Terms of Reference for Consulting Services For Preparation of District Profiles

Job Description

Job description
Terms of Reference for Consulting Services

For

Preparation of District Profiles

Terms of Reference (TOR)

Conduct district level assessments of the communities and community based organizations (CBOs) covering 5 regions in 2 states

1. Client

The client for this assignment is Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation of Federal Government of Somalia.

2. Country background

Somalia has suffered drought for five consecutive seasons, resulting in substantial loss of livestock, crop failure, displacement of people, and destruction of irrigation infrastructure by occasional floods. These factors, along with insecurity, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the War in Ukraine have contributed to the fragility of agricultural livelihoods and high levels of food and nutrition insecurity. As the FGS is making progress to recover more territory from the violent Al-Shabaab insurgency, smallholder farmers in Somalia need to be supported by development interventions to restore their livelihoods and make them resilient to multiple shocks. In the past decade or so, IFAD had only supported agricultural development in Somalia with grants. In February 2023, Somalia’s debt arrears to IFAD were cleared, providing the country access to core IFAD resources. IFAD committed to apply the first allocation from the Performance Based Allocation System (PBAS) to the RLRP, which will mark a strategic return to Somalia after about 30 years. The RLRP will draw on IFAD’s experience in climate-resilient community-led agriculture and infrastructure development, to contribute to building livelihoods resilience of the rural communities, and ensuring gender and social inclusion, youth and nutrition sensitivity.

3. Background on project

The design of the RLRP benefited from the lessons learned from IFAD grant-funded projects and the projects of other development partners in Somalia during the last 30 years. These include: (i) the primacy of water availability as an entry point and a prerequisite for other activities to build resilience and reduce conflict among poor populations in fragile areas with recurring drought situations; (ii) the community driven development (CDD) approach is an efficient way of delivering public goods and improving targeting and ownershipparticularly in remote locations and fragile situations; (iii) climate-smart agriculture (CSA) practices have a strong potential to increase production and resilience of smallholder farmers; and (iv) affirmative gender action — including using quotas, setting quantitative targets for participation in project activities, and using eligibility criteria suitable to the resource endowments of women and youth — in designing and implementing projects increases resilience.

The project’s goal is “improved and resilient livelihoods of rural smallholders in Somalia”. The Programme Development Objective (PDO) is” to sustainably increase productivity, incomes and nutrition security and enhance the resilience of rural smallholder families in Somalia. The project has three components: (i) Support to community resilience, whose outcomes are strengthened and inclusive communities with enhanced social cohesion that are able to define their livelihood development pathways and manage conflict.(ii) Support to Smallholder Livelihoods Enhancement, whose outcomes are: increased production and productivity of priority crops and livestock for resilience, dietary diversity, food security, and improved incomes, as informed by the CDP; and (iii) Programme coordination and capacity building, whose outcomes are improved local governance due to a strengthened policy and institutional environment and sustainable local and national policies thanks to an efficiently and effectively managed programme.

The RLRP’s primary target groups will be 30,000 poor small-scale agro-pastoral households (HHs. RLRP will further include proportions for vulnerable groups including IDPs (15 percent), women headed HHs (30 percent) and persons with disabilities based on prevalence.

The RLRP is a nationwide programme. It will focus its comprehensive efforts on five Federal Member States (FMS) of Puntland, Galmudug, Jubaland, Hirshabelle, and Southwest State. Implementation will be sequenced, starting with the initial two FMS of Jubaland and Southwest, and a total of five regions in the two states: Jubaland: Gedo and Lower Juba; and South West: Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation implements the Rural Livelihood and Resilience Program (RLRP) through a national programme coordination unit located in Mogadishu and two state programme coordination units in Jubaland and Southwest.

4. Background of the assignment

As part of the start-up process of RLRP, the project needs to complete a situational analysis to assess the status of rural poverty at district level. The findings of this analysis will inform the interventions of the project in relation to water and market infrastructure, as well as the development of the productive capacities of producers.

5. Overall objectives

The goal of the RLRP is “improved and resilient livelihoods of rural smallholders in Somalia”. The Programme Development Objective (PDO) is ”sustainably increase productivity, incomes and nutrition security and enhance the resilience of rural smallholder families in Somalia. The core indicators for assessing the PDO of RLRP are: (i) percentage increase in resilience capacity measured as the ability to recover from shocks (target 15 percent); and (ii) persons with new jobs/employment opportunities (target 3,600).

6. Objectives of the assignment

The objective of this assignment is to develop aa rural poverty profile for each of the 10 districts targeted by the RLRP in the states of Jubaland and Southwest (5 districts/ each state).

7. Scope of work

The district profiles identify the key opportunities and constraints, market dynamics, community groups and their occupations, infrastructure gaps, and context for IFAD’s mainstreaming themes (gender, youth, nutrition and adaptation to climate change). The profiles will inform the community mobilization of the project and the key activities under components 1 and 2 of the project. The data required for the profile will be obtained from secondary sources as well as interviews with the authorities at district level. The data to be collected covers the following topics:

– vulnerability of the district to climate change;

– total population;

– total rural population (if available, no of women, men and youth 18-35 years);

– total number of rural communities (no of villages, camps, settlements);

– poverty headcount in rural areas;

– IPC classification of the district and number of food insecure people;

– Presence and number of internally displaced people and their location;

– Presence and number of people with disability;

– Key value chains in terms of crops and livestock. For crops, indicate area cultivated and yield; for livestock indicate no of heads and yield of meat/ milk/ eggs ;

– Key issues in crop production and marketing;

– Key issues in livestock production and marketing;

– Key issues in water resources (availability groundwater/ surface water/ river, energy source used for pumping, existence of water user committees, arrangements for operation and maintenance costs, payment by villagers of operation and maintenance fees);

– Key issues in markets (no of markets, location, main traded commodities, existence of auction system, management of markets, constraints, opportunities);

– Key issues in relation to community development associations and community development plans;

– Key issues in relation to producer organizations for crops and livestock: number of organizations, average no of members, main activities, main assets;

– Key issues in traders/ business associations: number of organizations, average no of members, main activities.

– Key issues in agricultural and livestock services at state level: no and qualification of staff of state ministries of agriculture and livestock at state level; main services provided to producers of crops and livestock; capacity building needs in production and marketing aspects.

– Main development partners/ projects active in the district and their start/ end dates, as well as community coverage.

8. Capacity building and transfer of knowledge

Not applicable to this assignment

9. Reports and schedule of deliverables

The Consultant will be requested to :

– Submit an inception report that describes in detail the implementation of the assignment and the procedure for data collection, analysis and reporting.

– One draft report for each district;

– One final report for each district.

Skills and qualifications
Consultant’s qualifications and experience

One individual consultant will be hired. S/He will have the following qualifications and professional experience:

– Minimum of 7 years of professional experience in Somalia, including previous experience working with development partners.

– Strong capacity to analyze and visualize data;

– Have at least 5 years specific experience in undertaking qualitative assessments;

– Specific experience in conducting at least 3 mapping exercises for services or agricultural potential over the period 2019-2023.

11. Location and period of execution

The assignment will be implemented in the states of Jubaland and Southwest. It will be implemented during the period November 25th, 2024- January 15, 2025.The number of working days are 45 days for data collection and reporting for all 10 districts.

12. Project coordination

The assignment will be coordinated by the M&E Officer of the RLRP.

13. Services and facilities to be provided by client

The Client will provide the Consultant with the following: RLRP design report; secondary data available in the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation about the two states of Southwest and Jubaland; facilitation of Government clearances of field visits; facilitation of contacts with the Ministry of Planning which coordinates humanitarian and development interventions.

14. Services and facilities to be provided by the consultant

The Consultant is expected to have their own office space, laptops, own vehicle (owned or rented), etc. while carrying out the assignment.

Attachments

REOI Preparation of District Profiles

.docx

ToR Preparation of District Profiles

.docx
How to apply
Requested experience and qualifications would be proven by submitting documents of engagement in the respective area.

Only short-listed candidates will be invited for the interview. Passing Grade to be shortlisted minimum 60/75

To be considered technically qualified, the consultant should score 75/100 or more, following the interview.

Only the top-ranked consultant will be invited to submit a technical and financial proposal

Any request for clarification on this REOI should be sent via e-mail to the address below no later than 11:00 AM November 20th, 2024 Somalia local time. The client will provide responses to all clarification requests by 11:00 AM November 23th, 2024 Somalia local time.

Expressions of interest must be delivered in written form using the forms provided for this purpose. EOIs shall be submitted to the address below no later than 12:00 PM December 1st, 2024 Somalia local time. Incomplete, untimely applications, as well as applications from consultants who do not meet the requirements of this advertisement, will not be considered.

For Expressions of Interest that will be delivered in (hard copy), the packages should be clearly marked: REF: WB&W/RLRP/2024/009: Preparation of District Profiles for Rural Livelihoods Resilience Program (RLRP) addressed to:

Attention: National Program Coordination Unit

Rural Livelihoods Resilience Program (RLRP)

Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation MOAI

Federal Government of Somalia

KM4 Street, Hodan, Mogadishu Somalia.

Email Address: aabyan@rlrp.gov.so

Cc: amuhumad@rlrp.gov.so