Value Chain Analysis

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Value Chain Analysis

ABOUT US

With more than 30 years of experience, CowaterSogema is Canadian global leader in management consulting services, specializing in international economic development. We have managed the implementation of over 800 projects in more than 80 countries around the globe. We work with governments, partner organizations, communities and civil society to design and implement sustainable solutions that generate lasting social, financial and environmental impacts. Our adaptive approach to management has led to our award-winning work and recognition as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies in 2017 and 2018.

SUMMARY OF POSITION

CowaterSogema is currently seeking proposals from individuals and/or firms/organizations to undertake a Value Chain Analysis as part of a Global Affairs Canada project that aims to enhance economic empowerment and increase prosperity for low-income women and youth in the West Bank.

CowaterSogema International Inc. (lead), in collaboration with the Palestinian Businesswomen’s Association (Asala) and the Near East Foundation (NEF) Palestine, will implement a 4-year, CAD 9M initiative that aims to enhance economic empowerment and increase prosperity for low-income women and youth in the West Bank.

Generating Revenue Opportunities for Women and Youth in the West Bank (GROW):

The project responds directly to the development needs and challenges facing women and female youth entrepreneurs in the West Bank, with a particular focus on the olive oil and selected agro-food processing value chains. Olive oil and agro-food processing, in particular, represent two of the oldest and most important economic sectors for Palestine and presently engage thousands of women, albeit on an informal, unpaid, and largely unrecognized basis. Olive oil represents a cornerstone of local economies and social identity, with more than 10,000 Palestinian families involved in production. Agro-food processing is a sector of particular importance to women who play a leading role in the handling and packaging of agricultural products. Great potential exists to empower women, including female youth, to move beyond their essential but largely unrecognized roles, ultimately contributing to their increased voice and agency in both social and economic spheres, while enhancing the overall productivity and competitiveness of the agricultural sector.

The project will focus on three inter-related intermediate outcomes: i) reduced barriers to entrepreneurship faced by women; ii) enhanced opportunities for women entrepreneurs to successfully establish and/or grow sustainable businesses; and, iii) enhanced opportunities for female entrepreneurs, particularly female youth, to support the adoption of renewable energy in the olive oil and agro-food processing value chains. To achieve these outcomes, the project will address several key challenges impacting women’s entrepreneurship in the West Bank, including the prevalence of socio-cultural barriers and their associated impacts on women’s household, community, and economic roles and status; and, women’s limited access to finance, business development support services, technology, reliable and affordable energy, skills development opportunities, and markets. The initiative will adopt a gender transformative approach aimed at recognizing, formalizing, and amplifying women’s existing roles within the two target value chains, whilst promoting women’s increased decision-making and control over income, assets, and productive resources. Interventions will focus on the provision of capacity building support to women’s cooperatives and micro, small, and medium-sized businesses in the areas of entrepreneurship and business management, access to domestic, regional, and international markets, and women’s leadership; the conduct of research, policy advocacy, and community awareness campaigns on women’s economic and social rights; the establishment/strengthening of women-led cooperatives/associations and supporting related economic opportunities (e.g. school canteen microfranchises); the introduction of renewable energy solutions, and, the facilitation of economic opportunities and innovations for youth to promote the adoption of renewable energy by women-led businesses.

Generating Revenue Opportunities for Women and Youth in the West Bank (GROW)

The project starts with an inception phase. During the inception phase and building on existing sectoral, market and value chain assessments commissioned by other donors and local and international implementing agencies CowaterSogema is proposing to conduct subsector analysis for the Traditional Food Processing with focus on three value chains with the strongest growth and poverty reduction potential and highest relevance for women.  This will be a three staged process.

Stage I.: Undertaking a rapid gendered analysis of the Traditional Food Processing Sub-sector, looking at types of products, production capacity, including functioning support services, gender dynamics, supply & demand analysis, exploring local market and export opportunities, and incorporating environmental issues and hazards.

Stage II.:  Identifying top 5 processed foods using a short listing matrix that looks at a number of factors and indicators to inform prioritization of those with highest growth potential, particularly for women and female youth. The selected products will then be analyzed using gendered value chain analysis and M4P methodologies. 

Stage III: Short and pragmatic value chain reports of 5-10 pages each of the 5 selected processed foods, incorporating in a systematic manner a gendered analysis of the 5 shortlisted processed foods’ market systems. The 5 value chain reports will inform the identification of entry points, quick wins, and the design of women economic empowerment interventions that are based on clear commercial/economic opportunity, feasibility, gender/WEE, and environmental criteria.

CowaterSogema’s locally stationed GROW Team Leader and HQ experts will support the process of food processing products prioritisation and selection, VC analysis as well as provide technical inputs into the different aspects related to gender/WEE and environment.  

CowaterSogema would like to recruit a expertise to undertake a Value Chain Analysis to provide technical inputs and support in: developing the methodology and tools for the value chain analysis of the 5 VCs; collecting and analysing primary and secondary data vis-à-vis the 5 selected value chains;  and writing five value chain reports that will be produced under this assignment; and, providing technical inputs into the design of the project interventions.

This ToR will focus on the Value Chain Analysis in this regard. 

1.Objective and expected results

Under the direct supervision of the Team Leader, and in close collaboration with the gender and environmental experts, the individual(s) and/or firm that will conduct the Value Chain Analysis will:

Provide technical support and input into the finalization of value chains selection, with a focus on women’s economic empowerment, including finalization of the five processed foods selection report.
Lead the development of gender-responsive methodology and tools for undertaking the value chain analysis in the 5 selected value chains, ensuring engagement of small and medium producer women’s enterprises.
Contribute to selected processed foods-specific stakeholder analysis, mapping and analysis, including engaging in primary data collection, including with women and youth, and exploring potential private/public sector investments, access to new markets and/or expansion of existing and synergies with other projects.
Support capacity development of partners and stakeholders during the inception phase.
Revise and finalize the value chain analysis reports
Contribute to the design of priority interventions.

2.Value Chain Mapping and Analysis

The Value Chain Analysis will support the mapping and analysis of the 5 value chains selected with the view of identifying opportunities for facilitating systemic changes in the selected chains that would benefit poor women and female youth producers.  This shall be done in a participatory manner, and based on standardized and gender-responsive data collection and analysis tools (interview guides, questionnaires, checklists, etc.) which should be developed by the Value Chain Analysis Advisor(s) in close collaboration the Team Leader and other assigned experts.

The value chain mapping and analysis should deliver the following objectives:

Visualise networks and connections between actors, including women and youth, and processes in the 5 value chains selected for analysis in order to get a better understanding of the relevant market system structure, the dynamics of the market and dimensions of its performance, and poor/small women producers’ position within the market.
Demonstrate interdependency between actors and processes in the value chain.
Create awareness of stakeholders to look beyond their own involvement in the value chain.
The value chain mapping and analysis is expected to assist CowaterSogema in answering the following questions for each of the 5 value chains being assessed:

What are the different (core) processes in the value chain?
Who are the actors involved in these processes and what do they actually do?  What is the role of women, youth, and men, and men in these processes?
What are the flows of product, information and knowledge in the value chain?  Are these flows different for women and men?
What is the volume of products created (by women and men)?  
Where does the product originate from and where does it go and what are the volumes/quantities flowing through the different market channels?
How does the value change throughout the chain?
What types of relationships and linkages exist?
What types of (business) services are feeding into the chain and are these led by women or men?
In answering the above questions, particular focus should be given to the position and power of poor women producers. Particularly in this regard, the analysis should identify underlying reasons for market underperformance and possible intervention points to stimulate sustainable change that will generate economic opportunities for women and female youth.

Consulting with key stakeholders and categories: As highlighted above, a portion of the VC analysis  should be the development of gender-responsive and standardised tools for collecting and triangulating data needed for undertaking the value chain analysis.   These data collection tools will be used to conduct interviews with different categories of stakeholders including small women producer communities and/or existing women cooperatives engaged in the Food Processing sub-sector, women producers/groups, and women entrepreneurs, as suitable, to understand their role, as well as barriers and opportunities in the sector. Some of the key input providers in the sub-sector (female and male) will include the following:

Input supplies
Equipment and technologies used
Support service providers, technical assistance providers/quality testing – lead enterprises/ NGOs/ Coops
finance/ micro-finance/ trade finance providers
small / local or other transport service providers for local or regional markets
market information service providers; if any
capacity building institutions for women groups/ coops
traders/ whole-sellers (typically SMEs)
processors (typically Women SMEs and coops)
youth engaged in the sector
marketers in formal retail markets
lead firms (in selected value-chains)
financial service providers to SMEs in the sub-sector
important markets in oPt and / outside that source from oPt
local market actors
meet regional market actors that source from oPt
trade facilitators/ agri-marketing companies/ PalTrade and others
specific donor projects with clear interventions or programming in Food Processing
The exercise will include but not be limited to consultations with the following groups/ agencies:

Partners: Near East Foundation (NEF), Palestinian Businesswomen’s Association (ASALA)
Small women producers/processors: food processing cooperatives –women and men; women cooperatives, farmers and agricultural processing representative body- PACU.
Supply chain/market actors: Traders, wholesale and retail markets, logistics companies, agri-business marketing and export companies, agent/ distributers to local and Int’l markets, market service providers; micro-finance companies, Bank of Palestine (BoP)
Government stakeholders: Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of National Economy, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Palestinian Standards Institute (PSI), Ministry of health food testing laboratories
Other local and international organizations/programmes: BWF, YMCA, UWAC; Chamber of commerce; FAO, Care, Oxfam, Palestinian Agricultural Cooperatives Union...etc.

3.Deliverables

The exercise will have the following specific outputs:

A research plan illustrating the stakeholders and key informants who will be consulted to provide data on the sub-sector.
Training (1 day) of project team and partner staff on value chain analysis/data collection tools (TBC).
Meetings/ discussions/interviews with the stakeholders and key informants.
One value chain analysis report drafted on the basis of information collected during in-country visit and inputs provided by CowaterSogema project team, to serve as a model for the remaining value chain analysis reports to be prepared during the Inception Phase.
Technical inputs into the finalization of five value chains analysis reports.
Technical inputs into the project design process and drafting (on the request of CowaterSogema).

4.Timeframe (Total work 25 days over May and June)

Review and support finalization of the value-chain/commodity shortlisting and selection (2 days) in May
Value-chain mapping and analysis tools’ and research plan development (2 days) in May
Training of partners on value chain mapping and analysis tools (1 day) in May
Field work in the West Bank (7 days) in May
Reporting (preparation of one model value chain analysis report, and review and finalization of five other value chain reports) (10 days) in May and June
Other technical inputs (3 days) in June

5.Budget:

Based on agreed daily rate.

6.In-country support

CowaterSogema project team will support the organization of meetings with local stakeholders, logistics, etc.
CowaterSogema experts from the HQ office will be available to provide information on project management, gender, partnerships, stakeholder analysis, M&E;
CowaterSogema Team Leader will be available to provide information on framework and approaches; and
Any other support can be arranged if requested in advance.

JOB REQUIREMENTS

Education:

Master’s degree or higher qualification in economic development, agriculture or development studies.
Minimum Experience:

At least 7 years of experience supporting inclusive value chain development in the West Bank;
Experience identifying linkages between farmers and other rural producers to processing and marketing value chains;
Successful experience strengthening the functioning of supplier’s and producer’s marketing and value-addition cooperatives or networks; and
Five years’ experience working on donor-funded programs, with familiarity with GAC-Canada initiatives a strong asset.

Essential Skills:

A demonstrated advanced understanding of gender and development issues in the West Bank;
Demonstrated understanding of the range of capacity building approaches and their applicability to rural development contexts and needs;
Knowledge of the Markets for the Poor (M4P) approach;
Excellent speaking, writing and oral communication skills in English and Arabic;
Strong ability to multi-task and to handle complex programming challenges.

APPLICATION PROCESS

All proposals for the Request for Proposals for the Value Chain Analysis are to be submitted through our Career Portal

Apply Online

Candidates/interested parties are encouraged to apply before May 17, 2018, with technical and financial proposals.

We thank you for your interest in building a better tomorrow with CowaterSogema.