Cooperative Resilience and Equity Activity (CORE)

SCOPE OF WORK

Assignment Title: Agriculture Market Analysis and Cooperative Partner Selection, Zambia

Assignment Locations: Zambia (Lusaka, Central, Eastern, Copperbelt)

Intended dates: February 2024 to March 2024

Project Background  
Land O’Lakes Venture37 is implementing the Cooperative Resilience and Equity Activity (CORE) cooperative development program in Rwanda and Zambia, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The goal of the CORE activity is to foster vibrant, sustainable cooperative ecosystems in Rwanda and Zambia, in which self-managed agricultural cooperatives and all their members flourish economically and socially. Through CORE, Venture37 will take a localized and market-responsive approach, engaging market actors, including women and youth, in activity design, implementation and measurement. CORE will 1) Inclusively strengthen the capacity of cooperatives by dynamically responding to their unique challenges and market opportunities by adapting existing, tested tools. 2) Improve the cooperative enabling environment by working with private and public service providers to deliver market-responsive and well-coordinated services to cooperatives. 3) Spur innovation, learning and continuous improvement in the local and global development community through embedded applied research.

Objectives and Tasks 
The CORE activity in Zambia aims to strengthen enterprising agricultural cooperatives to become more commercial, entrepreneurially creative, and competitive in the market. By conducting an analysis of the Zambian agricultural commodities market, this assignment will inform CORE on the ideal selection criteria for partner cooperatives, implementation geographic districts, existing potential partners, corresponding market opportunities and challenges for cooperatives to prosper.

To achieve this, the consultant is expected to carry out several analyses and information gathering to assist the CORE project staff in the identification of potential cooperative partners in promising agricultural value chains. The tasks include but not limited to:

1. Value Chain Selection: In collaboration with the CORE technical team, and in line with the Government of Zambia’s strategic priorities, USAID strategic sectors, the Zambian Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise Development’s (MSME) strategic plan and list of registered cooperatives, conduct an analysis of agricultural value chains in Zambia and make recommendations to Venture37 based on their market potential and presence within them of enterprising cooperatives. The consultant will prioritize assessing the sunflower, soybean and Dairy value chains. The consultant may propose additional value chains for the project that could be considered as promising.

2. Identification of Cooperative Opportunities and Challenges: Through various consultative sessions and market research including consultation with the CORE technical team, analyze the existing opportunities and challenges for cooperatives in the selected value chains to become more commercial as well as trusted actors in the private sector.

3. Market Actors Mapping: Identify existing local market actors, that are or have potential to provide services (i.e., processors, transporters, buyers, training) to agriculture cooperatives and produce a matrix of their current intervention versus their areas of potential collaboration and synergies with CORE.

4. Geographic Targeting: Informed by the selected value chains, partner selection and market actor mapping, work with the CORE technical team to analyze the Zambian districts’ different potential to participate and add value to CORE.

5. Cooperative Selection: In close collaboration with the CORE technical team, propose criteria for selection of partner cooperatives, and where possible propose local cooperatives who would be considered as partners to CORE activity. Submit a specific and actionable set of recommendations to the CORE team.

Outputs and Deliverables:

• Orientation Meeting – meet with the CORE team for an overview of the assignment
• Desk Review and Inception Report – review relevant documents related to target value chains, cooperatives, and key stakeholder strategies to influence the development of an inception report
• Value Chain Selection, Cooperative Opportunities and Challenges, and Market Actor Mapping – submit a report with recommendations for addressing these topics
• Partner Selection – submit a proposed list of 25 cooperatives and their assessment findings; these results will be used to select the primary cooperatives that the project will work with throughout implementation
• Validation – host a validation workshop with CORE staff and relevant stakeholders on the findings
• Reporting – submit a final report that includes the accomplished deliverables and corresponding recommendations to Venture37

Qualification/Experience  

• Minimum five years’ experience in project/program implementation, market assessments, Value chain analysis
• At least 5 years of technical field experience working with/on development of cooperatives, market, agriculture and or SMEs in Zambia and or in the region.
• Proven track record conducting market analysis, and partner selection.
• Understanding of agriculture sector development and cooperative issues in Zambia
• Proven record in delivering high quality outputs on time and on budget.
• Available for assignment as soon as possible.

How to apply 
Interested individual consultants or firms are encouraged to send their cover letter explaining their interest and justifying their candidacy, CVs/profiles, technical offer, financial offer and two certificates of completion of similar assignments to Procurement.CDP@landolakes.com no later than 6:00PM Lusaka time on January 19th, 2024. The title of the email must include “Market Analysis, CORE Zambia.”

Other Considerations: 
Land O’Lakes Venture37 will provide transportation, venue hire and other necessary logistical supplies, but arrangements must be agreed upon with the assignment manager prior to making any cost commitments.