Recrutement d’un spécialiste de la politique et de la mise en œuvre de l’industrie agroalimentaire, Côte d’Ivoire

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

FOR A CONSULTANT

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

(www.afdb.org)

Headquarters – Abidjan (Cote D’Ivoire)

Agricultural Finance and Rural Development

5 Avenue Joseph Anoma

01 B.P. 1387, Abidjan 01

Cote d’Ivoire

E-mail : [email protected]

Expressions of interest are being invited for a Consultant position

Title of the assignment : Agro Industry Policy & Implementation Specialist

Brief description of the Assignment :  Provide technical support to the Rural Infrastructure Development (AHFR.2) Division in the roll out of the Bank’s Feed Africa strategy flagship program “the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs)” across the RMCs.

Department issuing the request : AHFR Office

Place of assignment : Abidjan

Duration of the assignment : Twelve (6) months including 2 months probation

Tentative Date of commencement : 15^th October 2020

Deadline for applications : 30^th September 2020 at 17:00 hours local Abidjan time.

Any questions or request for clarifications may be sent, during the Bank’s working hours (08h00-12h00 and 14h00-17h00), to the same address above.

African Development Bank

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR

CONSULTANT AGRO INDUSTRY POLICY & IMPLEMENTATION SPECIALIST

Terms of Reference for Individual Consultant to support the Rural Infrastructure Development Division of the Bank to roll out the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs)

Introduction :

1.1 On 22 June 2016, the Boards of the African Development Bank approved the “Strategy for Agricultural Transformation in Africa 2016-2025” as part of its High 5 Agenda and particularly the Feed Africa objective. This strategy addresses the four specific goals of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Program (CAADP) viz.: (i) Contribute to eliminating extreme poverty in Africa by 2025; (ii) end hunger and malnutrition in Africa by 2025; (iii) make Africa a net food exporter; and, (iv) move Africa to the top of export‑orientated global value chains where it has comparative advantage.

1.2 The aim of the Strategy is to transform African Agriculture into a globally competitive, inclusive and business-oriented sector that creates wealth, generates gainful employment, and improves the quality of life for Africans. It also seeks to bring to scale, existing and successful initiatives across Africa and beyond.

1.3 The Strategy applies a commodity value chain approach across the various agro-ecological zones on the continent and is premised on a set of seven enablers to achieve transformation :

1. Increase productivity by catalyzing the development of effective input distribution systems and reduction in post-harvest waste and loss  ;
2. Realize the value of increased production by facilitating increased investment into output markets and supporting market incentives ;
3. Increase investment into enabling infrastructure, both hard infrastructure (such as roads, energy and water) as well as soft infrastructure (especially ICT, which can have positive effects) ;
4. Create an enabling agribusiness environment with appropriate policies and regulation ;
5. Catalyze flows of capital (especially commercial lending and private investment) to scale agribusinesses ;
6. Ensure that transformation delivers on broad-based needs of Africans, by ensuring inclusivity, sustainability and effective nutrition beyond what the market may deliver otherwise ;
7. Coordinate activities to kick start transformation, align activities and investments of different actors, and guide initial activities to the point where private sector actors can be crowded in.

1.4 One of the major flagships being promoted in the implementation of the Feed Africa Strategy is the development of agro industrial parks otherwise known as “Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones” (SAPZs). SAPZs (in some instances may also be known as Agro-Industrial Parks, Agribusiness Parks, Mega Food Parks, Agropoles, Agro-clusters, etc.) are agro-based spatial development initiatives, designed to concentrate agro-processing activities within areas of high agricultural potential to boost productivity and integrate production, processing and marketing of selected commodities. These initiatives may or may not be granted Special Economic Zones status.

1.5 SAPZs are purposely built shared facilities, to enable agricultural producers, processors, aggregators and distributors to operate in the same vicinity to reduce transaction costs and share business development services for increased productivity and competitiveness. The common feature is aggregating within the same location a number of related firms in a given sub-sector, with their supporting institutions and service providers in order to create greater efficiency and economies of scale, exploit synergies, reduce transaction costs, foster innovations and improvements in productivity, thus increasing the competitiveness of the sub-sector.

1.6 By bringing adequate infrastructure (energy, water, roads, ICT, waste treatment plants etc.) to rural areas of high agricultural potential, they attract investments from private agro-industrialists/entrepreneurs to contribute to the economic and social development of rural areas. The ultimate aim of SAPZs is to turn the African rural landscape into economic zones of prosperity. They are intended to lay the foundation for Africa’s agro-industrialisation and contribute to lifting millions of Africans out of poverty.

1.7 This approach has been used since the mid-1950s by many countries, both developed and developing. It requires large financial investments and an effective partnership between the public and private sectors. It requires establishing effective value chains with the capacity to deliver quality goods meeting consumer needs at the right time and in the right amounts. Some African countries such as Morocco and Tunisia adopted a staple crop processing strategy in the 1990’s while others are just embarking on it. Several Regional Member Countries are asking for financial support from the African Development Bank to initiate staple crops processing zones projects.

2. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF WORK : 

2.1 The overall objective of the assignment is to provide technical support to the Rural Infrastructure Development (AHFR.2) Division in the roll out of the Bank’s Feed Africa strategy flagship program “the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones” across the RMCs.

Specific tasks include the following : 

• Provide technical support to the AHFR.2 team in the programing and designing of the Staple Crops Processing Zones RMCs that are interested ;
• Working jointly with the Task Team Leaders, assist RMCs in identifying opportunities that could lead to their agro industrial development as part and parcel of the overall objectives Feed Africa Strategy ;
• Develop for the use of AHFR Management, an effective tracking of the SAPZ by providing situation reports through from time to time ;
• Analyzing the technical proposals/studies emanating from the RMCs and provide effective, well-informed inputs towards the realization of the goals of the Feed Africa, particular on the scaling up of efficient and effective value addition as a base of agro industrialization ;
• Provide policy and strategic options and directions towards the rapid roll out/deployment of the SAPZ and allied activities ;
• Review technical reports as they relate to agro industrialization in general and SAPZ in particular, as submitted by RMCs and partners ensuring that these reflect well informed positions and technical expertise; as technical  expert,  join  the  Bank’s  strategic  field  missions  as  part  of  the Project  development team, pursuant of the agricultural transformation agenda in general ;
• Produce well-researched papers for the AHFR/Senior Management that would be delivered in strategic gathering towards fostering the general agenda of the Feed Africa Strategy ;
• Produce a synthesized monthly report and the various recommendations including the timeline and action plans for their implementations ;
• For the Staple Crops Processing Zones in the various countries of interest, propose undertake assessment/ analysis of the value chain and type of Agro-industries to process crops which shall be included to the full project design ;
• Collaborate with other experts on defining the modality of Public Private Partnership (PPP) that will govern the various SAPZ ;
• Identify and propose the various types of technologies to be used in various projects ;
• Propose linkages between the industrial activities of the SAPZs and downstream activities ;
• Take part in performing data analysis and reporting on value chain assessment levels ;
• Any other assignment as determined by the Manager AHFR.2 in conjunction with the Task Team Leader.

3. EXPECTED DELIVERABLES :

The following are the major deliverables expected from the Consultant :

1. Review proposals from the RMCs on Staple Crops Processing Zones and provide guidance on response to the Task Team ;
2. Prepare topical reports/papers as assigned by the Division Manager AHFR2 ;
3. Prepare and submit to the Division Manager monthly status progress reports ;
4. Review draft reports including technical feasibility studies reports for the various SAPZ using the technical expertise to suggest best practices and experiences ;
5. Provide from time to time specific check lists of progress of the various countries.

4. CONSULTANTS’ QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE :

The Consultant must have at least a Master’s degree or equivalent in agro-industrial engineering, food science and technology, agricultural engineering, agro-business development, agricultural economics with strong policy and operations bias. The Consultant must have at least 8-10 years of field experience. S/He must be very familiar with agro-industrial policy related issues in development and must have strong demonstrable experience on agricultural value chains in Africa. The ideal candidate must have experience working with international development agencies. Excellent ability to write and communicate in the Bank’s two official languages of English and French will be an added advantage.

5. WORKING LANGUAGE :

Two consultants shall be selected; one whose primary working language is English and one whose primary working language is French. However, each consultant should be proficient in the other language.

6. DURATION :

The assignment would be for a renewable period of six months, subject to satisfactory performance.