DEADLINE: 5TH JANUARY, 2021
ALLIANCE FOR A GREEN REVOLUTION IN AFRICA (AGRA)
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR CONSULTANCY FOR DEVELOPING AN AGRIC OPEN DATA PLATFORM AND 3 DATA FOR GOVERNMENT USE CASES FOR KENYA, GHANA, AND NIGERIA

Synopsis of the Request for Proposal

Solicitation Reference No.RFP/156/SP/2021
Title of SolicitationConsultancy for developing an Agric open data platform and 3 data for government use cases for Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria
Issuing Office & AddressAlliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) Website: www.agra.org
Point of contact for clarifications, questions and amendmentsAGRA General Procurement, Procurement@agra.org
Email Address for submission of Proposals/QuotesAGRA General Procurement, Procurement@agra.org
Deadline  for  submission questions and clarificationsDecember 8, 2021 East African Time.
Deadline for  Answering questions and clarificationsDecember 10, 2021 East African Time.
Deadline for Submission of ProposalsJanuary 5, 2022 East African Time. 5:00pm, East African Time. (GMT+3) Please include the subject line “RFP/156/SP/2021” of the email.
Type of Consultant CONSULTANCY FIRM
Anticipated Award Type CONSULTANCY AGREEMENT
Submission and Evaluation CriteriaBidders are encouraged to register (if not already registered) as a vendor via the link provided below and submit the below mandatory requirements in their proposal: https://ekjd.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/fscmUI/faces/PrcPosRegisterSupplier?prcBuId=300000001758868

Mandatory pre-registration documents:
(1) Business Registration Documents
– Certificate if Incorporation
– Valid Tax Compliance (if applicable)
– National ID or Passport of company directors
(2) Company Profile

Mandatory Eligibility Requirement:
(1) Business Registration Documents
– Certificate if Incorporation
– Valid Tax Compliance Certificate (if applicable)
– National ID or Passport of company directors
(2) Company Profile
(3) Detailed Curriculum Vitae of Key personnel
(4) Academic and Professional Certificates of key  personnel

Evaluation Criteria summary:
1. Company profile and capacity……………………10%
2. Company Specific experience in similar assignment……………………………………25%
3. Proposed technical approach, methodology and detailed workplan………………………………30%
– Brief description of the understanding of the assignment (maximum 10) (25%)
– Assignment Workplan (5%)
4. Experience and Qualification of key personnel………………………………………….35%
– Team Leader (20%)
– ICT Expert (10%)
– Other Key Personnel (5%)
Weightage: Technical Proposal will be weighted out of 80% while Financial Proposal will be weighted out of 20%
Minimum technical score: Only technical proposals with a score of 75% and above shall qualify for opening of the financial proposals

Introduction
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa is a not-for-profit organization working with African governments, other Development Partners, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), the private sector, and African farmers to significantly and sustainably improve productivity and incomes of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Africa. AGRA’s overall goal is to catalyse and sustain an Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Africa to increase incomes and improve the food security of at least 30 million smallholder farming households with a set of targeted catalytic downstream and systemic investments coupled with government engagement made through its alliance of partners.

AGRA’s digital strategy is to promote digital as an enabler to connect agriculture ecosystems, sustainably integrating Governments, Markets, and Villages in the service of strategic value chains. The path to impact is ecosystem driven. The headline goal of AGRA’s digital strategy is to support the emergence of a collaborative community of tech providers and programs and create impact by promoting scaled, digital integration of country value chains.  AGRA realizes that digital agriculture solutions can contribute to the improvement of millions of farmers’ livelihoods, the improvement of productivity in rural communities and contribute significantly to the transformation of Africa’s agriculture sector. AGRA has a unique ability to catalyse digital impact through direct engagement with Governments and Communities taking digital solutions to the last mile where farmers realize the benefits.

As one of its strategic priorities in the digital strategy, AGRA focuses on data as a key element for transformation by promoting standards to strengthen systems, best practices, and open data among governments and industry. Data is central to evidence-based policy, and ensuring quality data exists helps track progress, make informed decisions, and enable transparency and accountability. Generation and consolidation of precise and timely data provide a system that guides processes and aligns needs with necessary actions that address national and sub-national priorities. AGRA priority initiatives include:

  • Agriculture open data platforms
  • Data for Govt Use Cases

The overarching enabler of these two initiatives is a collaborative approach to strengthening Agriculture data.

Objective of the Consultancy
The objective of the consultancy is to develop an Agric open data platform and 3 data for government use cases for Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria.

Scope of Work
Proposed activities will include

(A) An Assessment of the Agriculture data ecosystem

  • Rapid assessment of the Agriculture data ecosystem in the three countries Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria. The evaluation should clearly articulate the opportunities and gaps in the system that this project can help close. The assessment will include;
  • Establish data requirements (demand side) to meet the objectives
  • Identify data supply side pipelines, opportunities, and partnerships
  • Assessment of Open data policies and framework
  • Institutional capabilities concerning promoting open data agenda
  • Existence and opportunities of agricultural and related data
  • Open Data technology and architectures
  • Open Data governance
  • Financing for Ag open data
  • Evaluation of existing technology landscape which will help in establishing the technology deployment strategy, e.g., cloud-hosted or in-country deployment of the solution to aggregate data to meet the objective
  • Establish the need for training or recruitment of resources to support the development and maintenance of the solution
  • Develop a data gap analysis report

(B) Identify critical partners working in the agricultural and related data space

  • Advice on how AGRA connects with ongoing data for development initiatives being implemented in each country to close the agriculture data gap that seeks to bridge the global agricultural data gap by transforming country data systems
  • Engage partners, facilitate commitments, assess open data platform options for #DigitalAGRA

(C) Establishment government-led collaborative on agriculture data and manage consensus building in consultation with AGRA. Begin by identifying existing working groups and consortia to create data for the government working group.  Where these systems already exist, advise AGRA on ways to strengthen them.

(D) Establishment of African Agric Open Data Working group

(E) Develop Working Group Charter in collaboration with partners

(F) Identification and selection justification for first 3 Data for Government Use Cases (including sustainability approach)

(G) Work with the African Agric Open data working group to deliver two programs – Agric open data platform and data for government use cases to drive tangible progress with the following target results:

For each initiative:

  • Consensus in the working group of scope, timeline, and participation in the initiative
  • Development of work plans, budgets, public-facing descriptive material, and an overall program management ecosystem.
  • Identify necessary storage and access for hosting content and applications during this program resulting in a sustainable long-term hosting platform as part of the initiative.

Profile of the company
(1) Open data development within an African and Agriculture context, including government engagement

(2) Digital solution design that aligns Functional programs, various partners, technology, data & analytics, and integration into a sustainable business model

(3) Analysis of data derived from digital projects, reports, and other sources to develop data-driven hypotheses, retrospectives, and theories of change

(4) Considerable experience of the political dynamics around Rome-based international agencies and understanding of the challenges and gaps related to agriculture data

(5) Support consultations with key partners for relevant initiatives and support the development of a partnership network with stakeholders (social enterprises, government, investors, academia, private sector, etc.)

(6) Experience in supporting the scaling up of high-impact digital innovations for the food system.

(7) Experience and understanding of the agro-food and data-driven and digital agriculture sectors, focusing on impact investing ecosystem and innovative finance landscape in the digital space.

(8) Experience working in an international organization and multi-cultural environment is an advantage.

Qualification and Experience of Team Leader
(1) Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or relevant field

(2) A Master’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent field

(3) At least ten years of business strategy development

(4) At least ten years of relevant work experience in Agriculture digital technology and development of se Cases

(5) Training and experience in data science or open data

(6) Working knowledge with National Agricultural Research Systems and International Development Agencies

(7) At least 10 years’ experience within Africa

Deliverables of the Assignment
(1) Inception Report – the Consultant shall produce an Inception Report within seven days after the contract is signed. The report shall provide a clear picture of how the Consultant understands the ToRs and intends to achieve the scheduled tasks. It shall highlight the proposed methodology and the work plan with timelines for all the Consultant’s tasks during the assignment.

(2) Ecosystem mapping and roadmap: including but not limited to baseline assessment, establishing objective and vision, and identifying gaps (policies, data, technology, resources) to meet objectives

(3) Pan-African working group on open data for evidence-based decision making and a Group Charter in collaboration with partners

(4) Government-led collaborative on the agriculture data framework

(5) Workshop and learning exchanges -Support the organization of learning exchanges and workshops bringing together stakeholders from the public and private impact investing community in agriculture and food, including Bilateral and International Development Institutions to

  • Better understand constraints in agricultural data to support food system;
  • Create a dialogue between different stakeholders to understand their individual needs better and identify how they could cooperate in an investment pipeline for the acceleration of agricultural data
  • Enable learning within and across the three countries of focus.

(6) Agric open data platform and 3 data for government use cases

Deliverables, Schedule and Payment

The outputs to be delivered by the Consultant include the following in calendar days:

DeliverableDescriptionEstimated Time (Day)Proposed Payment (%)
Inception ReportInception report (detailing the schedule of work, critical staff deployment, methodology, etc.) and Inception Workshop to discuss with AGRA7 Days10%
The Ecosystem mapping and roadmapBaseline assessment of the three countries, and identify gaps (policies, data, technology, resources) to meet objectives 60 Days10%
Pan-African working group establishedPan-African working group on open data for evidence-based decision making and a Group Charter40 Days20%
Government-led frameworkEstablishment together with partners a government lead collaboration of10 days10%
Workshop and learning exchangesSupport the organization of learning exchanges and workshops, bringing together stakeholders from the public and private impact investing community in agriculture and food, including Bilateral and International Development Institutions10%
Agric open data platform and 3 data for government use casesSupport implementation of 3 data Use Cases for ministries of agriculture.  Priorities are driven by the governments and the African Agric Open Data platform and are validated against prioritized value chain initiatives90 days20%
Final ReportFinal Report of the assignment incorporating AGRA and other stakeholders’ comments and feedbackN/A20%
Duration of the project6 months100%

Management and Reporting
The Consultant will report to Senior Program Officer Digital, working closely with the Vice President in charge of Strategic Partnerships and technical teams.

Duration of the Assignment
The estimated period of the assignment is estimated to take 6 calendar months

Evaluation criteria

NrEvaluation CriteriaPoints
 Organizational Profile and Capacity
1. Company profile and company accreditations.
2. Geographical presence in the focus countries
3. List of assignment/ references from the Africa region, explicitly referencing assignments of similar nature to this scope.		10%
 Experience of the firm: Evidence of experience in delivering assignments in the sub-Saharan African AgTech context as stated in reference tasks.25%
Technical Approach– Description of the proposed services which meet or exceed the stated technical specifications or scope of work. Expression of a clear and adequate methodological framework that demonstrates an understanding of the terms of reference. (Maximum 10-15 pages)25%
Detailed Workplan of the assignment indicating key milestones as per the Terms of Reference5%
Experience and Qualification of key personnel     
Team Leader Qualification and experience-20%
– Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or relevant field
– A Master’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent field
– At least ten years of business strategy development
– At least ten years of relevant work experience in Agriculture digital technology and development of se Cases
– Training and experience in data science or open data
– Working knowledge with National Agricultural Research Systems and International Development Agencies
– At least 10 years’ experience within Africa
ICT Expert Qualification and experience- 10%
– A Master’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent field
– At least ten years of business strategy development
– At least ten years of relevant work experience in Agriculture digital technology and development of such Cases
– Training and experience in data science or open data
– Working knowledge with National Agricultural Research Systems and International Development Agencies
– At least 10 years’ experience within Africa      
Other key Experts-5%		35%
Total100 points

Application Submission Requirements 

Technical Proposal:

  • Company Profile and firms experience
  • An understanding of the consultancy requirements
  • Work delivery plan
  • Detailed CV of the Consultant
  • Demonstration of similar assignments.
  • Current company registration documents/certificate of incorporation.
  • The proposal shall be limited to a maximum of 10-15 pages. The rest of the documents including detailed CVs shall be provided under annexes.

Financial Proposal:

  • A breakdown of the financial proposal in USD including remuneration and reimbursable costs.
  • All applicable taxes (VAT and/or withholding taxes) should be quoted separately. Please note that the contracting office is Nairobi, Kenya and therefore, the contract shall be governed by the Laws of the Republic of Kenya and applicable taxes under the Kenya Jurisdiction will apply
  • If the financial proposal is silent on taxes, AGRA shall assume that these are inclusive
  • Other costs, e.g. accommodation and travel will be reimbursed based on the actual costs incurred and within the agreed contract ceiling.
  • Payments will be made in USD.

Guidelines for Preparation and Submission of Proposals
 (1) The proposals SHALL be submitted to procurement@agra.org by the deadline indicated in the synopsis.

(2) The proposal and ALL attachments submitted via email shall not exceed 10MB.

(3) VALIDITY of the proposal shall be for a period of 90 days from the date of bid closure.

(4) Financial proposal shall be sent as a separate attachment and MUST be password protected. Financial proposal shall be presented using the provided template under Annex A to B

(5) The password shall be requested from bidders meeting the minimum technical score of 75%.

Download full RFP:
https://agra.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/RFP-156-SP-2021_-Agric-open-data-platform-for-Kenya-Ghana-and-Nigeria.docx

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