Terms of Reference

Institutionalization of the multisector Food System Platforms in Rubavu and Rusizi cities through anchoring them in a city/district by-law
Background

The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) is a world-leading institute in global health with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries. Associated with the University of Basel, Swiss TPH combines research, education and services at local, national and international levels. Staffs at Swiss TPH focus on infectious and non- ommunicable diseases, environment, society and health as well as health systems and interventions. Building on three pillars – research, education and services – we generate measurable outputs and create lasting impact for people and communities worldwide. Through our unique approach from innovation and validation to application, we translate research into action, help strengthen health systems and shape health policy.

With our research projects and health services, Swiss TPH contributes to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Swiss TPH was founded in 1943 and is based in Basel, Switzerland. It is an associated institute of the University of Basel. The five departments of Swiss TPH work across three fields – research, services and education and training – to improve health globally.

Context

About multisector, multi-stakeholder food system platforms

Nearly 690 million people suffer from hunger at the beginning of the 2020. Similarly, 144 million children are currently stunted and 2 billion people do not have regular access to sufficient safe and nutritious food worldwide. Also, only nine plant species and five animal species provide more than ⅔ of all human food and (city) food systems are often overusing fertilizers, excessively using antibiotics for animal growth and producing a huge amount of human waste. Listing only a few shortcomings of current (city) food systems, the need for radical transformation of today’s food systems to address urgent challenges of food security and nutrition is obvious. However, food system transformation cannot be addressed by one sector alone. Collaboration between agriculture, nutrition, health, but also planning, education and other sectors including civil society and the private sector is key for sustainable food systems transformation. Urban food systems governance should thus bring together issues of human nutrition and health, food systems resilience, environmental sustainability, inclusiveness, job creation, and urban development, to name just a few.

Despite major developments spearheaded by visionary local leaders and communities, many local governments still continue to face major challenges in integrating food security, nutrition and sustainable food systems in their agenda. These challenges include for example, but not limited to, weak coordination mechanisms among stakeholders acting in food systems, lack of relevant institutional leadership, and lack of monitoring systems, or lack of articulation on nutrition outcomes in relevant urban policies and strategies. Case studies highlight the tremendous value and power of participatory approaches and involvement of civil society and private sector actors in governance processes. For instance, the discussions between municipal government and informal food sector associations, has been proven to be the important first step for designing actions to improve livelihoods and jobs, reduce poverty and improve food security for a large segment of the urban population.

It is within this context that Rubavu’s and Rusizi’s multisectoral, multi-stakeholder food system platforms have been established in April 2022 in close collaboration between the Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) project (see below) and the respective Joint Action for Development Fora (JADF). The objective of the multisectoral food systems platforms is to strengthen coordination and planning among the nutrition and health service providers and their respective suppliers as well as any other stakeholders in the food system for ensuring affordable, safe, local, diverse, nutritious, and agroecologically produced diets for the whole city population, including the most deprived / unprivileged ones. Specifically, the food system platforms aim to:

• Play the convener role, bringing together people from various sectors to work collaboratively on projects and providing a forum for learning about different sectors.

• Serve as a community voice by building community capacity to advocate for greater equity in the food system.

• Support governments in food system related topics with its technical expertise.

• Provide an overarching perspective on a complicated system.

With, among others, the following key tasks and acitivities:

1. To improve food systems planning, budgeting and service delivery including coordination and advocacy support through strong multisectoral collaboration and information sharing

2. To update all food systems stakeholders on challenges, achievements and benefits of a sector and to facilitate information sharing through joint, multisectoral situational analyses and regular meetings

3. To identify core advocacy concerns, including resource requirements, and to develop key messages for broader advocacy initiatives

4. To ensure an efficient and effective food systems information system is in place to inform decision making by discussing sectoral achievements, challenges, and status of previous challenges as well as actions undertaken in each regular meeting

5. To share lessons learnt and to jointly document best practices to improve quality and effective coverage of nutrition and food systems interventions in urban contexts

6. To coordinate sector training plans and training packages by agreeing on a joint focus to ensure integrative multisectoral perspectives and addressing of urban needs. To accept other sector’s training certificates and packages.

Since the food system platforms were established in Rubavu and Rusizi in April 2022, quarterly meetings with circa 20 members each have been recurrently happening. Executive committees of the platforms have been elected and vision and mission of the platforms discussed and strengthened. Additionally, two capacity-building workshops were organized for the platform members to enhance their understanding of the food system and respective monitoring and evaluation allowing to advocate for food system specific indicators included in the different action plans (at district and sector level). Food systems capacity has then also been transferred to sector level by a food systems awareness raising campaign conducted by food system platform members in June 2023. Furthermore, in November 2022, the members of the platforms also elaborated a joint workplan for the rest of the fiscal year 2022/2023, and similarly, a fiscal year 2023/2024 joint activity plan is also currently under development for the new fiscal year.

About the Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) project

The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation’s (SDC) Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) project connects the demand and supply side of food systems, engages women and youth - including through social business models - and builds local governance capacity initially in two secondary cities each in Bangladesh, Kenya and Rwanda. Emphasis is placed on increasing the production and demand for local, diverse, agroecologically produced foods, and on making food value chains more nutrition-focused so they contribute to better health. Multi-stakeholder and multisectoral collaboration bring together city authorities, local businesses and civil society and create a dynamic network of city learning hubs for dissemination and scale up.

Tasks to be performed by the contractor

Rubavu’s and Rusizi’s food systems platforms are regularly convening with local executive committees since April 2022. Food system platforms members and especially respective platform executive committees are continuously increasing ownership and guidance for the platforms. The two food systems platforms in Rubavu and Rusizi even meet/met for a joint peer-learning and experience exchange on 01/02 Sep 2023 to discuss the platforms’ priorities, internal processes and rules, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats recorded in respective platform roadmaps (drafts). A broad assessment about functionality in the early phase of the established, regularly convened platforms as well as the enabling and disabling factors for active platform engagement revealed that the platforms are not yet well known and respective work honoured by seniors and a at the national level, deprioritizing multisectorially agreed food system priority activities and making respective advocacy difficult.

The contractor of this consultancy is thus responsible for providing the following services:

• Increasing recognition and acknowledgement of the new multisector multi-stakeholder food systems platforms in Rubavu and Rusizi at the national government level through advocacy in order to improve honorarium of time invested into the food systems platforms at senior level as joint collaboration is often more than the sum of only its parts and multisectoral collaboration absolutely needed for sustainable food systems transformation.

• Anchoring of the newly established platforms in a respective local government approved by-law at district level regulating vision, mission and organization structure (internal regulations, standards, rules of collaboration, roles, financing of secretary etc.) of the platform (=institutionalization of the platform).

Concept

The consultant will work in an iterative manner with the project consortium; namely the local project team (project manager and local food systems governance coordinator) will be updated on a bi-weekly base.

The specific Scope of Work and Milestones/process steps/partial services for this Consultancy include:

The project manager and/or the local food systems governance coordinator will make the necessary introductions of the consultant to relevant district government directorates and key stakeholders at district level (incl. the food system platform members).

The local food systems governance coordinator provides the overall supervision of the consultancy.

The project manager and the local food systems governance coordinator support the consultant on the intersection between institutionalization and any other NICE project activities.

The local project manager, the local food systems governance coordinator, and the NICE’s global Outcome 1 lead approve inception and final report of the consultancy.

Deliverables

• Short minutes of bi-weekly updates to/with local NICE project manager and local food systems governance coordinator

• Inception report, including pathway/roadmap for local-government approval of respective food systems platform by-law and pathway/roadmap for recognition and acknowledgement of the food systems platforms in Rubavu and Rusizi at the national and local government level

• Drafted platform by-law build around platforms’ current roadmap and anchoring existing vision, mission and organization structure (internal regulations, standards, rules of collaboration, roles, financing of secretary etc.) after respective adaptation, if needed

• Workshop with the food system platforms and respective senior-level representatives on the drafted platform by-law for validation purposes

• National-level workshop(s) to increase recognition and acknowledgement of Rubavu’s and Rusizi’s food systems platforms at national-level

• Short 1-page minutes of all meetings with respective national and local government stakeholders advocating for the national recognition of multisectoral, multi-stakeholder food system platforms in Rubavu and Rusizi and their institutionalization at district-level

• Final, platform-validated platform by-law

• Final report (max. 20 pages) documenting platform recognition at national-level and steps undertaken to achieve this recognition as well as induction of the local government approval process for the food systems platform by-law explaining upcoming next expected steps and respective recommendations to conduct them

Minimum requirements

1. Demonstrated previous experiences and understanding in institutionalizing processes at local governments;

2. At least, 10-years’ experience in understanding and working with governments at national and district level; working experience with the local governments in Rubavu and Rusizi is an asset

3. Strong experience and capacity to work in an interdisciplinary, multisectoral, multi-stakeholder environment

4. Strong interpersonal, communication, managerial and advocacy skills

5. Previous experience working in local administration, private sector, civil society related to sustainable development or urban development in the target city is an advantage;

6. Willingness to work closely with District Government of Rubavu and Rusizi and relevant stakeholders;

7. Fluency in English and Kinyarwanda

Duration of the assignment

The period of the assignment is expected to last from 01^st October 2023 to 30^th April 2024 and shall cover 30-35 working days in total for the whole assignment.

Administration and logistical arrangements

The consultant will report directly to NICE’s local food systems governance coordinator at Swiss TPH Kigali office with regular updates (monthly base) to also the NICE project manager at Sight and Life Kigali office.

All necessary logistical arrangements to the field including transport and accommodation will be covered by the consultant, hence these costs should be included in their financial proposal.

A first instalment for this consultancy of one third of the agreed costs will be made upon contract signature, while a second intermitted instalment will be paid upon delivery of drafted high-quality platform by-laws end of January 2024 while the remaining third of the payment will be made upon successful deposition of the final report.

Requirements

Applications must be sent to Swiss TPH via edith.uwimanzi@swisstph.ch no later than 23^rd September 2023 at 5PM.

The application file should include:

• Motivation letter and updated CV.

• Three professional references with full names, phone number and email address.

• Well written technical proposal (10 pages maximum) including your experience in similar assignments, understanding of the current assignment, how you plan to carry out the assignment/methodology.

• Proof of completion of similar assignments within the last 5 years.

• Financial proposal indicating daily consultancy rate including applicable taxes;

Selection criteria: Applications will be assessed on cost reasonableness (30%) and technical competence (70%).

Interviews with the short-listed applicants are expected for first half of October 2023.

Swiss TPH is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law, and requires affirmative action to ensure equality of opportunity in all aspects of employment and consultancies.

Note: Only applicants fulfilling the above requirements will be contacted. If you don’t hear from us within two weeks from the submission deadline, kindly consider your application unsuccessful.