REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department (AHAI) Rue Joseph Anoma, 01 BP 1387 Abidjan 01, Cote d’Ivoire

E-mail : [email protected] & [email protected]

INDIVIDUAL CONSULTANCY

SENIOR POLICY CONSULTANT- AGRICULTURE & FOOD SYSTEMS

 

 

 

Brief Description of the Assignment :

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is seeking the services of a Senior Policy Consultant on Agriculture & Food Systems to provide strategic technical support in policy design/development, implementation, analysis and evaluation to facilitate an enabling environment for the successful implementation of the Feed Africa strategy.

The broad objective of the assignment is for the individual consultant to coordinate the Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the Feed Africa Strategy, support the implementation and provide oversight functions on the Feed Africa Scorecard Assignment, support the coordination of the implementation of the Leadership for Agriculture Platform (L4AG), provide technical support to the study for the establishment of an Agribusiness Bank in The Gambia, Provide Policy and Strategic Support to the implementation of the Bank’s SAPZs (Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones) and coordinate the review and analysis of the impact of National and Regional Agriculture and Food Systems Policies in the Selected 10 Regional Member Countries (RMCs) —Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Mauritania, Mozambique, Guinea Conakry, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Department Issuing the Request : Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department — AHAI

Place of Assignment : The Consultant will be based at the Bank’s Headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for the duration of the contract.

Duration of the Assignment : 12 months

Tentative Date of Commencement : 22 March 2021

Detailed Terms of Reference for the Assignment : [TORs below]

Deadline for Applications : 07 February 2021

Applications to be submitted to : Mr. Johm Ken ([email protected]) & Ms. Dorra Ben Nirane ([email protected]).

ANNEX I

Terms of Reference for a Senior Agriculture & Food Policy Consultant

  1. Introduction :

The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group wishes to recruit the services of an individual consultant to Coordinate the Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the Feed Africa Strategy, support the implementation and provide oversight functions on the Feed Africa Scorecard project, support the coordination of the implementation of the Leadership for Agriculture Platform (L4AG), provide technical support to the study for the establishment of an Agribusiness Bank in The Gambia, Provide Policy and Strategic Support to the implementation of the Bank’s SAPZs (Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones) and coordinate the review and analysis of the impact of National and Regional Agriculture and Food Systems Policies in the Selected 10 Regional Member Countries (RMCs) —Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Mauritania, Mozambique, Guinea Conakry, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

  1. Background :

The African Development Bank, through its Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department (AHAI) and Agricultural Finance and Rural Development Department (AHFR), provides support for the delivery of the Feed Africa Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa (2016-2025). This Strategy aims to end hunger and rural poverty in the next decade through self-sufficiency and export leadership in 18 priority commodity value chains specific to the continent’s agro-ecological zones. Realizing the objectives set forth in the strategy requires a public sector enabled and private sector driven approach to increase productivity; value additions; increase financing, investment in infrastructure as well as promote an enabling agribusiness environment and increased capital flows for inclusive and sustainable food and nutrition security.

The Bank wishes to recruit the services of an individual consultant to support its work in the following areas:

Coordinate the Mid-Term Review of the Feed Africa Strategy :

On May 2016, the Board of Directors approved the Bank’s Feed Africa Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa (2016-2025). The strategy aims to support the four specific goals of Africa’s Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) viz.:

  • Contribute to eliminating extreme poverty in Africa by 2025 ;
  • End hunger and malnutrition in Africa by 2025 ;
  • Make Africa a net food exporter; and
  • Move Africa to the top of export-orientated global value chains where it has comparative advantage.

This year — 2021 is the year the Bank is scheduled to undertake a Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the Feed Africa Strategy (2016-2025). The MTR aims to assess the mid-term progress of the implementation of the strategy and to draw lessons therefrom to guide continued implementation of the strategy and Bank Group-financed operations over the remaining period.

In general, the senior consultant is expected to oversee the overall Mid-Term review process of the strategy and assist in the development and formulation of the MTR Report Recommendations. The work will entail taking the key outcomes and achievements made during the 1st five years; it will also involve crafting a clear road map and specifying the critical paths and potential cost implications towards achieving significant gains within the next remaining 5 years of the strategy to ensure transformative changes in African Agriculture and Food sector.

Coordinate the Implementation of the New Leadership for Agriculture (L4AG):

Since 2017, the African Development Bank’s Leadership for Agriculture Platform or L4AG, has brought high level and influential government and private sector leaders together for critical policy dialogue, advocacy and policy formulation to strengthen Africa’s agriculture sector. The L4AG Platform has been recently re-designed to be more effective, with additional focus on change champions and priority themes. The new L4AG will support African agriculture transformation through peer-to-peer learning. The idea is to help the Bank’s Regional Member Countries (RMCs) leapfrog to strong growth in agricultural transformation based on lessons learned from, and best practices by other countries.

The consultant is expected to work with RMCs and the private sector to broaden their awareness on critical policy issues that affect business and farm production; support RMCs’ policy reform efforts to enable efficient technology transfer along the Agriculture Value Chains; strengthen the Bank’s capacity on policy development, implementation, and evaluation surrounding the promotion of Feed Africa’s 18 priority commodity value chains; and improve the Bank’s existing skillset in policy analysis and evaluation to ensure that it can advise RMCs, RECs and other bodies on key levers within the overall policy matrix critical to driving agricultural transformation in Africa.

Coordinate the Review of Agricultural and Food Systems Policies and Assessment of their Impact in Regional Member Countries (RMCs).

The Bank is currently leading agriculture and food systems policy analysis and evaluation effort in selected 10 countries (Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, Mauritania, Mozambique, Guinea Conakry, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, and DRC). The broad objective of this effort is to review, assess, analyse, synthesis and integrate various sectoral and macroeconomics policies, laws and regulation impacting the agricultural sector using a team of agriculture policy consultants. The review also includes assessment and documentation of their achievements, success factors, constraints or hurdles into a comprehensive, harmonized, consistent and coherent policy review document that can be used as a sourcebook to provide guidance in policy incentives to grow the agricultural sectors of the RMCs.

The consultant is expected to evaluate and validate draft reports from policy consultants on implementation and impact of national agricultural development plans and policies. The consultant will oversee the process and ensure it meets the original goals of the agricultural policy analysis. In writing, integrating and editing the review reports, the consultant is required to communicate in language that can be well-understood by a general audience. The consultant will be required to demonstrate through his or her writing an understanding of the successes and failures of the national and regional agricultural development strategy implementation, policy reforms and what needed to be done differently to achieve the broad vision of the agricultural development or transformation in RMCs. The final product will be a well-reviewed assessment of the current national agricultural development policy accomplishments, impacts and gaps ready to support and guide policy dialogues, Country Strategy Papers (CSPs) and negotiations with policymakers at the RMCs.

  1. Objective of the Assignment :

The specific objectives / Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Consultant are :

Coordinate the Mid-term Review of the Feed Africa Strategy : 

  1. Develop a TOR for the MTR of Feed Africa Strategy ;
  2. Recruit a group of consultants to work on the MTR by taking a full stock of all existing PARs of the strategy and review the implementation to draw a useful lesson on what has worked and what has not worked as possible opportunities to the transformation strategy ;
  3. Recommend a communication strategy for the MTR of the Feed Africa strategy to Management, Board & Stakeholders ;
  4. Develop knowledge products on the impact of the Feed Africa Strategy for publication in the Refereed Journals; and
  5. Carry any other assignments as may be directed by the President, Vice-President AHVP, and Directors of AHAI and AHFR on the MTR.

Support the Coordination of the New Leadership for Agriculture Platform : 

  1. Review the Concept Note (CN) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for the New L4AG meeting at the Bank’s Annual Meetings in May 2020 ;
  1. Review Activities of the New L4AG in 2019 and make recommendations on pending activities of the platform to the Management; and
  1. Organize an in-house training for senior Government officials in selected RMCs on policies for Agricultural Transformation

Coordinate the Study for the establishment of an Agribusiness Bank in The Gambia :

  1. Review the workplan and budget for the study for an establishment of an Agribusiness Bank in The Gambia ;
  2. Review the terms of reference and shortlist for the study ;
  3. Review the evaluation report for the recruitment of an internal consulting firm ;
  4. Review the inception report, final draft of the study ;
  5. Participate in the consultation / validation workshops, where feasible.

Coordinate the Finalization of the National Policy Review and Assessment in the Selected 10 RMCs :

  1. Produce knowledge products from the completed studies in in the selected RMCs (Nigeria & Senegal) for publication in peer referred journals ;
  2. Engage with the TAAT policy compact to complete the remaining National policy studies in the remaining selected RMCs (Uganda, Mauritania, Mozambique, Guinea Conakry, Tanzania, Zambia, Ghana, and DRC); and
  3. Explore and engage with the Governance Department of the Bank on the preparation of policy-based operations to implement policy recommendations from the 10 countries.

Carry out any other activities directly related to these assignments.

 

  1. Qualification and Experience :  
  • The consultant should have at least a Master’s Degree in agricultural development policy, agricultural economics and rural development, economics, and regional economics with a considerable knowledge in the areas of Agriculture & Food System Policy analysis and development ;
  • The candidate must have at least 20 years’ experience working in his/her area of specialty ;
  • The candidate should have the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with different levels of government officials, private sector agencies and relevant stakeholders
  • The consultant should have had previous experience working with multi-lateral development institutions in implementing donor funded projects with a sound understanding of development projects ;
  • Proven capability, capacity and experience in crafting high level policy review documents, reports and book projects written within a development and research and economic policy institutions and organization or university ;
  • Working experience within multicultural teams and international organizations or companies and highly knowledgeable of Africa’s social, agricultural and rural development and economic development issues, questions and challenges ;
  • Ability to synthesize, weave and link complex propositions, theories and model outputs into a coherent message and document that can be published as a sourcebook to guide policy dialogue, negotiation and advocacy missions to RMCs ;
  • The consultant must have extensive knowledge and practical experience in working in African development space ;
  • The consultant must be conversant with the Bank’s project cycle activities ;
  • The candidate must be computer literate ;
  • The incumbent candidate should have excellent communication skills and be proficient in both written and spoken English ;
  • The consultant must be sound and proficient in the use of statistical, econometrics and mathematical programming models in agricultural and food policy analysis, evaluation and assessment.
  1. Duration of Assignment : 

The duration of the assignment will be 12 months, commencing on 22nd March 2021.

  1. Location :

The Consultant will be based at the Bank’s Headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for the duration of the contract.

  1. Schedule of Payment :

The recruited Consultant shall be remunerated based on AfDB’s remuneration guideline for consultants that depends on number of years of experience and availability of resources.

  1. Selection Method :

The individual Consultant shall be selected using the Consultant Qualification (CQ) through the provision of his/her Curriculum Vitae (CV).

  1. Reporting Requirements :

The Consultant will report to the Director of the Agriculture and Agro-Industries Department (AHAI). He or she will be directly supervised by the Lead Adviser on Special Initiatives (AHAI.0).

 

MODEL CURRICULUM VITAE – AFDB BAD PDF