Terms of Reference to assess the current regulatory environment of cooperatives and Farmers’ Organisations in Rwanda for an effective lobby and advocacy trajectory development            

Background of Agriterra

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Agriterra is a development agency founded and steered by the farmers’ organisations and agricultural cooperatives in the Netherlands. Its mandate is to strengthen producers’ organisations worldwide. Among other activities it supports co-operative farmer-led economic development in developing countries. Agriterra mainly acts as a facilitating agency and provides advisory and broker services to farmer-led business initiatives to enable them to:

• Develop sound and bankable business plans for starting-up new agribusiness ventures and/or expanding existing ones

• Improve their financial management capacity

• Have access to capital

• Rely on technical support and backstopping 

For farmer-led business initiatives, Agriterra specifically supports business development services in the pre-investment phase such as feasibility studies, market surveys, business planning and capacity building components. In addition, Agriterra provides:

• brokerage services to link farmer-led business development initiatives with investors, banks, and other primary and supportive stakeholders in the value chain.

• advisory services often employing AgriPool advisors: experts stemming from co-operative and private agribusiness companies from the Netherlands and beyond with a specific thematic or sector expertise.

Background of the Assignment
Agriterra has ambitious targets related to Lobby and Advocacy in its Farmer Focused Transformation programme, which is financed by the Directorate General for International Cooperation. A position of Cooperative Advisor and a core team of Lobby and Advocacy were established in Agriterra Rwanda Team. The purpose is that Agriterra intends to enhance farmer-government dialogues to create a more conducive environment for rural transformation and economic development of smallholder farmers. The lobby and advisory services will focus on but not limited to:

• Identify and implement the lobby and advocacy trajectories with the highest potential to focus on and make concrete trajectories for the selected topics.

• Ensure that the set targets for relevant policy notes to be developed will be achieved, and that the impact of the realized policy changes is measurable for tangible results for smallholder farmers

• Co-develop concrete policy papers with farmers’ organisations

• Initiate a scan of possible L&A topics

• Ensure results in terms of policy changes and donor proposals are achieved and registered

• Participate actively in policy dialogues with governments, development organizations, and other stakeholders to identify issues for lobby. Propose solutions, as well as the role Agriterra can play to address identified problems. 

Main objective of the Assignment

Assess the current cooperatives and farmers’ organizations public regulations framework and the compliance level in Rwanda

Specific objectives of the Assignment

• Identify current relevant policies, laws and other regulations binding the cooperatives and Farmers ’organization development in Rwanda

• Detect favourable and threatening factors within the current regulatory environment of coops and FOs in Rwanda.

• Analyse the compliance level of farmers and challenges faced

• Record the current L&A trajectories developed by cooperatives and FOs in partnership with AGRITERRA

• Propose key policy Lobby and advocacy trajectories with high impact to ensure a sustainable development and impact of the cooperatives and FOs in Rwanda 

Main Tasks

1. Read and analyse relevant policies, laws, and other regulations in the domains of cooperatives and FO development, especially those in agriculture and finance sectors in Rwanda including:

• MINAGRI level: National agriculture policy, Nutrition sensitive agriculture mainstreaming guideline, national agriculture insurance scheme and Management of Agri PPD and Value chains platforms mechanisms, de-risking agriculture sector-Access to finance by smallholder farmers.
• RCA level: Instructions regulating interventions of stakeholders/partners in the development of  the cooperatives sector, law Nr 024/2021 governing cooperatives in Rwanda.
• RICA level: Law Nr 005/2016 governing seeds-plant-varieties in Rwanda, law Nr 16/2016 on plant protection in Rwanda.
• RSB level: RSB 2020, DRS 98: Animal feed production, processing, storage and distribution Code of practice.
• Official Gazettes: Official Gazette nᵒ 16 of 17/04/2017: MINISTERIAL ORDER No 007/11.30 OF 11/04/2017 DETERMINING THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A PERSON TO BE GRANTED A LICENSE FOR IMPORTING AND EXPORTING SEEDS, Official Gazette n° Special of 20/04/2016: LAW N°005/2016 OF 05/04/2016 GOVERNING SEEDS AND PLANT VARIETIES IN RWANDA. 

2. Identify key stakeholders in above policies, laws and regulations and their feelings about the farmers ’compliance

3. Collect primary data on the compliance level of farmers and challenges they are facing

4. Highlight opportunities and threats for coops and FOs related to these Rwanda’s regulations

5. Discuss with AGRITERRA Rwanda/ L&A core team to record the current L&A work

6. Propose key L&A topics from the above analysis for an enabling environment of sustainable development and impact of the cooperatives and FOs in Rwanda.

Expert profile 

The qualified expert/consultant must fulfil the following criteria:

• Have an education background in laws, cooperative development, or related fields with a level of at least a bachelor’s degree (with working experience of minimum 5 years) and a master’s degree (with working experience of minimum 3 years)

• Understand well the Rwanda’s development policies, laws, regulations especially in agriculture and/or finance sectors

• Have an experience of working with farmers-based cooperatives and organizations (at least 2 years)

• Fluent in English and Kinyarwanda. The French will be an added value

• Consultancy experience of at least 2 years in policy and/laws analysis

Deliverables

A study report (that serves as a baseline for the future L&A) highlighting the current policy and legal opportunities and threats for cooperatives and FOs development, compliance level and challenges faced by cooperatives and FOs during the implementation of the concerned regulations, and key policy Lobby and advocacy trajectories with high impact is produced and validated by Agriterra and its key stakeholders 

How to apply?

Interested consultants (firm/individual) who fulfil the above requirements can submit their technical offer (profile, understanding of the Terms of Reference, detailed methodology, CV of expert (s), chronogram of planned activities and financial offer (cost breakdown according to the proposed activities in RWF) all in PDF before 16^th August 2023 with a cover letter, by sending an e-mail to rwanda@agriterra.org to the Attention of Mr. Jasper Spikker, Regional Manager for Africa Great Lakes, with the following mention: “FFT-RW L&A cooperative regulatory environment assessment” 

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.