Terms of Reference (TOR) for a Consultant or a Consulting firm to develop new project proposals

Terms of Reference (TOR) for a Consultant or a Consulting firm to develop new project proposals

1. Background Information

Nepal’s agriculture shows weak growth rates with low productivity. Marketed volumes of fruit and vegetables are low and farmers have limited access to agricultural technologies. Postharvest losses of fruit and vegetables are high in specific commodities, with rates slightly higher for fruit than for vegetables. This leads to lower returns through revenue foregone, as well as higher costs of transportation and marketing. The postharvest losses start from farmers’ field with use of inputs/ nutrients, harvesting time, the harvesting methods, rough handling, exposure to sun and rain, and poor packaging and transportation. In this backdrop, Value Chain Development of Fruit and Vegetables Project (VCDP)-a joint initiative of Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) with the support from Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was initiated in June 2018. The project aims to increase income of 10,000 smallholder farmers of 37 rural/municipalities aside BP highway and Prithvi highway extending to Syangja and Hetauda - Dumkibas section of the East-West highway. The project has three major outcome areas (i) improve agricultural productivity through increased capacity of government agencies and better access to production technologies by farmers, (ii) reduce postharvest losses of selected fruit and vegetables by postharvest technology development, and (iii) better market linkages at local level. 

VCDP has partnered with the Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) for postharvest management technology development and upscaling while local governments and cooperatives for the delivery of project interventions on the ground. Further, it has extended partnership with different academic institutions for educational research and extension support while with Agriculture Information and Training Centre (AITC) to generate and manage knowledge products. Likewise, the partnership with FM radio for the effective delivery of extension services. 

By end of December 2022, a total of 12,596 farmers (58% female, 51% from minority groups), benefited for the project on optimal farm practices; provision of quality inputs, services, technology; and had access to better market facility. This has contributed to increase vegetable yield (>20%), reduced postharvest losses (>4%p) and increase marketable volume (>30%). While achieve these outcomes and tangible results, project has established several milestones and generated numerous learnings. 

2. Rational of the Consultancy Services

To capitalize those success cases and lessons learnt from successful implementation of the VCDP, the project executive board including MoALD, UNDP and KOICA have decided to extend project period for six months (June 2023-with no cost extension) and conceptualize follow-on projects to scale-up the innovations of the project and serve larger beneficiaries across the agricultural value chain. The envisioned projects will capacitate the value chain actors and enablers with the understanding and skills to lessen the constraints remove barriers for growth potential of agricultural value chain development and achieve greater social, and economic performance of the actors. By focusing at national, sub-national and local levels, the project aims to capacitate the local government and service providers to bring/offer sustainable solutions for young female and male farmers to enhance resilience and economic growth.    

In this regard, two national consultants are being sought to develop two project proposals under the scope of Government of Nepal and UNDP focusing on VCDP’s best learning, youth in agriculture and sectoral digitalisation.  

3. Consultancy services and responsibilities

With the aim to develop new project proposal and associated documentation) that contributes directly on the Nepal Government priority on agriculture sector and align with the UNDP country program document as well as KOICA’s country strategic document. The outcome will be a longer-term, evidence-based, and effective project that can lead to more sustained outcome-level results on the basis of tangible results and lessons learnt from VCDP, focusing to youth in agriculture and digitalisation of the sector., VCDP is hiring a consultant or consulting firm with following specific responsibilities. 

Key responsibilities of the consultant: 

• Desk review: conduct desk review and consultation with project stakeholders and partners that assess existing project document, implementation approaches, theory of change, achieved results, identifies strengths and areas of improvement, document lessons learned. This should conclude with producing a learning synthesis document that highlights the scaling-up opportunity for upgrading the agricultural value chain development,   
• Collection, analyse, and synthesis of data: collect necessary data (primary and secondary), policy evidence, programs, and provisions at national, sub-national and local level to analyze the existing gaps and opportunity for upgrading the value chain with focus on youths, returnee migrants, market driven supply chain, a unique commercial relationship with value chain actors, digitalization of the service and market systems, product certification, capacity building of actors and enablers. This should conclude with producing an evidence-based context analysis / gap analysis / pre-feasibility assessment report for new agricultural value chain development project,   
• Prepare project proposal/ document: assist in designing the project document (with pre-feasibility assessment document) on self-sustaining resilient agricultural value chain development (shall be based on ideas mentioned above) that directly contributes the government priority and align with the potential funding windows of development partners including KOICA. The project document should include, not limited to,
  • Executive summary (brief rationale, objectives, key results, main activities, methodology, target groups, final beneficiaries, total project duration, total budget)
  • Development context and challenges
  • Description of the project (Theory of change, objectives, GESI analysis, detailed results at outcome and output levels with performance indicators, project location description, key risk and assumptions with management strategies, key activities, project implementation mechanisms, 
  • Relevance of the proposed project to the federalization context; national priority and strategies as stated in ADS, NAP, Periodic Plan and so on; to SDGs and the specific priorities of the UNDP and KOICA  
  • Theory of change and result framework (or logical framework or results chain) including impact and outcome statements, key performance indicators (KPIs) with baseline and targets, data sources, key assumptions, and critical risk, 
  • Strong monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) plan including activities, methods, detailed plan of action, budget, risk . The MEL plan should be included clear quantitative and qualitative results framework including the measurement of behavioural and institutional change performance and considers GESI sensitivity (Gendered Budgeting). This requires the setting of targets, milestones towards those targets from the baseline. Sources for evidence (data), frequency of data to be collected, should be included. The MEL framework should comply with the OECD-DAC framework
  • Governance and management arrangements (project executive board, project management unit structure, project implementation plan (activities, milestones, responsible parties), project costing
  • Cross cutting issues consideration (including GESI, Climate Change, Human rights) and added value elements, 
  • Strategies – how the project addresses the development challenge, capacity development, coordination, cooperation and collaboration, strategic partnership, ownership by all three government levels and stakeholders, stakeholder identification and mapping, 
• Stakeholder consultation: initiate /participate consultation meetings (in multiple numbers) with project team, government counterpart, UNDP, KOICA, development partners, other relevant national and international agencies, stakeholders’ organizations, for conceptualization of project idea, validation of ideas, verification of information/facts and further evidence generation, 
• Reporting: provide regular progress updates via email, skype or other means, to NPM during the review, assessment, and proposal development stages,  

4. Duration of work 

The duration of the consultancy will be 35 persons days spread over 70 days. The consultant will start working from mid-February until end of 25th of April 2023. Final proposal is to be submitted no later than 25 April 2023. Proposed tasks to be accomplished within the time frame for the assignments are as follows:

5. Key deliverables and milestone

The consultant shall submit the following deliverables with the timeline stated in table 1 below. 

Table 1: Key deliverables and milestone 

6. Institutional arrangements and reporting

The incumbent will closely work with the Value Chain and Marketing Specialist for day-to-day activities and directly report to the National Project Manager in every deadline via email on the progress of the work, any challenges being encountered, or risks foreseen, proposed or taken mitigation measures, and where project support may be required. The consultant will hand over all primary data and the report provided to project at the end of the service.

7. Required professional competences and qualification of the consultants or firm

The consultants should have following qualifications and competencies: 

Education:

• Advanced degree (Master) in agricultural science, preferably PhD, in agricultural economics, agriculture extension, horticulture or related field,  

Experience:

• At least 10 years of professional experience in agriculture project design- at least two wining project design and implementation support, 
• Proven practical experience in project design on/related to horticulture value chain in Nepal is required, 
• Familiarity with governance and policy structure and institutions in Nepal is required,
• Proven practical experience on developing theory of change, result chains, key performance indicator development in field of agriculture is required
• Experience in working with major actors or enablers of the agriculture value chain, could be in extension, research, education system, or aid/development agencies. 
• Experience with UNDP or UN agencies would be considered as advantage
• Familiarity with GESI, Youth, ICT and Climate Change is an asset
• Very good command on both English and Nepali language in speaking and writing, 
• Experiences of carrying out similar kinds of studies independently 

Competencies 

• Ability to work in close collaboration with a group of national and international experts, to meet strict deadlines and manage the competing priorities
• Excellent analytical skills and ability to develop strategies based on systematic analysis of challenges, potential risks and opportunities, linking the vision to the workable solutions. 
• Strong understanding of the National (and regional too) agricultural economy, governance challenges, ability to forge multi-stakeholder partnership and experience working to address them, 
• Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with work effectively under pressure and manage competing priorities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication and interpersonal communication skills to build rapport with stakeholders,  
• Ability to use information and communication technologies as tools and resources

8. Budget and payment schedule

The consultancy fee is based on expertise and experience. The interested consultant or firm should propose all costs covering consultants’ fees, DSA (for food and accommodation during field work), transportation expenses, and other recurrent expenses occur during the assignment. The firm/consultant shall quote such transportation cost in the financial proposal. It will be the consultant or firm’s responsibility to ensure consultant/enumerators’ full insurance coverage during the assignment period. 

The consultant or firm should be PAN/VAT registered. In case of VAT registered, recent tax clearance certificate should be submitted along with application document. All applicable taxes will be deducted at source. The payment will be made in the following installments upon completion of the tasks and approval of deliverables by the project:  

• Deliverable 1 - 30%
• Deliverable 2 - 30%
• Deliverable 3 - 40%

9. Evaluation process 

All applicants will be screened against educational qualifications, experience, and competencies set above and the financial quote in the proposal. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation. The contract will be awarded to the candidate evaluated and determined as technically competent to the requirements of the ToR and receiving the highest cumulative (technical and financial) score. 

• Technical Criteria- 70% of total evaluation- max. 70 points
• Financial Criteria- 30% of total evaluation- max. 30 points.

10. How to apply

Interested and eligible candidates are requested to submit application via email at info@vcdp.org.np with following documents no later than 8 Feb 2023; 

• Updated CV highlighting the relevant competency and experience as deemed by this TOR. The CV shall include education/qualification, professional certification, employment/assignment record and contact information of minimum three relevant referees,  
• A brief technical proposal including understanding of TOR and proposed methodology to accomplish the deliverable and tentative workplan with timelines,
• Detailed financial proposal for the assignment. 
• Recent tax clearance certificate if the consultant is registered in VAT
• Copy of PAN and citizenship certificate
• Incomplete applications will not be considered.