Assignment Title: Business Development Services in implementation of the Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) project
Assignment Locations: Rubavu and Rusizi
Duration: 12 months
Intended dates: August_2022- July 2023
Assignment manager: Straton HABUMUGISHA

Context
The Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE project is aligned with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)’s Global Food Security Programme (GFSP). The Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) project aims to improve nutrition and health, and to reduce poverty by increasing the demand and supply of local, diverse, agro-ecological foods. NICE project ensures a strong focus on women, youth and vulnerable population groups in Rwanda.
Sight and Life Rwanda is an implementing partner of Sight and Life Foundation (Basel-Switzerland), a Swiss based humanitarian and non-profit organization. Sight and Life is a nutrition think tank organization that aims to deliver innovative solutions to eliminate all forms of malnutrition in children and women of childbearing age. Sight and Life was mandated to lead the implementation of the NICE project in Rwanda.

Implementation framework
NICE project is implemented by Swiss consortium consisting of the Swiss Tropical- and Public Health-Institute (Swiss TPH) with expertise in nutrition, public health and governance; Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH), with expertise in agro-ecology, evidence and policy; Sight and Life with its expertise in nutrition, behaviour change communication and advocacy, and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA) with expertise in agriculture, agribusiness, value chains and markets.
The Syngenta foundation for Sustainable Agriculture is leading the implementation of the outcome 2 of the NICE project on the supply of the agro-ecological foods.
Project results on food products supply
City populations enjoy the enhanced availability and production of affordable, healthy, diverse, agro-ecologically produced local foods.

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To achieve outcome 2, three outputs will be pursued:
1. Better knowledge about farming systems and value chains through agro-ecological projects.
2. More urban and peri-urban women and youth are engaged in production and post-harvest value-added activities (e.g. sorting, processing, packaging, grading, selling).
3. Access to output markets is increased.
Under this ToR, the service provider will be responding to the project needs from Outcome 2.

Summary of the assignment
This assignment is to support the implementation of the NICE project in Rwanda setting up 6 Network managers (NM) and 50 farmers’ hubs (FH) (25 from Rubavu and 25 from Rusizi districts in the Western Province in Rwanda).
The business development service provider will also ensure supporting FH and other value chains actors’ beneficiary of the project in improvement of the business performance.
Objectives and specific technical tasks of the assignment

The objectives of this ToR are to support the implementation of the activities under outcome 2 of the NICE project and to provide Business Development Services (BDS) to the project beneficiaries. This ToR is seeking for proposal and a comprehensive methodology in the implementation of the processes to set up of Network managers & farmer hubs in Rubavu and Rusizi Districts.
The setup of the hubs and hub managers, as well as the provision of BDS services will be done in accordance with the findings of a situational analysis and value chain analysis. Optimal hub locations, interventions and/ or capacity building and strengthening of the Farmers’ hubs will target to achieve profitable and sustainable rural agri-entrepreneurs within the larger business operational environment. An empowered Farmers’ hub will be expected to have in place a functional business plan and efficient organization management.

The Farmers’ hub should be able to access financial services, information, markets, and partners to collaborate with. The interventions should be able to equip the Farmers’ hubs with relevant knowledge and skills that will enhance efficient and effective means of service delivery to the small holder farmers to meet the farmers capacity needs, inputs, and output markets. For effective monitoring of the business performances, the Farmers’ hubs will be expected to adopt the use of E-hub data platform and gradually transit from the conventional manual record keeping to the electronic system.

# Activity/ Deliverable Description of the activity/ Deliverable Due time
1 Orientation meeting Meeting with NICE project team to get an overview of the assignment August 2022
2 Desk review Review the existing key documents including but not limited to:
• NICE project document
• Value chains selection report
• Value chains analyis report
• Farmers survey report
• SFSA common operating systems guidelines (COS) August 2022

2: Activity 2- Establishment of hubs
2.1 Recruitment of the network manager 3 network managers recruited per ,city/district September 2022
2.2 Recruitment of the farmers’ hubs 50 FHs set up and operational (25 FH per each city/district) September 2022
2.3 Farmers recruitment 10,000 farmers recruited (200 per hub)
Consideration of women and youth representation. October 2022
3. Needs assessments and definition of interventions
3.1 Identifications of needs and definitions of interventions
• Capacity assessment for network managers (NM) and farmers hubs (FH).
• Development of BDS approach, training/coaching ,modules, templates and plan September 2022

4: Trainings on BDS
4.1 Trainings of the network managers 2 centralized trainings for NM October 2022
4.2 Training for the FH 2 centralized trainings for the farmer hubs October 2022
5: Mentorship and coaching of network managers and farmer hubs
5.1 Mentorship and coaching of network managers 2 active network managers per each city/ district
• Hubs per network manager: at least 20 hubs.
• Monthly sales per network manager: at least Rwf 2,000,000
• Annual gross sales per network manager: at least Rwf 12,000,000
• Net profit per network manager: 10% November 2022-July 2023

5.2 Mentorship and coaching of farmer hubs 50 active farmer hubs
• Farmers: at least 10,000 farmers on boarded by FHs & NM
• Monthly sales per farmer hub: at least Rwf 400,000
• Annual gross sales per farmer hub: at least Rwf 2,400,000
• Net profit per farmer hub: 10% November 2022-July 2023

6 B2B Linkages
• Value of financial linkages achieved for NMs and FHs
• NMs and FHs offering agricultural /mechanization services to farmers
• Value of products sold to commercial market through NMs and FHs
• Value of products sold through public procurement through NMs and FHs
• Linkages to public sector players November 2022-July 2023
7 Report
7.1 Technical report Quarterly technical report Quarterly
7.2 Financial report Quarterly financial report Quarterly

Administration and logistical arrangements
The service provider will report to the NICE project manager in closely with the FH development staff and city coordinators, with remote collaboration with SFSA. All necessary logistical arrangements to the field including transport and accommodation shall be as per the approved activity budget submitted to Sight and Life Rwanda by the BDS service provider.

Requirements
The service provider is required to respond to the TOR with both technical and financial proposal of not more than 10 pages detailing how the activities will be carried out, methodology and schedule of activities/ work plan.
Previous relevant experience and CVs for the team leader and members assigned for this assignment should also be submitted.

Application instructions
Qualified bidders are requested to submit their applications to SAL_Rwanda@sightandlife.org with the subject line: Application for Business Development Services (BDS) Provider not later than August 11th at 6.00 PM Kigali time
Please note that only short-listed bidders will be contacted. SAL Rwanda is an equal opportunity employer. All applications will be treated according to the merit of the candidate and with strict confidentiality.