USAID/Mozambique - Feed the Future Mozambique Value Chain (FTF VC) Activity

Agency/Office: Overseas Missions Location: USAID Mozambique Title: USAID/Mozambique - Feed the Future Mozambique Value Chain (FTF VC) Activity The U.S. Mission in Mozambique established a Country Development and Cooperation Strategy1 and performance monitoring plan for all U.S. government activities to ensure that results are being achieved. Development Objective 2 is a "Resilient, Broad-based Economic Growth Accelerated." A key Intermediate Result for achieving this Development Objective is "Increased Agricultural Sector Growth and Food Security in Focus Provinces with Emphasis on Women." The FTF VC activity will contribute towards this intermediate result. The focus of FTF VC will be on improving the productivity and profitability of targeted value chains2. FTF VC will use interventions that facilitate improvements in how markets function without taking over functions within the market. FTF VC will be a five-year contract, commencing in approximately September 2017, with a total estimated cost of $22-$23 million. The activity will focus on the 26 districts included in the Feed the Future Zone of Influence (ZOI). The ZOI was previously 23 districts but new districts have been created by sub-dividing old districts. The target population and geographic area remain the same from the baseline study3. The contractor will be expected to provide wide-ranging consultant services to identify end- market opportunities and link value chain actors to identified opportunities, strengthen vertical and horizontal linkages and relationships in selected value chains, and strengthen input supply and other supporting services and improve farmer access to these interconnected markets. Objective: Develop inclusive, self-sustaining agricultural markets which increase incomes for Mozambican farmers. Illustrative list of deliverables: a) Provision of market analysis for selected value chains, including an end market analysis b) Production of causal models and theory of change for each selected value chain c) Completion of a baseline survey for each selected value chain d) Production of strategic frameworks for each value chain, including interventions, targets, and exit strategy e) Implementation of interventions within strategic frameworks f) Development of a performance monitoring plan including systematic change indicators and Feed the Future standard indicators4 g) Development of a knowledge capture system for tacit and explicit knowledge h) Development of quantitative and qualitative data collection tools Illustrative example of potential contractor services: The USAID-funded Zambia Production, Finance and Improved Technologies5 (PROFIT) program increased incomes for 143,000 farmers of maize, beans, and groundnut by 273%. Instead of working directly with farmers, the project identified market participants, including commercial input suppliers, which viewed farmers as potential customers and therefore saw a win-win relationship with farmers. Input suppliers saw that if farmers' yields and profits increased then their need for additional products would increase. Even with this potential, input suppliers faced inherent risks of trying to provide services in a dispersed network of smallholder farmers. The program used "smart subsidies"6 to work with the commercial input suppliers to create a cadre of for-profit input supply agents operating in villages and towns. The commercial input suppliers provided product training to the agents along with a supply of inputs and the agents provided feedback from the farmers to the commercial input suppliers. The PROFIT project did not become part of the market by delivering services directly but instead worked with input suppliers and agents to understand their risks and incentives to create an agent network that would last beyond the life of the project. Issuance of this notice does not obligate USAID to release a solicitation or award a contract nor does it commit the Government to pay for costs incurred in the preparation and submission of a proposal. In addition, final award cannot be made until funds have been fully appropriated, allocated, and committed and internal USAID procedures have been completed. This notice satisfies the synopsis of proposed contract action requirement in FAR 5.201. All information required for the submission of an offer will be contained in the electronic RFP package, which will be posted at www.fedbizopps.gov. Interested parties are advised to periodically monitor the above website for updates concerning this procurement. Telephonic requests or inquiries will not be taken. Point of Contact(s): Adam Cox, Supervisory Contracting Officer, Email: acox@usaid.gov, Faizallet Sultan, A&A Specialist, Email: fsultan@usaid.gov Note: The solicitation number above is being used as a place holder only and the official solicitation number will be linked to the actual solicitation. Footnotes: 1 https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1860/Mozambique%20Revised%20CDCS%20-%20April%20-2015.pdf 2 https://www.microlinks.org/sites/default/files/resource/files/LEO_Report_No._31_- Mozambique_VCA_FINAL.pdf 3 https://www.usaid.gov/opengov/developer/datasets/MozambiqueBaselineReport-July2014.pdf 4 agrilinks.org/library/feed-the-future-ag-indicators-guide and https://feedthefuture.gov/sites/default/files/resource/files/ftf_%20Indicator_Handbook_July%202016.p df 5 https://www.microlinks.org/sites/default/files/resource/files/Report_No__24_-_Scaling_Impact_-_Zambia_Profit_Case_Study.pdf 6 A "smart subsidy" is one which leads to sustainable transactions amongst market actors without further subsidy. Often new or new ways of relating between actors in a value chain carry substantial perceived risks. Commitment failure, free rider, theft, rent seeking, unprofitable, etc. are the kinds of risk/concerns a value chain actor may limit their willingness to engage other value chain actors. The starting point for establishing any commercial relationship is the transaction. As a result, a project can use subsidies to reduce the risks leading into a transaction, especially for new clients or for firms entering new markets where risks are perceived as too high to warrant investment.