Request for Expression of Interest for Provision of ICT and Business Development Services at Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Extension

1.0 PURPOSE
The overall purpose of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-Nigeria Feed the Future funded Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services Activity also referred to as the “Extension Activity”nis to enhance the productivity, income and nutritional status of 2 million smallholder farmers (SHFs) in Delta, Cross River, Ebonyi, Benue, Niger, Kaduna and Kebbi states across five target value chains of maize, rice, soy, cowpea and aquaculture.
All procurements or awards as a result of this solicitation and subsequent RFPs are funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and are subject to all applicable Federal Rules and Regulations.
This EOI is the first phase of the procurement process. Subsequent phases are outlined as follows:
Phase I – EOI Applicants Evaluated and Shortlisted
Phase II – Winrock will issue the Request for Proposals (RFP) to shortlisted applicants and evaluate and select the full applications.
Phase III – Winrock may negotiate with eligible applicants and/or issue an award or PO.
2.0 BACKGROUND:
The Feed the Future Nigeria Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services Activity is a USAID and PIND funded 5 year Extension Activity which works with Nigerian entrepreneurship to facilitate learning, replication, and scale around alternative models of extension to increase access and adoption of improved agricultural technologies and practices for two million SHFs in Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi, and Niger states. The Extension Activity works through existing micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that focus on the information and service needs of the “average” farming household to support the smallholder farmers enhance their productivity, income and nutritional status in 5 value chain commodities comprising rice,
soybean, cowpea, maize and aquaculture.
The main objective of the Extension Activity is to build the capacity of private extension service providers, by leveraging the power of MSMEs, to deliver extension and advisory services to SHFs to increase their production and productivity due to the increased availability and accessibility of private extension services providers. It targets to increase the availability of and accessibility to quality agricultural inputs/ services as well as pilot and scale up use of ICT-enabled extension services platforms to reach value chain stakeholders. It also aims to increase access to financial products and services. The second objective is to strengthen linkages between agricultural research institutions, agro-allied companies, the public and private extension services providers, and
agricultural value chain stakeholders.
3.0 THE EXPRESS OF INTEREST
To enhance productivity and incomes of SHFs, the Extension Activity has identified Most Impactful Practices (MIPs) using its innovative Lean Methodology- a process of eliminating waste and inefficiencies in the SHF production system. The Extension Activity intends to expose 2 million SHFs to the MIPs through MSMEs to enhance their productivity, yields, and nutritional status. Under this EOI, the Extension Activity is seeking partners investing in catalytic businesses models to spur uptake and dissemination of the MIPs as well as other
business solutions and extension messaging to SHFs.
The Extension Activity has designed the Partnership and Investment Fund (PIF), comprised of a mix of subcontracts and direct procurement, to catalyze change and buy down risk to pilot new products, services, business models, or working relationships. The PIF will enable the Extension Activity to engage with agricultural associations, cooperatives, market integrators, MSMEs, and other actors to address market and business constraints, seize market opportunities, and spur innovation to achieve targeted and sustainable results. The
Extension Activity will also identify opportunities to scale up partner firms’ business models by testing new solution delivery models, expand to new client subgroups, including women and youth, and integrating information and communications technology (ICT) into marketing, customer discovery and profiling, and business efficiency, when financing is not yet feasible.
Potential partners may focus on working with the Extension Activity to provide services in the following broad areas:
a. Use of ICT enabled platforms to extend and disseminate extension messaging to SHFs
b. Business development for MSMEs – to help MSMEs develop rural farmers portfolio as an input to establishing their farmers network; expand or improve their business and their products and or
service delivery outreach to SHFs; and/or help prepare Return on Investment (ROI) analyses and/or business plans to support expansion, customer segmentation or expanded customer reach,
or new product lines to reach SHFs

Complete Method of application

See the complete request for expression on Google Drive here

Expression of Interest Form