Commodity/Service Required:

Provide Technical Support to Urban Women Horticulture Trainers on their Path to Receiving Legal Cooperative Status from the Government of Rwanda 

Type of Procurement:

Purchase Order

Type of Contract:

Fixed Price/Deliverables Based

Term of Contract:

February 1, 2024 – June 30, 2024

Contract Funding:

Contract No.

This Procurement supports:

Feed the Future Rwanda Hanga Akazi Activity

Submit Proposal to:

HAprocurement@hanga-akazi.org.

Date of Issue of RFP:

December 13,2023

Date Questions from Supplier Due:

December 18,2023

Date Proposal Due:

December 28,2023

Approximate Date Purchase Order Issued to Successful Bidder(s):

On/About

Method of Submittal:

Respond via e-mail with attached document in MS Word / pdf format.

The Bidder/Seller agrees to hold the prices in its offer firm for 30 days from the date specified for the receipt of offers unless another time is specified in the addendum of the RFP/RFQ.

Solicitation Number:

Description of Activity/Service:

1. Introduction

Feed the Future Hanga Akazi (HA) in partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) intends to provide technical support to urban women horticulture traders who were participants in a CRS led pilot program in July 2022 – September 2023 where they received skills training to begin the legal process to become certified agricultural cooperatives with the Government of Rwanda. Three of these groups achieved confirmed legal status and one received provisory legal status. The consultant will provide tailored support to 11 remaining groups of women who received skills training, but are not yet certified legal cooperatives, to accompany them in the finalization of group backgrounding. A brief description of partnership and the context of the assignment is provided below.

1.1. About Feed the Future Hanga Akazi (HA)

Feed the Future Rwanda Hanga Akazi (HA) is a 5-year USAID funded project aimed at addressing the problem of insufficient employment opportunities and limited entrepreneurial success for Rwanda's which negatively impacts the Rwanda economy and the country’s development goals. HA project facilitates capacity development of Rwanda's – in particulate women, youth, and persons with disabilities – in key technical and soft skills required to participate in a modern workforce (focusing on opportunities surrounding the agricultural economy) and catalyzes new entry and growth of inclusive enterprises.

1.2.  About Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development works are accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance, and peacebuilding. The Country Program has over 80 staff and implements its projects through local and international partners, with strong coordination and collaboration with Government of Rwanda structures. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has been working in Rwanda since 1961. CRS Rwanda’s key programing areas include, agriculture, nutrition, youth empowerment, and early childhood development. To achieve this, CRS collaborates with the government of Rwanda, donors, the Catholic church, the private sector, and civil society organizations.

2. Contextual Background

The agricultural sector is a large contributor to Rwanda’s national economy and remains at the center of strategies to reduce poverty and improve food security and nutrition. Within the agricultural sector, the horticultural sub-sector has the potential to develop into a vibrant sub-sector, building upon the favorable climate, fertile soil and an abundant labour force.

The Government of Rwanda (GoR) through its various governmental bodies, namely the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) and the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MINICOM), actively supports the development of the national horticultural sector ‘to serve growing global, regional, and local markets, as well as close dietary gaps’. The horticultural sub-sector offers a wide range of employment and business opportunities and is therefore a unique sub-sector for economic development at the local level, providing income security for the population in both urban and rural areas. Besides their nutritional qualities, horticulture products (vegetables and fruits) offer excellent opportunities for productivity increase and income improvement for the value chain actors.

Women’s empowerment to participate in horticultural trade can provide an additional boost to national economic growth. Economies with better-organized opportunities for women are more competitive and this has proved to play an active role in shaping institutions, social norms, and the well-being of communities.

3. Project Background

The Urban Women Horticulture Trader Pilot (UWHT) was launched in July 2022 following  a study conducted by MINAGRI and CRS to understand the needs and vulnerabilities of urban women horticulture traders in three cities, Kigali, Rubavu, and Rwamagana in August 2021. The study also provided key recommendations on how to respond to the needs. Some of these recommendations are summarized here. 

1. Strengthening of UWHT business skills, soft skills, and trader networks including the use of available technology and links to e-commerce platforms. 
2. Increased financial support and availability of accessible formal financial services.  
3. Improved organization of UWHTs through shifting into the formal market and/or being organized into formal and informal associations.  
4. Enhanced trans-sectoral communication, collaboration, and monitoring systems between relevant actors responsible for strengthening the horticulture trade and empowering UWHTs.   

Based on these recommendations, a pilot was implemented to address some of these recommendations, namely: 

1. Training of urban horticulture traders in the three cities on basic business management and development skills 
2. Accompanying interested women horticulture traders in the three cities into forming and applying for legal recognition as cooperatives.  

As such, 412 women have been trained in 2022 and over 403 women have organized themselves into groups on their way to becoming cooperatives. 11 groups continue to need continued support to continue on their way to becoming cooperatives, most notably assistance with putting together business action plans and bylaws as well as critical complementary business skills for business competitiveness and sustainability.

With these priorities in mind and in order to continue the work of the urban women’s horticulture traders pilot project, Hanga Akazi in partnership with CRS and Caritas Rwanda intends to hire a consultant to further support the 11 groups of urban women horticultural traders to receive legal recognition from the Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA)  to access the agricultural market to sell horticulture products.

Product or Service Expectations (both if applicable):

4. Objective 

The primary objective of the consultancy is to provide targeted support to 11 unique horticulture trader groups through the creation of business action plans and bylaws, business skills trainings, and regular communication with the groups about their progress, business objectives, and goals. At the conclusion of the consultancy, the 11 horticulture groups should have received legal recognition from the Rwanda Cooperative Agency through the consultant’s guidance. 

5. Tasks 

In order to achieve the afromentioned objective, the following tasks are required by the consultant:

• Desk review of all existing materials from the UWHT pilot including the business skills training curriculum
• Coordinate with HA M&E team to collect baseline data for each group
• Plan and facilitate meetings with each of the 14 horticulture trader groups to understand their unique business needs and barriers (for the 11 groups) and also understand the factors for success from the remaining four groups who have managed to succeed.
• Draft business actions plans that clearly lay out timelines and pathways to achieve legal cooperative status
• Provide regular and timely support to the horticulture traders groups in the implementation of each business action plan
• Validate and monitor all business actions plans for timely and effective completion of business goals.

Deliverables, Timelines, Special Terms and Conditions:

Signature:

Title:

Date: