Expression of Interest (EOI) at Oxfam

Posted by Future on Wed 29th Sep, 2021 - nigeriantenders.com

Oxfam invites interested and competent consultancy firms to indicate interest by submitting EOI documents to tender for the following works:

Oxfam is a confederation of 20 affiliates operating globally in more than 120 countries working to see a world without poverty. Oxfam is a world-wide development organization that mobilizes the power of people against poverty. Around the globe, Oxfam works to find practical, innovative ways for people to lift themselves out of poverty and thrive. Oxfam save lives and help rebuild livelihoods when crisis strikes and campaigns so that the voices of the poor influence the local and global decisions that affect them.

Applications are invited for:

Title: Expression of Interest for Development Exchange Centre - Access to Markets and Inclusive Value Chain Development for Smallholder Farmer Groups in Taraba State

Preamble

Development Exchange Centre (DEC) is in partnership with Oxfam in the implementation of PROSELL. PROSELL is a European Union Support to Food Security and Resilience in Taraba State to be implemented for 54 months starting from July 2018. The project’s main objective is to build resilience of small-scale farmers, fishermen and livestock owners in various commodity value chains and rural enterprises. The project intends to empower women and youth by enhancing their abilities to access required services, produce optimally, and earn more income from market activities. It is being implemented in 80 rural communities across six (6) Local Government Areas of Taraba State. The Local Government Areas of implementation are Ardo-Kola, Donga, Kurmi, Takum, Wukari and Zing.

The overall objective of PROSELL is to improve food/nutrition security and resilience of vulnerable households in disaster and conflicts affected communities in Taraba State of northern Nigeria. Its specific objectives are:

To increase income of small-scale farmers by enhancing their agricultural productivity, market access, and job creation along crop, fish and livestock value chains.
To enhance adaptive capacities and resilience of small-scale farming households to climate change.
To promote cooperation and mutual benefits of farmers, livestock owners, and all value chain actors.

The PROSELL project has as one of its mandates “*To increase income of small-scale farmers by enhancing their agricultural productivity, market access, and job creation along crop, fish and livestock value chains*”. It is estimated that though 12% of Nigerians are undernourished yet each year Nigeria loses and waste 40% of its total food production. One of the ways foods loses and wastage could be reduced is to prevent food losses at the farm gate as well as in storage. Access to markets have been found to be a big challenge resulting to loses and/or poor return on investment made by the Nigerian farmers majority of whom are in the subsistence category.

The Taraba State Government has identified a number of challenges to food production levels, including lack of infrastructure such as warehouses/silos and market facilities and lack of organized markets amongst other limiting factors. From the HEA report “The major occupation of the people of Taraba State is agriculture. Cash crops produced in the state include coffee, tea, groundnuts, and cotton. Crops such as maize, rice, sorghum, millet, cassava, and yam are also produced in commercial quantity”.

Objectives

The main objective of this activity is to develop the capacities of smallholder farmer groups to become market-ready for linkage to market opportunities within and outside Taraba State towards increasing their productivity and incomes in an inclusive ecosystem.

Specific objectives are to:

Train farmer groups on the fundamentals of agricultural enterprise development, production, aggregation, marketing, and financial management
Develop capacities of farmer groups on how to access funding for their businesses, credit risk management (including credit worthiness and rating), and strategies for production risk mitigation
Provide training to farmer groups on key principles of negotiation for profitable agribusiness, contract development and related issues
Identify relevant off-takers and business enabling organizations within and outside Taraba State and link them to smallholder farmer groups across specific value chains. These organizations include, but not limited to, NIRSAL, BoA, produce marketing companies, manufacturing companies etc.

Scope of Consultancy

The scope of this consultancy will be within the six catchment LGAs of PROSELL intervention in Taraba State. These LGAs are Ardo-Kola, Donga, Kurmi, Takum, Wukari, and Zing.
A total of 80 Lead Farmers[1] and 6 Project LGA Supervisors will be drawn as participants from across the LGAs, they will have the responsibility to step-down the knowledge gained during the programme to their group members and communities. Training for these 80 Lead Farmers will take place in 2 batches to manage the number of participants properly, each of the training batch will be for five (5) days.
Development of training materials, using appropriate languages, towards achieving the objectives of this consultancy.
Recruitment, deployment, and management of qualified resource persons and facilitators for the training programme.
Identification and engagement of business enabling organizations and potential off takers that will interface with farmer groups during the 5-day training programme.

Qualifications of the Consultant

We are looking for a firm or individuals with the following qualifications:
Proven experience in delivering similar training package to related organizations with sponsorship from international donors and development organizations
Faculty with technically competent personnel of demonstrable capacities for training programmes of this nature
The faculty team lead must possess a postgraduate degree in Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Extension & Rural Development, Development Studies or related fields with a minimum of ten years’ experience
Strong and documented experience in conducting participatory market inclusive training and linkage programme involving smallholder farmers within Nigeria
Expanded networks with organized market actors, development finance institutions, and ability to create and close business deals between farmer groups and market actor groups.
Strong organizational, analytical and reporting skills, presentation skills, attention to detail, ability to meet deadlines, and proficiency in Microsoft Office and qualitative data analysis software/tools.
Similar experience delivering training programmes in locations similar to Taraba States with sufficient use of Hausa language

Application Closing Date

5:00pm, 5th October, 2021.

Submission of Documents

Interested and qualified consultants/firms are expected to submit their expression of interest (technical and financial proposal) to the email address: procurement@dexcentre.org

For more clarifications, please Click Here (PDF).