DEADLINE: 9TH APRIL, 2021
THE GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR IMPROVED NUTRITION (GAIN)
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
RESEARCH PARTNER: ADVANCING NUTRITION IN STAPLE CROP VALUE CHAINS
PROJECT LOCATIONS: 4 STATES OF NIGERIA- KADUNA, BENUE, OYO AND NASARAWA
ABOUT GAIN
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is a Swiss-based foundation launched at the UN in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Working with both governments and businesses, we aim to transform food systems so that they deliver more nutritious food for all people.
GAIN’S work to improve the consumption of safe and nutritious food is based on three interlinked strategic objectives:
- to improve the demand for safe, nutritious foods,
- to increase the availability of nutritious foods and enhance the nutritional value of foods, and
- to strengthen the enabling environment to improve the consumption of safe, nutritious foods
We build alliances between governments, local and global businesses, and civil society to deliver sustainable improvements at scale. We are part of a global network of partners working together to create sustainable solutions to malnutrition. Through alliances, we provide technical, financial and policy support to key participants in the food system. We use specific learning, evidence of impact, and results of projects and programmes to shape and influence the actions of others.
Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, GAIN has representative offices in Denmark, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition, we have country offices in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Tanzania. Programmes and projects are carried out in a variety of other countries, particularly in Africa and Asia.
GAIN’s Workforce Nutrition programme aims to improve the nutrition of workers and farmers in low- and middle-income countries or communities. The programme focuses on improving the access and demand for healthier diets using existing business structures as an entry point (workplaces or supply chains). GAIN began its workforce nutrition programme in 2013 and has reached over 230,000 estate workers, smallholder farmers and their families in the tea, cocoa and garment supply chain across Africa and Asia. We currently work with partners in the tea sector (India, Kenya and Malawi), cocoa sector (Ghana), garment sector (Bangladesh), and we are running pilots in a variety of industry sectors in Mozambique.
Our work on biofortified crops aims to scale access to, and demand for these nutrient dense varieties of commonly consumed staples such as maize and cassava through targeted support to address challenges and constraints to increased production and consumption of these foods. We do this through market development and commercialization such as in our partnership with HarvestPlus and through noncommercial pathways focussed on farming households and public procurement systems. A key part of our approach is improving the enabling environment for biofortified seeds, crops and food products through advocacy, catalytic financing, and the licensing of technology and related services.
GAIN supports businesses, especially micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) through most of our programmatic offerings. This support is coordinated through the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network (SBN) which is convened by GAIN in Nigeria and was launched in 2016 to improve and strengthen the private sector’s contribution to nutrition. The Network has supported businesses with brokering business- to-business linkages, facilitating connections to government and other sectors including development partners, as well as capacity building for MSMEs to address key barriers to start, grow and scale their business. Specific areas of support include access to finance, access to markets, quality control and assurance in their production processes, and nutrition education among others.
BACKGROUND
GAIN is beginning the Advancing Nutrition in Staple Crop Value Chains project which will add a nutrition lens to and deliver an integrated suite of activities to support GIZ’s Green Innovation Centre (GIC) in Nigeria. This nutrition project will strengthen the GIC priority value chains and improve food and nutrition security through improved diets for farmers, farm workers, other workers in businesses in these value chains, and among the wider population in Nigeria. The following broad objectives for this programme are:
- Increased consumption of nutritious foods by smallholder farmers, their families, and the wider population
- Strengthened cassava, maize, sweet potato, and rice value chains in Nigeria which provide more, safe nutritious foods to consumers
- Increased use of nutritious varieties of the target staples in processed foods
- Improved productivity & efficiency of farmers and other businesses to improve the production of nutritious foods in the cassava, maize, sweet potato, and rice value chains
To reach our overarching goal – improving nutrition through improved diets – the project will build on the increased consumption of the staple crops, which is the primary focus of the GIC, through the following related interventions:
- A workforce nutrition programme to support farmers and workers in these value chains to improve and diversify their diets;
- Business support services to make a wide variety of nutritious and safe foods more accessible, affordable and desirable; and
- Increased production and consumption of biofortified varieties of maize, cassava, and orange flesh sweet potato (OFSP)
Farmers’ nutritional health is directly linked to their productivity and earning potential both in terms of their own household, farms and businesses, and in terms of their contribution to national economic growth. However, farming families and households are often not aware of the importance of the nutrient content of the foods they produce and consume, and they are often unaware of the importance of the consumption of a diverse diet. Farmers engaged in the production of the priority staples in focus may be able to access foods that meet their energy needs but even earning good income from their business does not usually translate to accessing a sufficiently diverse diet. The costs of poor nutrition on lost revenues to businesses in a context like Nigeria, where underweight, stunting and anaemia are prevalent in rural areas, and obesity rates are growing could mean as much as 2.7% of GDP is lost from lower worker productivity (Chatham House, 2020).
The workforce nutrition programme will support farmers and workers in these value chains to improve their diets. The Workforce Nutrition (WFN) component aims to reach rice and maize value chain workers (from small holder farmers to processing employees) with workforce nutrition programmes that aim to improve the consumption of nutritious foods as part of a healthy, diverse diet for workers, farmers, and their households. The programme also aims to engage business owners in the supply chain, and local government and state authorities on the importance of farmer/worker nutrition for greater resilience and productivity. Throughout the programme, GAIN will lead regular advocacy and engagement with business managers, and government officials on the importance of workforce nutrition for both workers and farmers.
SMEs handle most of the food that is produced, transported, marketed, and consumed in low-income countries such as Nigeria. These SMEs are however hindered by a lack of business knowledge and skills and often lack the resources to take advantage of the opportunities around them to innovate and secure higher value from their smallholder investments. Lack of awareness of food safety regulations, good practices and how to adhere to them, also means that many consumers are exposed to contaminated or otherwise unsafe foods.
The business support component will empower women and young people and unleash the creativity and energy of youth and women to support their families, succeed in agri-business and attempt to tackle malnutrition as well as food and social insecurity. This workstream will increase women and youth involvement in value-added agriculture and entrepreneurship that directly addresses the specific challenges that women and rural youth face in the four focal states for this project. It will respond to opportunities to harness the political will at local, state and national levels in Nigeria to invest in creating economic opportunities for women and youth in the production, processing and sale of nutritious and safe foods. This will be achieved by significantly increasing the knowledge and information available to women and young people about nutrition, increasing their participation in decision-making and targeting business support and investments so they can bring forward innovations, increase livelihood opportunities and build nutrition sensitivity into the GIC value chains. This will be carried out using three interlinked approaches:
- Improving nutrition quality of staple foods produced by SMEs and farmers involved in GIC activities
- Improving the capacity of food safety and value chain actors to adhere to standards and regulations on best practice
- Supporting technical innovations for supply chains through innovation challenges and innovation clinics
One in three people globally experience vitamin and mineral deficiencies leading to severe health outcomes including premature and preventable death in infants and young children. Micronutrient deficiencies can also constrain work performance resulting in slower economic growth and widespread, intergenerational poverty. Nearly two-thirds of Nigerian children are at risk of vitamin A deficiency due to inadequate amounts of vitamin A in their diets (NDHS 2018) and generally inadequate access to a diversity of food at household level due to rising levels of poverty. This “hidden hunger” is particularly acute in countries like Nigeria and among farming families who grow and eat their own food and diets are overly reliant on staple foods, lacking in the diversity of foods needed to meet multiple nutrient requirements.
The biofortification component aims to work with farmers and farming households to promote adoption, cultivation, and utilization of these staples by the farming households and other food processors. The workstream will promote Vitamin A Cassava, Vitamin A Maize and Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato (OFSP) in Oyo, Kaduna, and Benue states, respectively.
SCOPE OF WORK AND DELIVERABLES
1.1. OBJECTIVES
GAIN Nigeria seeks a research agency who will work closely with GAIN and its partners to conduct formative research to inform the programme design for the Advancing Nutrition in Staple Crop Value Chains Project.
The project will be designed to (1) improve demand for nutritious and safe foods, and healthy diets; (2) improve access to these foods and (3) advocate for an enabling environment to build a sustainable approach to improving the nutritional health of vulnerable farmers, their households and the wider population.
Therefore, in order to inform the design of the project, this formative research will help us identify current dietary practices and preferences of small holder farmers, and households; identify nutritional and dietary gaps and explore barriers and opportunities to improve the availability, affordability and acceptability of safe and nutritious food options; identify barriers faced by value chain actors from production, aggregation, transport, retail, to adhere to food safety standards and regulations; map innovations in the supply chains that can improve efficiency; identify businesses operational in the value chains of the focus states.
The research will surface targeted foods and food groups to promote, within the context of and alongside the Nigerian Healthy Eating Guidelines, and key behaviours to target and improve for farming households. The research will also assess opportunities, approaches and entry points to both identify and regularly reach farmers and households with messages, as well as to connect them with the identified access components of the programme. Entry points should use existing delivery structures with the GIC programme such as the agricultural development programs (ADPs) at state level, existing service delivery models such as partnerships that have already organized farmers into farmers groups and are providing services. Finally, the research will scope the wider partner landscape and enabling environment towards ongoing advocacy and engagement with the state and national governments on the workforce nutrition, support to nutritious food businesses and the adoption of biofortified varieties of the target staples.
