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Job Title:    Terms 0f Reference For Assessment and
Building Capacity Of Cooperatives In Internal Policies and Standard Operating
Procedures

Organisation:
Farm Africa

Duty Station:
Uganda

About Farm Africa:

Farm Africa is an
innovative charity that reduces poverty in rural eastern Africa by helping
farmers grow more, sell more and sell for more: we help farmers to not only boost
yields, but also gain access to markets, and add value to their produce. We
place a high priority on environmental sustainability and develop approaches
that help farmers to improve their yields and incomes without degrading their natural
resources. Our programmes vary hugely, ranging from helping crops farmers to
boost harvests, livestock keepers to improve animal health, and forest coffee
growers to reach export markets, but core to all of them is a focus on the
financial sustainability of the farmers’ businesses and environmental
sustainability. We currently work in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.

About the project

Farm Africa is
currently implementing a three-year project supporting coffee farmers in
Western Uganda’s Kanungu district. The project comprises of two distinct parts.
The first part, funded by the European Union, is already under way and focuses
on building the capacity of Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to create
employment and self-employment opportunities within the coffee value chain for
4,800 young women and men Kanungu district. A broad range of CSOs are engaged
ranging from coffee growers’ cooperatives (4) to national stakeholder platforms
representing both young farmers and coffee farmers. The second part, funded by
UK aid, started in September 2019 and is focussing on ensuring that women are
empowered and able to fully benefit from support given to coffee farmers in
Kanungu, as well as financially benefit from their contributions to the coffee
value chain.

 Scope of Work

In this regard this,
Farm Africa is seeking services of a consultant to undertake a comprehensive

review of internal
policies and standard operating procedures (SoPs) of four Coffee Growing

Cooperatives (CGCs)
in Kanungu district;

• Design the tool for review of CGGs internal policies and SoPs
• Conduct assessment of the CGGs internal policies and SoPs.
• Support the four CGCs to develop their internal policies and SOPs

This is a 20 days’ assignment scheduled from 16th – 20th Dec 2019, and
6th-24th Jan 2020. The indicative budget for this assignment is UGX 12,000,000.

Objectives of the Consultancy Assignment:

The project is
working with four cooperatives with the aim of building capacity to ensure
women can leverage from the market opportunities. This include conducting a comprehensive
review of internal policies and standard operating procedures (SoPs), focusing
on how to improve gender equity for improved institutional equality. Policies
and SoPs will be amended and/or re-drafted as a result

Specific objectives of the assignment

• Develop tools for assessing cooperative internal policies and SoPs
• Map out the current situation for each of CGCs with regards to
  internal policies and SoPs, and these might include;

•        
gender
policy,

•        
 credit policy;

•        
financial
policy;

•        
governance
policy;

•        
assets
policy;

•        
human
resources policy;

•        
membership
policy etc.

•        
SOPs
skewed on coffee value chain.

• Design a plan for capacity building these cooperatives on their
  internal polices and SOPs based on the mapping exercise
• Capacity build each of the four CGs on developing internal polices
  and SOPs
• Produce draft policies and SoPs developed by the CGGs
• Refine and produce and final CGCs polices and SOPs

Approach and Methodology

This will involve
collecting and analyzing primary data on CGCs policies and SoPs, capacity
building CGCs to develop the policies and coming up with final policies and SoPs.
The consultant is expected to employ robust cooperative capacity assessment
techniques for data collection and analysis to ensure a comprehensive
assessment exercise.

 Expected Deliverables and Timeline

All written
documentation is to be submitted in English using Microsoft Word in soft copy.
The main body of all reports should be written in simple, non-technical
language, with any technical material being presented in annexes. All primary
data collected and analysis conducted for the purpose of the study will remain
the property of Farm Africa and must be submitted electronically and in a clear
and comprehensible.

The consultant will provide the following deliverables
within the timeframe stated:

• Inception Report (including tools): within 2 working days of the
  contract start date. This will include the consultants understanding and
  interpretation of the Terms of Reference (ToR), proposed work plan,
  methodology, assessment tools and indicative list of interviews. The inception
  report will be discussed and agreed upon with the Farm Africa project team
  before the consultant commences the work.
• Revised Inception Report: within 1 working day after receiving
  feedback from Farm Africa. Revised inception report will incorporate
  revisions and recommendations from Farm Africa
• Draft report: following data collection, the consultant should
  submit the first draft of the report to Farm Africa, within 5 working days
  after Farm Africa’s approval of the revised inception report. This report
  should incorporate specific, practical and feasible recommendations on internal
  policies and SoPs that each of the four cooperatives should develop. The
  content and structure of the report shall include but not necessarily
  limited to executive summary, introduction, methodology, findings and
  analysis, and any subsequent recommendations. Any data collection tools
  used should be included as Annexes.
• Capacity Building of Cooperatives: The consultant will build
  capacities of the four cooperatives in developing their internal policies
  and within 8 working days, ensuring that each of the four cooperatives is
  able to develop draft policies and standard operating procedures.
• Final Report: The consultant will submit a final report to Farm
  Africa within 4 working days after completion of developing draft policies
  for each of the cooperatives. This report should follow similar structure
  like the draft report, attaching all the draft policies developed for each
  of the cooperatives as annexes. Farm Africa will provide feedback which
  must be incorporated into the final report. This process will continue
  until Farm Africa is satisfied with the final report.
• Management and Implementation Responsibilities

The consultant will
report directly to the Gender Specialist. However, s/he will also be expected
work closely with the Project Coordinator (PC).

Farm Africa will provide:

• Guidance and technical support as
  required throughout the assessment;
• Copies of all relevant background resources identified;
• A list of cooperatives and cooperative
  members to be engaged by consultant;
• Introductory meetings with
  cooperatives;
• Provide transport from Kanungu to field
  sites.
• Comments and feedback on, and approval
  of, all deliverables within agreed timeline;
• Payment in accordance with the contract.
• Provide the refreshment and transport
  refund for the participants during training
• Provide stationeries, training venue
  and all associated training
  materials

The consultant will be responsible for:

• Developing a detailed methodology;
• Finalising all the data collection
  tools;
• Conducting all data collection,
  analysis and reporting
• Data analysis and reporting in a clear
  and accessible format;
• Capacity building cooperatives to
  develop draft policies and SoPs
• Regular progress reporting to the
  Gender Specialist, including responding to any comments or technical inputs wherever
  reasonable;
• Production of deliverables within the agreed timeline and in accordance
  with quality requirements;
• Transport to/from Kanungu and any
  living/accommodation expenses incurred.

 Farm Africa Evaluation Principles

Farm Africa follows
five basic principles of sound evaluation practice and the consultant is
expected to adhere to these throughout the evaluation process. These are:

·      
Confidentiality
and informed consent – all data collected during the evaluation will be treated
as confidential and cannot be shared outside of Farm Africa. All respondents
must be advised as such and always given the opportunity not to participate, or
to terminate or pause the interview at any time. The purpose of the study
should also be clearly explained before commencing any interviews. Data
collection must conform to Farm Africa’s minimum standards on Informed Consent,
which will be shared with the successful consultant.

·      
Independence
and impartiality – Farm Africa is committed to impartial and objective evaluation
of our projects. All evaluation findings and conclusions must be grounded in evidence.
Researchers are expected to design data collection tools and systems that
mitigate as far as possible against potential sources of bias.

·      
Credibility
– Farm Africa is committed to learning based on credible evidence. The
credibility of evaluations depends on the professional expertise and independence
of evaluators and full transparency in the methods and process followed.
Evaluations should clearly distinguish between findings and recommendations,
with the former clearly supported by sound evidence. Methodologies should be
explained in sufficient detail to allow replication, and evidence of failures
should be reported as well as of successes.

·      
Participation
– the views and experiences of beneficiary households, groups and partners should
form an integral part of all evaluations.

·      
Openness
– To maximise the learning potential of the evaluation process, Farm Africa may
publish full evaluation reports or excerpts from them or may otherwise share
them with interested parties.

Qualifications of Consultant

Essential

•  Extensive experience of farmer
  institutional capacity assessments and capacity building especially on internal policies.

•  Extensive knowledge of relevant cooperative policies and
  standard operating procedures
•  Knowledge & experience in gender
  mainstreaming for cooperatives,
•  Experience conducting similar studies in
  Uganda
•  Understanding of the coffee value chain and
  the dynamics of coffee cooperatives,
•  Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture
  Economics, Agribusiness, Agriculture and Rural Development, or other relevant
  field.
•  Strong analytical, facilitation and
  communication skills
•  Excellent reporting and presentation skills

Desirable

•  Candidates with demonstrable practical experience in Agribusiness development
  and coffee product value addition will be preferred
• Fluency in Rukiga,

Where applicants fail to meet any of the above criteria, for example, fluency
in Rukiga or experience in coffee, gender or farmer institutional development,
the proposal should state how they expect to overcome this e.g. additional team
members, translation services etc. Any proposed changes to the personnel listed
in the application or their respective levels of involvement in the assignment
must be approved by Farm Africa.

Submission of Proposals

Interested
consultants or firms are requested to submit:

• A covering letter detailing how the consultancy team meets the
  required qualifications and competencies
• A full technical proposal detailing their interpretation of the TOR
  including report structure, proposed methodology, and work schedule,
• Copies of all relevant Curriculum Vitae (CVs).
• A sample of report for a similar assignment (this will be treated as
  confidential and only used for the purposes of quality assurance)
• Contact details for two references (including one from your last
  client/employer).
• A full financial proposal, providing a detailed budget breakdown of
  consultancy costs and expenses. Please note consultancy costs provided
  will be subject to WHT.
• Proof of licenses to operate in Uganda (if required). Please attach
  these as annexes to your technical proposal.

All documents must
be submitted by email to our ‘sealed’ email address tenders@farmafrica.org

The Email Subject
Line Should Clearly Indicate the

Email Subject Line
Should Clearly Indicate ‘Bid for Assessment and Capacity Building of
Cooperatives on Internal Policies and Standard Operating Procedures.

Failure to include
any of the above documents could result in disqualification from the selection process.

Selection Process

The selection
procedure by Farm Africa will be a two-stage process consisting of technical
and financial review.

Technical Review:
the technical score will be assessed against the following criteria:

•        
Understanding
of the TOR – 40%

•        
Project
scope (20%)

•        
Scope of
the work (20%)

•        
Methodology
– 20%

•        
Work-plan
and Consultant Responsibilities – 15%

•        
 Consultant(s) qualifications – 15%

•        
Quality
of sample report submitted – 10%

Financial Review:
Only technical scores of higher than 70% will be assessed at the financial
stage.

The financial
proposal will be scored in the following way:

• Total Price (Proximity to Farm Africa’s expected cost) – 50%
• Accuracy of Pricing – 50%

•        
Accurate
reflection of the technical proposal – 18%

•        
Reasonableness
of unit costs (including day rates) – 16%

•        
Reasonableness
of number of units (including number of days)– 16%

Overall Score: once
the financial proposals have been assessed, the technical and financial scores will
be combined into a final score in accordance with the following weights:

• Technical Score (70%)
• Financial Score (30%)

It is intended that
the successful applicant will be notified by 13th December 2019.

Deadline: Sunday 8th December 2019 at 6.00PM EAT.

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