Alliance For A Green Revolution In Africa (AGRA)- Request For Proposal For Ecosystem Framework For Identifying Priority Actions That Strengthen National Ecosystems For Agri-Food Entrepreneurs

DEADLINE: 3RD MAY, 2021
ALLIANCE FOR A GREEN REVOLUTION IN AFRICA (AGRA)
RFP: ECOSYSTEM FRAMEWORK: IDENTIFYING PRIORITY ACTIONS THAT STRENGTHEN NATIONAL ECOSYSTEMS FOR AGRI-FOOD ENTREPRENEURS

Synopsis of the Request for Proposal (Consultant firms)

TERMS OF REFERENCE
CONSULTANCY TITLE: ECOSYSTEM FRAMEWORK: IDENTIFYING PRIORITY ACTIONS THAT STRENGTHEN NATIONAL ECOSYSTEMS FOR AGRI-FOOD ENTREPRENEURS

(1) ABOUT GENERATION AFRICA
Ambition: Africa’s next generation driving tech-led, inclusive growth in the agri-food sector
Africa is rising. Across the continent, from the most rural villages to the bustling megacities, entrepreneurs launch start-ups, cultivate growing businesses, and scale breakthrough ventures. They recognise untapped opportunities for strengthening livelihoods at the base of the pyramid and for skyrocketing productivity and innovation through private sector-led investment, diversification and competition at scale. Africa’s next generation brings a confident entrepreneurial mindset which, when matched with education, support and investment, accelerates technology-enabled, inclusive growth and job creation.

Much of this potential lies at the intersection of the agri-food sector and the current technology revolution. Never has there been a more powerful moment in history – nor a more digitally-capable generation – to leapfrog Africa’s agri-food sector. A new generation of agripreneurs will help deliver the jobs, prosperity and food security that are vital to Africa’s future, as envisioned by the African Union’s Malabo Declaration.

Purpose: A stronger ecosystem for young agripreneurs
Generation Africa’s enduring mission is to bring the dynamism of youth entrepreneurship to Africa’s agri-food sector. It aims to strengthen the ecosystem that supports agripreneurs as they travel the perilous journey from ideation to scale, encompassing ventures from small- scale, village-level enterprise to “gazelles” with broad reach, and supporting upward mobility. Key elements of an enabling ecosystem for agripreneurship include the public narrative, education and training, support programmes, access to capital, the policy environment and wider market health. Generation Africa will collaboratively identify the greatest constraints facing young agripreneurs and convene influential partners to co-create solutions. It celebrates women entrepreneurs in particular and recognises the additional barriers they face. By targeting these ecosystems, Generation Africa will structure the most concerted effort yet to deliver the Malabo goal “to support and facilitate preferential entry and participation for women and youth in gainful and attractive agri-business opportunities.”

Partnership: Building a movement
At the African Green Revolution Forum 2019, a set of Partners shared their common intention to formally establish Generation Africa as a partnership initiative. Entrepreneurs thrive when multiple sectors and actors consciously work together to develop a supportive environment for business innovation and growth. Many pioneering initiatives already successfully support young entrepreneurs directly but tend to act in isolation and are not achieving meaningful scale. There is a strategic opportunity to increase their impact exponentially by linking these efforts together into a wider movement. Generation Africa will provide this network of ecosystem actors with services that help them achieve more together than they could alone.

(2) ABOUT THE MEMBERS GROUP
A wide range of continental and national-level organisations are actively supporting youth agripreneurship. All are positively impacting individual Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs), but none are achieving the scale required to inspire and propel a new wave of African entrepreneurs across the agri-food system, from local to global. When organisations work together, they have the ability to learn from each other how to best improve the ecosystems for agripreneurship, identify major gaps and close in on them. As an evolution of the AGRF’s Thematic Working Group on Youth, the Generation Africa’s Members Group offers a big tent for any organisation working on this agenda to share their learning, forge linkages, and ultimately define and align behind a transformative collective effort.

Practically in 2020, Generation Africa welcomed an open network of 40+ organizations championing young entrepreneurs in Africa’s agri-­food sector. During the year, the members have set themselves the goal of learning how to build vibrant ecosystems for agri-food entrepreneurship, through a year-long exploration regarding “How to strengthen national ecosystems that support young entrepreneurs to drive inclusive growth in the agri-food sector?”

Monthly calls facilitated ecosystem actors to share their experience and evidence, which are the basis to lead to a best practice framework. Six group calls were organized throughout the year. The following questions propose key aspects of an agripreneurship ecosystem that the group has explored and recorded in call summaries, which will inform the development of an Ecosystem Framework:

• Education: How to establish the capabilities, knowledge, skills and confidence that entrepreneurs need to thrive in the sector?
• Technology: How to help entrepreneurs develop or transfer the innovations that will transform Africa’s agri-food sector?
• Capital: How to link entrepreneurs with appropriate forms of capital at each stage of their journey?
• Policy: How to establish an enabling policy environment for agripreneurship?
• Targeting: Which entrepreneurs and start-ups provide the most significant social impact, and how to target them?
• Support: How to support the young agripreneurs sustaining Africa’s Food supplies in the face of COVID-19?

(3) ECOSYSTEM FRAMEWORK
Building from the emerging good practices, a consultancy will be commissioned to aggregate call summaries addressing the above set of questions and other sources into a proposed Ecosystem Framework against which national-level intermediary organisations can benchmark the quality of their country’s enabling environment for agripreneurs, and thereby identify high-value interventions to strengthen this. Once the Ecosystem Framework’s applicability has been tested and validated through a pilot model, such a framework would provide the basis for the Generation Africa partnership to work with cross-sector actors across the continent to unlock transformative change through agripreneurship at scale. In 2021, Generation Africa will focus on applying the Ecosystem Framework through a pilot in Senegal to generate country-level approach to assess the ecosystem and commit to priority actions to strengthen it.

As shown in Figure 1 below, throughout 2020, the Members Group has identified the factors and questions that help to make a diagnostic about the status of the national ecosystems for agri-food entrepreneurs.

(4) DELIVERABLES
The deliverables identified below will be generated in sequence:

(1) Conceptual Ecosystem Framework: The outcomes of the call summaries and other sources will be reviewed into a draft Ecosystem Framework, which will help to identify priority actions that strengthen national ecosystems for agri-food entrepreneurs.

(2) A report of results and findings in Senegal: The Conceptual Ecosystem Framework will be tested and piloted in Senegal. A country report will bring out the specific country characteristics for successful and failed agri-food MSMEs. The typology of youth entrepreneurship in Senegalese agri-food sector will help to understand where agri-food start-ups are currently most constrained in their lifecycle. An analysis of the enabling environment will help to acknowledge the role of private public organizations to support young agripreneurs. The report will identify if and how influential national leaders are championing the youth agripreneurship agenda. A mapping of the organisations championing national young agripreneurs will help to recognize what support programming exists and where the gaps and overlaps are. The report will identify high-value interventions to strengthen the national ecosystem.

(3) Final Ecosystem Framework: Based on the learnings from the pilot project in Senegal, the Conceptual Ecosystem Framework will be revised into a Final Ecosystem Framework, a digital tool, which will then be ready for any organization to use it.

(5) METHODOLOGY
The preliminary ecosystem framework described above will be further refined help to identify priority actions that strengthen national ecosystems for agri-food entrepreneurs. These factors will be further tested through a case study in Senegal.

As part of this effort, the consultant will:
(1) Design the methodological approach, draft data collection instrument in collaboration with Generation Africa

(2) Undertake a case study of the national ecosystem of youth entrepreneurship in agri-food MSMEs in Senegal

Several methods will be used. Initially, desktop research, literature review and consultation with our partners and network will allow a mapping of the existing organisations supporting young entrepreneurs in Senegalese agri-food sector. Interviews (preferably in French) with organizations, government, entrepreneurs, and other important stakeholders will be the major instruments for data collection. Finally, the data collected will need to be analysed and presented in a coherent and structured way to report the major findings and identify opportunities of high-value interventions to strengthen the national ecosystem in a country report (language of the report should be in English).

(6) PROPOSED TIMEFRAME
This consultancy is expected to be conducted from May 2021 to July 2021

• The consultant will deliver a draft Ecosystem Framework by May 15, 2021
• The consultant will have a workshop to present to Generation Africa secretariat and Members’ Group the draft Ecosystem Framework and incorporate feedback by May 20, 2021
• The consultant will pilot the Ecosystem Framework in Senegal and establish a draft report by June 30, 2021
• The consultant will validate the draft report through a consultative workshop with key stakeholders by July 10, 2021
• The consultant will finalize the Ecosystem Framework while incorporating learnings from the pilot project by July 31, 2021

REPORTING
The consultant will be supervised directly by the Associate Partnerships Officer, Generation Africa.

(8) EVALUATION CRITERIA
(1) Experience in similar assignments and Organizational capacity – 30%

(2) Proposed methodology and work plan for carrying out the assignment – 30%

(3) Key personnel – 40%

• Team leader (20%)
• Data collector (10%)
• Evaluation and Research expert (10%)

(9) PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
Technical Proposals should comprise of the following:

• An understanding of the assignment requirements, expectations and deliverables
• The organizational profile and experience:
• Provide a brief description of the background and organization of your company/firm
• List only previous similar assignments successfully completed in the last 5 years: detailing the date; assignment name and brief description of key deliverables; name of client and country of assignment; contract budget (in US$ ); and role on the assignment.
• List only those assignments for which you were legally contracted or was one of the joint venture partners.
• Description of approach, methodology and work-plan for performing the assignment
• The technical approach and methodology should explain the understanding of the assignment objectives; analytical strategies; and the degree of detail of expected outputs.
• The work plan should describe the implementation of the main activities/tasks of the assignment, their content and duration, phasing and interrelations, and tentative delivery dates of the deliverables. A list of the final deliverables (including reports) to be delivered as final output(s) should be included here.
• Assignment delivery plan
• Team composition and tasks assignment: describe the structure and composition of your team, including the list of the Key Experts and relevant technical and administrative support staff.
• Curriculum Vitae of team members with information on: Candidate’s bio-data; education; employment record relevant to the assignment – giving date, employer, country, and summary of activities performed relevant to the assignment; membership in professional associations and relevant publications.

Financial proposal must be provided in the prescribed format, RFP ANNEX A, supported with a breakdown analysis and will provide the following information, but is not limited to:

• Professional fees chargeable per day
• Breakdown of disbursements if applicable
• Must be submitted using the format provided, RFP Annex A: Financial Proposal
• Price must be quoted in USD
• All applicable Kenyan taxes (WHT &VAT) shall be included. If the financial proposal is silent on taxes, AGRA shall assume that these are inclusive.
• Financial proposal shall be valid for a period of 90 days from the date of bid closure.
• Financial proposal shall be sent as a separate attachment and MUST be password protected.

(10)   GUIDELINES FOR PREPARATIONS AND SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

• The proposals SHALL be submitted to procurement@agra.org by deadline indicated in the synopsis
• The proposal and ALL Attachments submitted via email SHALL NOT exceed 10MB
• VALIDITY of the proposal shall be for a period of 90 days from the date of bid closure.
• Financial proposal shall be sent as a separate attachment and MUST be password protected. The password shall be requested from firms that obtain 75% technical score and above.