Consultancy - THE ROLE OF CSOS IN SCALING INNOVATIVE MODELS IN THE AGRICULTURAL VALUE CHAIN, AGRA

1. Introduction
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a dynamic, African-led partnership working across the African continent to help millions of smallholder farmers out of poverty. To achieve this, AGRA works with African governments, international partners, private sector and public institutions to mobilize resources and political support required to invest in projects that strive to address food insecurity and increase the incomes of smallholder farmers. AGRA invests in integrated soil fertility management, seed systems, market access, farmer organizations, and policy and advocacy, offers practical solutions across agricultural value chain to significantly boost farm productivity and incomes for the poor while safeguarding the environment.

1.1. Engagement with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

AGRA’s leadership realizes that the voices and ideas of civil society organizations must be elevated and incorporated into their work. This is because CSOs represent small farmers and citizens in communities across the continent. They represent a diversity of backgrounds, opinions, beliefs and cultures that must be included in catalyzing a Green Revolution. In most African context, a vibrant civil society sector is essential to effective outreach, advocacy and knowledge transfer. As such, AGRA recognizes that it must have the support of and work in collaboration with a variety of civil society organizations, among them those representing smallholder farmers, women, environmental and advocacy groups to scale up innovations targeted at the agricultural value chain.
The recently completed AGRA-CSO Engagement Strategy underscores the importance of AGRA’s engagement with CSOs, and identifies four strategic thrusts where this engagement could be employed1. One of the compelling case for CSO-AGRA collaboration cited in this strategy is that AGRA and CSOs working together are in a great position to leverage more resources from different constituencies and can deliver much more when working together. An important strategic thrust of engagement identified in this Strategy is the enhancing CSO involvement in advocacy and project implementation for impact at scale. This strategic thrust anticipates that CSOs could be engaged in scaling innovative models in the agricultural value chain.
Cognizant of the potential role that CSOs could play in helping scale up agricultural value chain innovations, AGRA now wants to recruit a consultant to conduct two separate but related assignments namely: 1) Mapping of CSOs in AGRA’s P1 countries (Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique and Mali) and Kenya- five countries in total and 2) Preparing a well-researched, practical and comprehensive paper on, “Opportunities and challenges for CSOs organizations in scaling innovative models in agricultural value chain”. The goal is to provide thought leadership into best approach for working with CSOs in scaling innovative models so that more farmers and wider geographies benefit from innovative models developed and piloted by AGRA and her grantees.

2. The Assignment
AGRA is developing innovative solutions to constraints across the agriculture value chain. The AGRA theory of change is grounded on grant making to develop and pilot innovative models, and then engage with partners such as the private sector, governments and CSOs to scale these models. Over the last six years, the organization has primarily focused on grant making and has made limited progress in catalyzing change through other players. Therefore, though AGRA has succeeded in developing innovative models, efforts in scaling these models to reach more people in wider geographies is still work in progress. AGRA recognizes the potential presented by CSOs in scaling up innovative models. However, before any action plan is put in place for engaging CSOs in scaling innovative models, it is important to develop a clear understanding of the range of CSOs working in the agricultural value chain, analyze the CSOs for the purpose of understanding their relevance and the perspective they offer, understand their relationship to the issues and each other, and to prioritize based on their relative usefulness to scaling innovations. This assignment will entail two assignments: mapping of CSOs and developing a paper on opportunities and challenges for CSOs organizations in scaling innovative models in agriculture value chain. Below is a more elaborated description of the two components of the assignment.

2.1. CSOs Mapping Assignment
AGRA seeks the services of a highly competent consultant for a short-term period to assist in the mapping of CSOs in Tanzania, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Kenya. The purpose is to understand which CSOs are working in these countries, what are their major activities, their strength and weaknesses, capacity building needs and other profile relevant to scaling innovative models in the agriculture value chain. The specific objectives are:
1. Identify the CSOs working in the agriculture value chain, including those involved in advocacy and service provision to farmers. Profile the CSOs into three categories namely: Farmer organizations (FO), Service providing CSOs and Campaigning CSOs2
2. Analyze the CSOs to bring out their relevance and perspective they provide with regard to: activities implemented in the agricultural value chain, capacity building needs, willingness to engage/partner, expertise etc.
3. Present a prioritized list of CSOs, showing which CSOs are most useful to engage with in scaling innovative models in agriculture value chain and capacity building activities

2.2. Preparing Paper
AGRA seeks the services of a highly competent consultant for a short-term period to assist in developing a paper on the “Opportunities and challenges for CSOs organizations in scaling innovative models in agriculture value chain”. The target countries are Tanzania, Ghana, Mali, Mozambique and Kenya. The broad objective of this consultancy is to clearly identify existing scope for working with CSOs to scale agricultural innovations, experiential evidence of opportunities and strengths.
Specific objectives are:

1. Provide clear insights into how CSOs could be deployed in scaling innovative models in the agricultural value chain
2. Recommend a framework/institutional arrangement for managing AGRA-CSO partnership in this scale up model, and which CSOs AGRA should engage with, based on the mapping exercise.
3. Provide clear action points for operationalizing the scaling up activities
4. Carry out literature review to demonstrate successful examples of CSOs scaling up innovations in the agricultural value chain

3. Scope of work
The consultant(s) will deliver results of the CSOs mapping exercise and the paper. The latter must provide practical insights into the opportunities and challenges of using CSOs to scale innovative models.
Specifically, the consultant will:
1. Prepare a proposal outlining their understanding of the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the consultancy. This should include a discussion of methods to be used to carry out the assignment, to collect, analyze and present the information, and a detailed budget showing fees and research expenses. Indicate the country or countries that you are bidding for. One’s choice of country should be informed by their knowledge of the CSOs environment in that country or their ability to demonstrate they have partners in those countries that they can work with.
2. Prepare the mapping exercise report and the Paper
3. Present the results to plenary bringing together CSOs, AGRA staff and other stakeholders

Deliverables

1. A Detailed work plan
2. CSOs mapping report
3. A paper on the role of CSOs in scaling up innovative models in the agricultural value chain. At the minimum, this paper must include:
1. The framework for implementing this CSO engagement in scaling up innovative models in the agriculture value chain
2. Specific examples of successful deployment of CSOs in scaling innovative models
3. Action priorities needed to put into operation engagement of CSOs in scaling up innovative models
4. A PowerPoint summary of the paper
5. References and copies of literature used in developing the paper

Duration of Consultancy
The consultancy should take 25 billable days and the report submitted by or before 31st October. The consultant is expected to give regular updates of progress

Qualifications and Experience

• A post graduate qualifications in social sciences or development studies
• At least 10 years of relevant professional experience;
• Thorough understanding of the CSOs environment
• Previous experience in stakeholder/organization mapping
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, demonstrated ability to facilitate workshops

Application procedure
Interested and qualified consultants (or consulting firms) should submit an application which should include the following;
1. CVs of consultant(s)
2. Proposal for implementation of the assignment, including detailed methodology and indicative budget.
Interested parties should send their expressions of interest on or before September 30th 2013 to the following email address: PAP@agra.org with the email subject given as “Role of CSOs in scaling innovative models”. The full Terms of Reference (TOR) and requirements can be viewed by visiting the AGRA website: http://www.agra-alliance.org