achieve sustainable livelihoods for their households.

Heifer’s global vision for 2020 - 2030 is to close the living income gap for additional 10 million families. This vision is a focused approach for the African continent to support at least 6 million smallholder farmers in Africa reach sustainable living income. As a part of this commitment, Heifer has expanded its presence in Africa to include Nigeria, with a goal of supporting at least two million farming households to achieve sustainable living income through (a) strategic private and public sector partnerships, (b) unlocking demand and market opportunities, (c) investing in priority value chains, and (d) leveraging innovation and emerging agricultural technologies to reach transformational scale. More information about Heifer is available at: www.heifer.org

Heifer International Nigeria Country Program

Heifer International established its Nigeria Country Program in 2021, and its Signature Program for Nigeria, named “Naija Unlock”, was designed thereafter, and launched. Naija Unlock program’s aim is to support the unlocking of the potential in Nigeria’s agricultural sector to achieve food self-sufficiency by working with smallholder farmers and local value chain actors to increase their productivity to meet local demand for food and raw material while closing the living income gap for families in the rice, tomato, and poultry value chains, with plans to add cattle, sheep, and goat value chains in the near future..

Heifer partners with communities to achieve five key outcomes aligning with the PASTA 4’s priorities.

Food Security & Nutrition - Heifer trains and supports smallholder farmers to enable them to diversify farm production and increase productivity to boost nutrition and to provide for food year-around, filling what used to be lean dietary months.

Income and Asset Building—Heifer International works with farmers to ensure they have the tools and resources to grow more and better crops and raise more and better animals, to develop and connect them to competitive value chains.

Environment - Heifer promotes the use of Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices in all its operational areas in Nigeria. To stabilize output and income, Heifer works with smallholder farmers in the management of natural resources and train them to increase efficiency in the use of these resources and inputs for production.

Women’s Empowerment - Women are encouraged to take leadership roles and positions, enabling them to gain greater access to project resources and benefits. Women are also trained to initiate savings and credit activities to generate internal resources for economic and other social activities in their communities. Literacy classes are also provided to women to help empower them to gain necessary education and life skills.

Social Capital - Heifer’s Values-Based Holistic Community Development (VBHCD) model is a package of practices that creates social capital and builds an enabling environment for sustainable development work. Heifer Nigeria also provides a series of training in Entrepreneurship skills, Group Formation techniques, Cooperative Awareness methods, Record Keeping skills, Finance Welfare (Savings and Credits) know how, and Heifer 12 Cornerstones skills.

Overview of Naija Unlock Signature Program

NAIJA UNLOCK is an evidence-based signature program designed with the objective of unlocking Nigeria’s potential for food self-sufficiency, working with smallholder farmers and local value chain actors to fill local demand while closing the living income gap for families in selected value chains with permanence of impact. The program has a target of supporting two million smallholder farmers (50% female and 30% youth) to achieve a sustainable living income by 2030. The program currently focuses on the rice, tomato, and poultry value chains. The program is working towards extending its value chains of focus to include cattle, and small ruminants (goat and sheep), as it recently conducted a value chain analysis to understand the landscape, underlying constraints and entry points. The program work through strategic private and public sector partnerships to (a) build the social capital of smallholder farmers, (b) unlock farmers access to innovative financing, (c) unlock demand and market opportunities, (d) increase farmers access to mechanization and emerging agricultural innovations, and (e) increase farmers knowledge and adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices. Naija Unlock program activities are being implemented currently in four (4) states in Nigeria (Edo, Nasarawa, Benue, and Lagos States), and recently added Ogun state. However, Naija Unlock is also implementing program activities through working with strategic private sector partners in twelve additional states that have the potential for impact at a transformational scale.

The program supports smallholder farmers with access to market at a premium price, access to innovative finance, building smallholder social capital through VBHCD training, climate-smart agriculture (Access to Crop insurance services, daily weather forecast advisory, and weekly climate-smart agricultural extension messages) to build smallholder farmers' resilience. The program is also providing farmers with access to mechanization services, and cold storage services for farm produce preservation to prevent post-harvest losses, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and extension training, among others.

The program uses the market system approaches in the implementation of its projects, therefore works with the market actors to address the underlying causes of poor performance in the agricultural sector where the smallholder farmers are working to create lasting changes that have a large-scale impact. The program has a high potential for growth and scale-up based on various market actors that Heifer Nigeria is working with.

1. Objectives of the Assignment

   Heifer Nigeria seeks to hire an individual or consulting firm to conduct an outcome monitoring survey for the Naija Unlock program through which the findings will establish the status of the signature program key performance indicators at the end of FY24 (July 2023 to June 2024).

   The survey will show the current picture with respect to Heifer International global and project-specific indicators. It is expected that the report of the survey will provide the status of the outcomes and impact indicators of the signature program. The data collected will be both qualitative and quantitative in nature and will include information gathered on the outcome indicators.

   The outcome monitoring survey will also provide information to be used in subsequent assessments of how efficiently the project activities are being implemented and the eventual results of the project activities for ensuring accountability to partners and other stakeholders but also how the project interventions are impacting the lives of beneficiaries.

   This is the first time a Global Indicator Monitoring (GIM)/Outcome monitoring survey is being conducted by Heifer Nigeria. Naija Unlock will want to use this opportunity to measure the status of all the program indicators to establish the status of the Global indicators as well as the project specific indicators (PSIs)

   Therefore, the FY24 Naija Unlock Outcome monitoring survey will be conducted on the fifteen (15) Heifer’s Global indicators and the project specific indicators both at the state and project level, as described in the table below: Heifer International’s Global indicators, details and calculation methods will be shared with the selected consultant.

   S/N

   GI Indicator

   1

   Heifer Household Transformation Model (HHTM)

   Number of Months of Adequate Household Food Provisioning (MAHFP) - GI-03-SDG2 (HHTM)

   2

   Women making Household decisions jointly (HHTM)

   3

   Actual income at household level (BTM 06)

   4

   Number of households adopting climate smart agriculture practices and technologies (CSA) - GI - 11 - SDG13 (HHTM)

   5

   Household demonstrating solidarity and cooperation among community members (HHTM)

   6

   Heifer Business/Enterprise Transformation Model (BTM/ETM)

   Women in Leadership Positions (BTM 3.2)

   7

   Number of elements of integrated waste management adopted at the entity level (BTM 07-SDG8)

   8

   BTM-01 Proportion of Active Members in Farmer Producer Organizations

   9

   Net Returns in Relevant Currency at the Entity Level- BTM-06-SDG

   10

   BTM-05 (GI-05) Percentage of Leadership Positions at the Organization Level Occupied by Women

   Project Specific Indicators

   11

   Yield of target commodities