Value Chain Assessment

About Afghanaid

Job Summary

“Families’ Livelihoods and Integration Project (FLIP)” is a three year project that aims to strengthen women’s livelihoods, and facilitate the reintegration of the displaced population in Jalalabad and Puli Alam in Eastern Afghanistan. The project addresses the current gaps in development programming targeting women’s livelihoods for those most in need in Nangarhar and Logar provinces in the Eastern region in parallel with the humanitarian assistance. It will strengthen and diversify livelihoods of 2,000 women to enable them to build household resilience. The project is designed to promote reintegration of displaced populations in the host community, which is bolstered by activities targeting 2,000 male members of the beneficiary households.
The project is expected to achieve the following results:
1. 2,000 ultra-poor women have skills, knowledge, and assets to strengthen and diversify their livelihoods in order to build household resilience
2. Independently operating Savings Groups contribute to strengthening women’s livelihoods through mobilising women’s resources, providing financial services, and developing value chains.
3. Men and women are reintegrated in the host community
2. The Consultancy Assignment
2.1. Purpose of the consultancy
As per the FLIP Project proposal and Implementation plan, an external value chain assessment has been planned in order to identify the main players in the selected value chains. For this purpose Afghanaid intends to commission a value chain expert specialized in women’s economic empowerment to conduct this assignment.
The consultancy is supposed to support Afghanaid to gain a comprehensive understanding of the relationship among and roles of the different actors in the selected value chains. This will facilitate the development of appropriate design and interventions with community involvement and utilisation of a market oriented approach; it will also enable Afghanaid to work with women’s groups to improve their existing market access strategies and improve value chain management, beginning with an assessment to verify the players in each one of them. The final consultancy report will help Afghanaid to link the women’s groups directly with the value chain actors, so the sales volume of the goods produced by the groups can be increased.
The geographical coverage of this assessment will be 2 districts of Nangarhar (Jalalabad and Behsud), Pul-e Alam in Logar and Kabul.

Duties & Responsibilities

The overall objective of the external consultancy is to conduct value chain assessment and analysis in Nangarhar, Logarand Kabul in order to:
a) Identify the main players (and the linkages among them) of the following value chains:
- garments (women’s and children’s clothes)
- pastry and confectionery
- handicrafts (khamak dozy, salma dozy - Nangarhar, Kabul; mara dozy, gull dozy – Logar, Kabul)
- fresh vegetables and processed fruits and vegetables
- dairy products (Logar and Kabul only)
- poultry
b) Identify the competitive advantages and disadvantages of the value chain players (market access, technology/product development, management/organization, input supply/raw materials, finance, policy, operating environment/infrastructure, trade regime, etc.)
c) Identify the main opportunities and value addition possibilities in each value chain for women’s groups in order to help Afghanaid to find appropriate entry points for value addition interventions.
d) Identify the main gaps and constrains faced by the value chain members
e) Identify the main trends, drivers enabling environment in each value chain
f) Identify four champion commodities in each value chain
3. Methodology
The Consultant commissioned to conduct the value chain assessment and Afghanaid are jointly responsible for choosing the methods that are the most appropriate; including appropriateness to the context of the project intervention. The Consultant will be required to submit a full methodology s/he plans to use together with his/her expression of interest which will determine the selection. Where possible, the Consultant is encouraged to triangulate data sources so that findings are as robust as possible.

Among the guiding principles of this consultancy assignment will be inclusiveness, listening and respecting views and opinions of all stakeholders at all levels, including women participating in the project activities.

Both secondary and primary data will be used for analysis. Important steps have been summarized below:

Literature review: The Consultant shall review relevant documents including reports, research papers, case studies etc. relevant to this study.

Field survey

Report writing

The following qualitative tools are recommended:

Market observation

Key informant interviews

In-depth interviews

Focus Groups Discussions

Stakeholder Meetings

Problem Tree Analysis

Potential value chain key players that need to be interviewed may include the following, but are not limited to:

Input suppliers

Producers

Primary aggregators/processors

Secondary aggregators/secondary processors

Local enterprises

Logistic providers

Primary wholesalers/commission agents

Secondary wholesalers/merchants/exporters

Retailers/supermarkets/vendors/shopkeepers

Final customers
4. Contractual and reporting arrangements
4.1 Management arrangements
The Consultant will report directly to the FLIP Project Manager who is the Commissioning Manager. The Commissioning Manager is responsible for the recruitment and briefing to the Consultant, and will be the point of contact within the commissioning organisation for the duration of the assessment. The Commissioning Manager or an Afghanaid representative appointed by her will also provide logistic and technical support.
4.2 Deliverables
Report incorporating an executive summary, data and its analysis, a set of recommendations and conclusion will be drafted and finalized after incorporating feedback from Afghanaid and other relevant stakeholders. The final report needs to be a substantial document that (a) answers all the elements of this Terms of Reference (ToR) and (b) provides findings and conclusions that are based on robust and transparent evidence.

The report should present major findings analyzing secondary and primary data according to the objectives of this consultancy. An integral part of the report will be an appendix with list of all the main value chain players and other interviewed persons with their contact details, titles, organizations, recommendations whether the CBOs should proceed with cooperation with the respective stakeholder and what type of collaboration would be recommended by the Consultant. Report will also include annex with methodology used, and this ToR.

The Consultant will submit the final report to the Commissioning Manager within five days after the field work is finished and the final report should be prepared within additional 3 days after receiving Afghanaid comments.

4.3 Timeframe
The Consultant will be required to complete the work over a proposed period of 25 working days as outline in the below table. The resource person will indicate in the proposal the exact number of days he proposes for each activity to be discussed and agreed with Afghanaid.

The total duration of the study will be agreed between Afghanaid and the Consultant upon receiving his Expression of Interest containing detailed proposed methodology, work plan and professional fee. Afghanaid will provide necessary logistics support including transport, lodging and boarding. Cost of these must not be included in the proposed fee of the Consultant.

The Consultant will need to be available to start the study either in middle June or middle July, based on agreement with Afghanaid.
 

Job Requirements

The independent Consultant should be a suitably-qualified and experienced consultant or consulting firm. The Consultant profile should include:
Essential:

A value chain expert with a minimum of seven years’ experience in value chain assessment in an international development context

Relevant subject matter knowledge and experience with women’s economic empowerment

Ability to design and plan the assessment approach and research methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative research methods and to design and conduct value chain assessment

Excellent analysis and writing skills, including statistical analysis

Experience of producing academic and broader communications products

Excellent English language skills

Planning and good time management

Able to work independently with minimal supervision and support beside support in logistic arrangements

No conflict of interest with the ongoing activities of the commissioning organization

Desirable:
a) Excellent Dari and Pashto skills
b) Previous work experience in Afghanistan, or other conflict affected countries - particularly in remote areas, living and working in a very basic environment
c) Willingness to stay and work in a very basic conditions during the assignment.
The independent Consultant should be a suitably-qualified and experienced consultant or consulting firm. The Consultant profile should include:
Essential:

A value chain expert with a minimum of seven years’ experience in value chain assessment in an international development context

Relevant subject matter knowledge and experience with women’s economic empowerment

Ability to design and plan the assessment approach and research methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative research methods and to design and conduct value chain assessment

Excellent analysis and writing skills, including statistical analysis

Experience of producing academic and broader communications products

Excellent English language skills

Planning and good time management

Able to work independently with minimal supervision and support beside support in logistic arrangements

No conflict of interest with the ongoing activities of the commissioning organization.

Submission Guideline

Please send:
a) A covering letter explicitly referring to previous similar experiences, preferably in Afghanistan
b) CV(s) of expert(s)
c) Detailed methodology
d) Work plan indicating dates and number of days for each task
e) Professional fee (in USD – either lump sum or daily rate)
f) Availability (date)

Your EoI must reach by COB on Thursday 7th June 2018, clearly marked FLIP Value Chain Assessment;

Functional Area

Programme

Countries

Submission Email

vacancies@afghanaid.org.uk

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