Digital Loan Portal Development Consultant for Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Activity (FTF) at Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA)

RFP Number: RFP-2020.11.001
Location: Nigeria
Funded By: USAID

Introduction

• The Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Activity (FTF) is a USAID program implemented by CNFA in Nigeria
• The goal of the Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Activity (FTF) is to strengthen the business enabling environment to promote private sector investment in agriculture.

To achieve this goal, the activity focuses on four interrelated components:

• Improving the ease of doing business in the agricultural sector;
• Broadening access to finance by mitigating the credit risks of agribusinesses;
• Promoting investment opportunities for agribusinesses to expand and scale up operations; and
• Enhancing the performance standards of agribusiness micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

In line with the U.S. and Nigerian Government’s commitment to growing the non-oil-based economy, these efforts will increase the quality, quantity, market access, and diversification of Nigeria’s agribusiness sector.

The Ebonyi State Government is looking to expand on its drive to further support the growth and development of businesses in the State and intends to make commercially viable financial injections in form of loans to MSME’s in targeted sectors of its economy, prioritizing agribusiness amongst others.

The State intends to undertake this plan using the COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (CARES) program, partnership with the Bankers Committee Abakaliki, and other MSME Development Financial Institutions to pilot low interest loans to deserving beneficiaries. This fund is also designed to serve as an economic recovery tool for Ebonyi State, in view of the economic impact of the novel COVID-19 pandemic.

Offerors are responsible for ensuring that their offers are received by CNFA in accordance with the instructions, terms, and conditions described in this RFP. Failure to adhere with instructions described in this RFP may lead to disqualification of an offer from consideration. CNFA will only consider offers for Digital Loan Portal Development Consultant role from Nigerians and Nigerian based firms.

Scope of Work

• The Activity and the State have been in extensive discussions on how to support the State’s current MSME development efforts through ensuring that the loan application, documentation, and management processes are digitalized and user friendly.
• Pursuant to the above, the Ebonyi State Government through its Ministry of Business Development seeks the Activity’s support to contract an STTA digital portal developer to create a user-friendly online portal for loan applications, documentation, and management
• This will enable the State to adopt Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to effectively receive & process loan applications and manage the loan portfolio, starting with the three billion naira (N3bn) MSME Development Fund in collaboration with the Zenith Bank, First Bank, United Bank of Africa and NCARES Program for Result (P4R) which will involve enumeration, verification, account creation and fund disbursement.

Period of Performance:

• The length of this assignment is approximately 15 (fifteen) days, and the consultant/firm is expected to commence work in December 2020.

Tasks:

• Design and launch the MSME Development Fund loan portal to support profiling of MSMEs across 13 local government areas, loan application, monitoring/management and recovery.
• Ensure the developed portal adheres to the nine Principles for Digital Development and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These nine principles are:
  • Design with user
  • Understand ecosystem
  • Design for scale
  • Build for sustainability
  • Be data driven
  • Use open standards
  • Reuse and improve
  • Address privacy and security
  • Be collaborative
• The portal should be designed to allow access to the following user groups:
  • MSME applicants as the front end users for the loan application processes and fund management,
  • Ebonyi State Government Ministry of Business Development for viewer access and monitoring
  • Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) will be given access as back office users for the loan review, approval and monitoring.

Deliverables
At the end of the Assignment, the Consultant is expected to complete a digital portal for online loan applications, documentation, and management in favor of the Ebonyi State Government Ministry of Business Development which will include:

• Developing a framework for receipt and vetting of loan applications.
• The portal should be able to perform each of the following functions:
  • Beneficiary enumeration/Data Capturing
  • Account creation
  • Verification
  • Fund management
• The portal should be capable of supporting regular monitoring and evaluation of loan beneficiaries including the evaluation of the performance of their loans.

There will be a testing phase of at least one week after task completion within which any identified issues or changes required on the portal are treated and resolved by the implementing consultant.

All written deliverables will be prepared using standard USAID Feed the Future templates and appropriate branding and marking as applicable

Questions

• Questions regarding the technical or administrative requirements of this RFP may be submitted no later than 12:00pm on December 10, 2020 by email to: operations@ag-invest.org
• Questions must be submitted in writing; phone calls will not be accepted
• Questions and requests for clarification and the responses thereto that CNFA believes may be of interest to other offerors will be circulated to all RFP recipients who have indicated an interest in bidding.
• Only the written answers issued by CNFA will be considered official and carry weight in the RFP process and subsequent evaluation. Any verbal information received from employees of CNFA or any other entity should not be considered as an official response to any questions regarding this RFP.

Evaluation and Award

• The award will be made to a responsible offeror whose offer follows the RFP instructions, meets the eligibility requirements, and is determined via a trade-off analysis to be the best value based on application of the below evaluation criteria.
• Best value determination will consider both technical and financial proposals (i.e., the best approach and anticipated results in combination with a reasonable cost.) Proposed costs must reflect and clearly match the degree of sophistication of the technical approach.

The relative importance of each individual criterion is indicated by the number of points below:

• Technical, 50 points:
  • Proposed design and methodology - 30 points
  • Proposed delivery schedule - 20 points
  • Years of experience in ICT and digital website design -15 points
  • Evidence of previous similar work developing interactive portals/websites for end-user engagement -15 points
• Cost Proposal, 20 points - overall price and payment terms for the services procured

Best-offer proposals are requested. It is anticipated that award will be made solely on the basis of these original proposals. However, CNFA reserves the right to conduct any of the following:

• CNFA may conduct negotiations with and / or request clarifications from any offeror prior to award;
• While preference will be given to offerors who can address the full technical requirements of this RFP, CNFA may issue a partial award or split the award among various suppliers, if in the best interest of the Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Project;
• CNFA may cancel this RFP at any time.

Award will be issued only to the entity which submits a proposal in response to this RFP. CNFA will not issue an award to different offerors, entities, or third-parties other than the selected offeror(s). CNFA anticipates awarding a Service agreement to the successful offeror.

Cost Proposal:

• Pricing must be presented in Naira.  Offers must remain valid for not less than 30 days calendar days after the offer deadline
• Offerors are requested to provide offers on official letterhead in accordance with the format provided in Annex 4.

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