Conservation Farming Unit – 5-year Strategic Plan (2017-2021)

Terms of Reference

Organisation / Conservation Farming Unit Ltd (CFU)
Funding Source / UK aid through the Department for International Development (DFID)
Position Type / Short Term Consultancy
Assignment / Development of a five year strategic Plan (2017-2021)
Closing Date / 31st August, 2017

The Conservation Farming Unit, a company limited by guarantee received a grant from the People of the United Kingdom through the Department for International Development (DFID) for the implementation of the Climate Smart Agriculture Zambia Programme (CSAZ) and intends to apply part of the proceeds to procure consulting services for the development of a five year Strategic Plan.

Introduction

The Climate Smart Agriculture Zambia (CSAZ) Business Case envisages a significant increase in private sector investment in the agricultural sector and recognises the need for the Conservation Farming Unit to accompany those changes with respect to its service offerings. As part of the conditions to the funding as specified in the accountable grant agreement, DFID has asked the Conservation Farming Unit to elaborate a five year strategic plan covering the period 2017-2021, specifically focusing on strategies to:

  1. Achieve wider coverage and use, both nationally and regionally, of CFU’s pro-poor climate smart training and research capacity;
  2. Establish a more-commercially oriented approach to business planning and sustainable project delivery;
  1. Develop a stronger business development capacity within the organisation to help advertise and promote the benefits of its core services and secure alternative funding sources.
  2. Identify the main barriers for private sector engagement in adoption of climate smart agriculture, and set out ways to work together with private sector and other players to address and overcome these barriers.
  3. Develop strategies for the development of policies for communications and Gender & disability to ensure equality in service provision by the CFU.

The work of developing a strategic plan to capitalise on the past achievements of the Conservation Farming Unit is primarily concerned with ensuring the longer term future for the organisation once the current round of donor funding comes to an end in July 2021. It will also be usedto review how best climate smart innovation in the agricultural sector can be used to promote and shape further social and economic gains and how training modules and research products developed by the CFU can be put into use at greater scale and across a wider geography.

Overall Objective

The objective for developing the CFU strategic plan is to provide guidance to the CFU Board and management on how the company will ensure its ability to deliver on existing obligations to development partnersand how it will go about developing its capacity as part of an exit strategy to ensure the longer-term viability of the company. Specifically the strategic Plan will define how the company will go about achieving the specific output and outcome targets set out in the currentlogframe, including the actions necessary to build capacity where it does not currently exist, the time required to complete specific activities to deliver outputs, the management and staff involved and the authorities, responsibilities and physical/operational linkages within the system necessary to direct activities, collect data, monitor, evaluate and manage performance.

Specifically, the Strategic Plan will show how the company will be sustained both in terms of financial and human resources to deliver on current obligations and future expectations. It will identify different approaches and viable strategies for engaging the private sector in financing specific and clearly identified components of the company, clearly defining CFU’s role in the sector and how it can be more involved as a Private sector ‘Enabler’;explain how the system will be monitored, quality controlled, managed, and marketed.

Strategic Plan Outputs

The consultant will develop a detailed 5-year strategic plan that is expected to provide CFU management with a corporate road map to upgrade present systems and procedures, set out promotional and marketing/communication strategies to ensuregrowth andenhanced financial viability and suggest ways to build a stronger business development capacity within the company.

The strategic plan should be time bound and show clear achievable targets within defined timelines., including:

Situation Analysis

CFU’s Role and Vision (review the Theory of Change)

Delivery ,Implementation Road Map, budgets and possible funding instruments.

The plan shall among others provide the following :,

  1. Executive Summary;
  2. Overview of present major demographic, economic, social and cultural factors influencing agricultural information and communication services in Zambia, major stakeholders types of information products and services, partners within and outside the agricultural sector and identify the different potential market segments for CFU’s services and make an estimate of the potential size of those markets.
  3. Review of current corporate capacity, including human, financial and physical assets, management systems and working modalities to identify the strengths and weaknesses.
  4. Identification of key change and growth requirements and development strategies;
  5. Description of human resources and financial plan for selected strategy options.
  6. Develop an implementation road map and plan for the Organisation- outlining the goals and objectives for the both the medium and long term including performance indicators against which results will be measured.

Application Process

Interested consultants or teamsshould submit: Letter of interest, Proposal, and financial offer no later than 31st of August 2016. Submissions may either be made electronically or physically.

If physically, please place them in the Tender Box at the CFU Offices, Plot 297a/9/10 Leopards Hill Rd, marked “CFU HEA 2017” and for the attention of the Programme Officer

If electronically, please send to nd also copy in

Preparation and submission of Tender

  1. All tenders should be signed by an authorized person.
  2. Prices quoted must clearly indicate VAT Exclusive and VAT Inclusive.
  3. The applicable law shall be the Zambian law.
  4. This request for a Proposal shall not constitute a contract.
  5. Only short listed applicants will be contacted.
  6. Applicants after the deadline will be excluded.
  7. Applications not conforming to the conditions will not be taken into account.
  8. The bidder shall bear the costs associated with the preparation and submission of its bid, and CFU shall not be responsible or liable for those costs, regardless of the conduct outcome of the bidding process.
  9. The bids, as well as the correspondence and documents relating to the bids exchanged by the bidder and the procuring entity, shall be written in English. Supporting documents and printed literature that are part of the quotations shall be English.

Conditions

The following procurement terms and conditions of CFU shall apply;

  1. Prices quoted by the Bidder shall be fixed during the bidders performance of the contract and not subject to variation on any account. A bid submitted with an adjustable price quotation shall be treated as non-responsive and shall be rejected.
  2. The bids should be supported by copies of the valid tax clearance certificate from the Zambia revenue authority (ZRA), certificate of incorporation from patents and company registration authority (PACRA) – if applicable.

Evaluation and Comparison of Bids

Information relating to the evaluation, examination, comparison and post qualification of bids and recommendation of contract award, shall not disclosed to bidders or any other persons not officially concerned with such process until information on contract award is communicated to all bidders.

Any effort by the bidder to influence the procuring entity in the examination, evaluation, comparison and post qualification of the bids or contract award decisions may result in the rejection of its bids.

From the time of the bid opening to the time of contract award, if any bidder wishes to contact the procuring entity on any matter related to the bidding process, it should do so in writing.

To assist in the examination, evaluation, comparison and post qualification of the bids, the procuring entity may, at its discretion ask the bidder for the clarification of its bid. Any clarification submitted by a bidder in respect to its bid and that is not in response to a request by the procuring entity shall not be considered. The procuring entity’s request for clarification and the response shall be in writing. No change in the prices or substance of the bid shall be sought, offered or permitted, except to confirm the correction of arithmetic errors discovered by the procuring entity in the evaluation of the bids.

Responsiveness of Bids

A substantially responsive bid is one that conforms to all the terms, conditions and specifications of the bidding documents.

The procuring entity shall award the contract to the bidder whose offer has been determined to be the best evaluated bid and is substantially responsive to the bidding documents, provided further that the bidder is determined to be qualified to perform the contract satisfactorily.

The activities of the Conservation Farming Unit are supported in the main by generous funding from the British People. These funds allow the CFU to reach over 200,000 farmers in Zambia each year, providing them with practical training on Conservation Farming and Climate Smart Agriculture, enabling them to improve their farming incomes, lives and futures.