Call for proposals for a cta grant/direct award for:Preparation of training materials to promote the development of value chains and agribusiness in ACP countries

1 Background information

CTA is a joint international institution of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States and the European Union (EU). Its mission is to advance food and nutritional security, increase prosperity and encourage sound natural resource management in ACP countries. It facilitates access to information and knowledge; supports evidence-based, multi-stakeholder development of agricultural policies and strategies; promotes inclusive value chain development and use of ICTs; and strengthens the capacities of agricultural and rural development institutions and communities.

2 GRANT OBJECTIVE

One objective of CTAs Value Chains work programme is to contribute to commodity sector stakeholders having a better understanding of issues related to developing efficient and profitable domestic and regional markets and agribusinesses. This Call for Proposals is designed to facilitate the achievement of that objective through the development of training materials that can be used to upgrade value chain and agribusiness skills in ACP countries. It is envisaged that such training materials would be used in formal courses that, depending on the level, could be offered by government departments, donors, NGOs, agricultural colleges, universities or business schools.

3 DESCRIPTION OF GRANT

3.1 Outline of proposals required

The EU-ACP Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) promotes the development of agricultural value chains in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

In support of this work, CTA is looking to support the development of training materials at all levels, including materials that could be used by:

Farmers;

Extension workers;

University students studying agribusiness and related topics;

Value chain stakeholders.

We are looking for proposals for training materials that are sufficiently generic to be used in many, if not all, regions of the ACP, or that can be easily adapted for use in different regions. Materials targeted at one specific country or one specific value chain (e.g. dried mango from Mali) will not be supported. However, materials relating to one particular commodity group (e.g. grains, horticultural products) could be considered.

Proposals could be for textbooks, manuals, videos or digital materials, or a combination of more than one of these, as appropriate for the intended audience. All content presented in the training material should be original or, if not, should fully acknowledge the original source and have the copyright holders approval for its use.

The proposal should not include the cost of reproduction and dissemination of the training materials, which will be taken care of by CTA.

CTA envisages that the training material(s) to be funded under the Call are likely to cost between 20,000 and a maximum of 50,000 depending on the nature of the training material being proposed. The Call requires you to explain the structure of the costs in your proposal. However, the contracts for the successful proposals will be on a lump-sum basis (your cost estimate provides the reference), with payments dependent on the provision of the training materials, as set out in the contract.

3.2 Detailed background for the Call

Changing demographics and consumer preferences, market and trade liberalization, changes in technology, innovation, and the emergence of multinational agribusinesses are some of the factors that have resulted in a transformation of agriculture in the past decade. This transformation is largely characterized by the emergence of shorter, more direct chains, the increased use of contract-based relationships between farmers and buyers, food products that provide higher value to consumers, e.g., in terms of convenience, and stricter and more elaborate standards that deal, among other things, with food quality and safety, and the sustainable use of natural resources. Agri-food markets have become much more competitive and dynamic, making adaptability an essential requirement for the survival of stakeholders all along the chain.

The days when farmers could grow crops or rear animals and then hope to sell them are rapidly coming to an end. Increasingly, if farmers want to be more than subsistence producers, they have to produce the varieties or rear breeds demanded by the buyers; and supply the products or animals in the quantities required by the buyers, at the time and location required, at the required maturity and with the desired packaging and presentation. But the onus to promote market-led development does not just rest on the farmer. Companies seeking to obtain supplies from smallholders need to develop the capacity to work effectively with those smallholders, and provide the necessary technical, advisory and, on occasions, financial support to ensure that the farmers are able to comply with their requirements for supply. Similarly the support services available to farmers in rural areas, such as extension services and NGOs, require a strong understanding of how to make market-led agriculture function effectively.

Adaptation to modern value chains is constrained by skill gaps. Such gaps can, in part, be addressed through capacity building but, to date, there is very little training material available to farmers, service providers, companies and students on value chains, agribusiness and related topics. What is available has often been prepared for one country or one project in one country and may not be relevant to others. Moreover, there is relatively little generic material available that can be used in one region or, indeed, throughout the world or that can serve as a basis for adaptation to suit local circumstances.

Traditional government extension services have tended to pay little attention to what happens to a product after it is harvested but agricultural extension now has to take on a new role. In addition to its conventional one of promoting production there is need to facilitate the development of farm business management, improve post-harvest handling techniques, and facilitate marketing through improved market-linkage approaches.The failure rate of SMEs in Africa, particularly agricultural SMEs, has been described as phenomenal. In addition to the risks faced by all SMEs, agricultural companies are dependent on the vagaries of production, the perishable nature of many agricultural products, market risks, and the reluctance of banks to lend to the agricultural sector. Even when companies become well-established they often face difficulties in dealing with their suppliers and linkages with farmers often break down. Whilst agricultural capacity building efforts have traditionally been directed almost entirely at farmers, there is therefore a strong case for developing materials that can be used by those further along the chain.

Despite the significant changes in agriculture that are affecting ACP countries, ACP universities still tend to offer only rudimentary agribusiness instruction, if at all. Often, an agribusiness option involves a course in agriculture, together with some instruction in agricultural economics. Training materials used are often dated. CTA is supporting ACP universities to develop agribusiness curricula and enhance teaching skills. But curricula require appropriate teaching materials and these are presently lacking. There are similar weaknesses at business schools that wish to offer courses to upgrade the skills of staff of larger agribusiness organizations.

4 WHO SHOULD APPLY?

CTA expects that applicants are likely to be organizations (see Section 6.1) that:

Have innovative, well-articulated ideas in the area of agribusiness and value chain training material development; ideas that have the potential to benefit a large number of people in ACP countries;

Have a demonstrated record of relevant training material development, and can provide evidence of the positive usage of those materials;

If from non-ACP countries, are able to demonstrate practical involvement of ACP individuals or organizations in the activity;

Combine bold vision with common sense, and, in particular, an appreciation of cost effectiveness;

Propose a rigorous approach towards achieving a successful outcome of the proposed activities;

Argue well how the proposed training material serves to meet CTAs objectives;

Provide viable proposals to ensure maximum dissemination of the materials produced;

Demonstrate an ability to raise additional funding, if required;

Have the administrative ability to manage a grant according to CTA rules and procedures.

5 PROPOSAL SPECIFICATIONS

5.1 Template and content of the proposal

The language used for the call for proposals and for all documents must be either French or English. The proposal must be addressed to CTA, as an electronic proposal submitted in PDF format by email (to the address trainingcall@cta.int). This electronic copy must be received by the final submission date and time indicated in the grant guidelines, below. Upon receiving a proposal CTA will, within 5 working days, return an email confirmation with a registration number.The email has to be entitled (in the subject line) Call for proposals: Value Chain Training Materials. Not to be opened before September 1st 2014 at 9:00, and all the required documents have to be PDF attachments. The required documents must contain the following:

A. Administrative informationA.1. An application letter, duly signed, expressing the applicants interest in participating in the Call, and confirming that the applicant (and its partners):

a) has received and studied the grant guidelines, and accepts all their instructions and conditions;

b) is not in a situation that might impair the execution of the contract; specifically that the applicant is not insolvent, bankrupt, being wound up or in a similar situation;

c) has abided by all tax and social security regulations in its home country;

d) has not been convicted in any country of a criminal or civil offence, fraud, corruption or money laundering.

A.2 Document(s) of legal establishment not more than 360 days old, proving the nationality of the applicant organisation), if not previously sent to CTA.

B. Technical information

B.1 Profile of the applicant, and a paragraph explaining why the applicant organization is best placed to implement the proposed activity/ies (maximum 2 pages). This should cover areas of expertise, references to similar projects carried out in the recent past, number of employees (permanent staff, other employees) in the last three years, main areas of professional competence, resources available to provide the services provided, and annual turnover figures for the last three years.

B.2 An overview of the proposed Action: 3 pages outlining the training material(s) that you are proposing. In the case of books, guides or manuals, please specify the expected length.

B.3 Proposed team for the execution of the proposed training material(s): profile (2 pages maximum) indicating the competencies of the experts, their complementarity and suitability for the activities proposed; succinct CVs of the members of the team, indicating at least their nationality, their education, field of expertise, professional experience and language skills; and a table or diagram of the tasks assigned to the members of the team and the total number of person-days that will be provided by each expert.

B.4 A proposed execution schedule with indication of the main milestones. The proposed activities need to be completed no later than June 1st 2015, and a full financial report and final project report need to be sent no later than June 30th 2015.

C. Financial information

C.1 A budget, with an indication of the funding requested from CTA, and for what the CTA funds are to be used. Please provide budget information as per the following template:

Table 1: budget (Euro)

Activity number

Item1.2...TotalBudget narrative (explains how the budget line has been calculated, giving details on the elements entering into the calculation)

A. Personnel

A.1 StaffFigures have to be justified using Table 2 below.

A.2 ExpertsExperts are recruited for a number of days to support project activities. Fees are per day, as per actual costs.

A.3 ConsultantsConsultants are recruited to produce specific outputs. Fees are all-inclusive lump-sum amounts.

B. Travel

B.1 Staff and expertsTicket costs; for international travel 120/person lump sum (to cover visa costs, travel to and from airports); hotel and per diem costs while traveling.

B.2 Meeting participantsIdem

C. Other direct costs(to be reimbursed as per invoices of service providers)

C.1 Meeting facilities

C.2 Interpretation

C.3 Printing

C.4 Translation, editing

C.5 Dissemination of information

C.6

D. Project management costs*4%

TOTAL

Requested support from CTA

Sources of funding for remaining sums

* Costs covered under this item include communication costs, accounting, technical and financial report preparation, and other costs such as utilities, vehicle use and maintenance and stationery.

C.2The grant is to be paid:

a. 20% payment on signature of the contract and an inception note with the more detailed table of contents;b. 60% payment on delivering a first complete draft, and documentation evidencing the required 10% co-funding (see section C.3 below);c. 20% payment on approval of the final draft.

C.3 An overview of the co-funding contributed by the applicant and/or third parties (in kind and/or in funding). CTA requires co-funding for its competitive grants. For this call, co-funding has to be at a minimum of 10 per cent; higher co-funding shares are encouraged. Co-funding can come from the applicant organization or from third parties. Contributions of staff time towards the project can be considered as co-funding, but these have to be quantified and verifiable. Applicants that wish to include payments to their staff as part of their contribution are requested to provide information in the following format:Table 2: Estimated number of staff days to be contributed to the projectThe activity number should corresponds to the numbering in the budgetActivitySalary cost, daily rate

Staff 1

EuroStaff 2

EuroStaff 3

EuroStaff 4

Euro Staff XEuro

1

2

3

4

As required by CTAs contribution agreement with the European Union and to establish eligibility of costs, partners should determine the daily rate of the salary cost for each person assigned to the project activities, as follows:

The sum of the annual gross salary, social security payments and other costs that are components of the salary costs in a strict sense, is divided by the number of productive days in the year. It should be stressed that overhead costs are not taken into account.

The number of productive days in the year is calculated as the total of days in the year minus weekends, annual leave, statutory holidays, sickness days and other leave days.

It should be noted that CTA is exempted from value added tax, in accordance with Article 15, paragraph 19 of Directive 77/388/EEC and by virtue of the Headquarters Agreement, concluded on 7 August 1984 by and between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and CTA.5.2 What is out of scope?

Proposals that envisage that the CTA grant will be primarily used for materials to be used outside ACP countries are not eligible. Similarly, proposals that do not address the scope of the Call cannot be considered. Unfortunately, we cannot support proposals submitted by individuals. 5.3 Budget expectations

CTA expects the proposed budget to be cost-effective and to provide good value for money. CTA can accommodate proposals with requests for support of between 20,000 and a maximum of 50,000. Organisations can submit multiple proposals but only one will be funded. The maximum amount that can be allocated to any contract is 50,000.6 RULES AND GUIDELINES

6.1 Eligibility Participation in this call is open equally to any legal person from the ACP States and the Member States of the European Union contributing to the EDF; from official EU candidate countries and member States of the European Economic Area; from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) according to OECD/DAC; from any other country covered by a European Commission decision establishing reciprocal access to external aid as the region covered by this proposal includes LDCs, this automatically includes all OECD/DAC members; and to international organizations wherever they have their seat. Subcontracting is authorised. Proposals from EU and OECD countries that envisage subcontracting to ACP country organisations will be considered favourably. If the applicant intends to subcontract one or more parts of the services to be provided, it must indicate clearly in its submission the names of the subcontractors as well as the nature and amount of services subcontracted; no more than 50% of the services to be provided can be subcontracted.

A subcontractor may not subcontract in turn.

Subcontractors must also meet the conditions of eligibility.

6.1 Procedure

Step 1 Submission of the proposal

Proposals must be sent by email to trainingcall@cta.int. Emails must arrive at the latest by August 31st 2014, 24:00. Late receipt of the email shall constitute an element of non-conformity and lead to the rejection of the application.

Step 2 Review process

Proposals will be reviewed and selected by an evaluation committee (see section 6.3 for evaluation criteria).

Contracts are awarded to the applicants:

Who meet the eligibility rules;

Whose submission is compliant with the administrative requirements;

Whose financial proposal, in terms of the support requested from CTA, is not more than 50,000.Within the limits of the available budget and keeping in mind CTAs objective to have a well-balanced portfolio of activities, grants will be given to the best-scoring proposals. Available funds will be allocated starting with the highest-scoring project. Should, for a given applicant, the available budget be less than 100 per cent but more than 80 per cent of the financial support requested by the applicant, CTA will contact the applicant to verify whether it is possible to execute the project with the funds available. Applicants whose proposals are accepted will be notified in writing no later than 45 days after the closing date for electronic submission of this Call.

Pursuant to the submission form, the successful applicant may be required, at CTAs request, to provide documents to substantiate the proposal, notably documents relating to the legal status of the applicant; additional technical information; and references of similar activities executed.

If the successful applicant does not provide such proof within 15 days, the awarding will be null and void, and CTA may then award a contract to another applicant or cancel the Call for Proposals procedure.

Other applicants will be informed by letter that their submissions were not accepted.

The contract awarding notice will be published on the CTA website (www.cta.int).

Step 3 Signing of the contract

Contracts will be drawn up by CTA, according to its relevant terms and conditions. The successful applicant must sign, date and return the contract to CTA within 14 days of receipt thereof.

If the successful applicant does not comply with this obligation, the decision to award the contract may be reversed. In such a case, CTA may award the contract to another applicant.

6.2 Evaluation criteria

Administrative verification

The administrative verification includes:

Verification of the applications eligibility Verification of compliance with the administrative requirements, in particular:

The proposal submission date;

The authorised language(s) for submitting the proposal;

The submission of the proposal with all the elements required by the terms of reference (e.g. methodology, list and CVs of experts, schedule of activities).

More generally, verification that all the documents and information required of the applicant and, where applicable, the members of a consortium and subcontractors, are available and valid.

Proposals which do not meet these three sets of criteria are rejected immediately. The others will be evaluated.Proposal evaluation

The evaluation of each technical proposal is carried out in accordance with the following weighting and awarding criteria:

Score Card for Evaluation: Call for proposals on Preparation of training materials to promote the development of value chains and agribusiness in ACP countries

CriteriaMaximum score

Financial and operational capacity of the applicant

Appropriateness of proposal in light of the applicants areas of competence 5

Recent experience (last 5 years) in conducting relevant training and in developing training materials15

Team composition: adequacy for the nature of the proposed activities and use of ACP resources10

Sub-total30

Relevance in light of CTA programmatic priorities

Fit with overall value chain activities of CTA and with the scope of the Call as set out in Section 3 above20

Sub-total20

Methodology (coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, expected impact and sustainability)

Adopts a generic approach that can be widely used in ACP countries10

Originality of the proposed materials10

Makes clear proposals for dissemination of the materials produced10

Proposal is well-drafted and well-structured with a clear time line5

Sub-total35

Budget and cost-effectiveness of the proposal

Cost effectiveness of the proposal10

Effective co-funding with applicant and third parties5

Sub-Total15

GRAND TOTAL100

No other awarding criterion will be used and no change will be made in the weighting.

Applications whose mark does not reach 70% will be rejected.

7 Confidentiality

The evaluation procedure is confidential. The decisions of the evaluation committee are collegial and its deliberations are conducted behind closed doors. The members of the evaluation committee are bound by the obligation of confidentiality. The evaluation reports and written minutes in particular are intended mostly for internal use and any confidential information contained therein will not be communicated to the applicants or to any other party.

8 COPYRIGHT AND OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTSWith the exception of CTAs rights further specified below, the Grantee retains all copyright, rights in the nature of copyright and all other intellectual property rights throughout the world (present and future, and including without limitation all renewals, extensions, revivals and restorations thereof and accrued rights of action in respect thereof) on the results of the activities co-financed by CTA. However, CTA will (without limitation) be entitled to produce, publish, adapt, promote any books, paper(s) and other materials or any translation, adaptation or abridgement of the books, paper(s) or other materials in any form and in any language written or facilitated under the project.

CTA will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the author(s) is(are) identified as the author of the paper(s) whenever the books, paper(s) and other materials is(are) published in its(their) entirety by CTA. Subject to this, the author(s) irrevocably and unconditionally waive(s) the moral rights he or she(they) may have in any territory of the world.

9 Warranties

By providing any submission materials, the applicant warrants that it has the right to provide the information submitted..

10 Cancellation of the CALL FOR PROPOSALS procedure

If a Call for Proposals is cancelled, the applicants will be informed accordingly. CTA will under no circumstances be held liable for damages, irrespective of their nature, including, without restriction, damages for loss of earnings, irrespective of their connection with the cancellation of an invitation to call for proposals procedure.

Furthermore, the launch of a Call for Proposals in no way requires CTA or any of the other organizations involved to implement the activity, programme or project announced or to contract the services.

1