REQUEST FOR PROPOSALFOR INVESTING IN WOMEN IN SOUTH SUDAN PRE-INVESTMENT TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE – BUSINESS MENTORSHIP & COACHING-OCTOBER 2022

TERMS OF REFERENCE

1. The African Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF)

The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) transforms lives by providing investment funding and technical assistance to commercially viable businesses that improve the lives of rural communities. It mobilizes donor funding to support early and growth-stage businesses in agriculture and renewable and clean energy sectors, with a focus on improving incomes and employment for rural and marginalized groups. It is a non-profit organization, with its headquarters in Nairobi and operational centers in Somali, Ethiopia, Dar-es-Salaam, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan and Côte d’Ivoire.

Since our launch in 2008 at the World Economic Forum, AECF has built the resilience of rural and marginalized communities by catalyzing innovative private sector business models with patient capital and growth support services across Sub-Saharan Africa. We have raised US$ 392 million to date, providing catalytic funding to enterprises in 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa by investing in businesses that struggle to meet traditional risk-return standards for commercial investors. In 2021, we launched a new strategy with the objective to build resilience and sustainable incomes for rural and marginalized communities in Africa.

1. About the Investing in Women in South Sudan (IIW-SS)

Investing in Women in South Sudan (IIW-SS) is a five-year gender equality and economic inclusion programme (June 2021 to July 2026) being implemented by Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) with the generous support of Global Affairs Canada (GAC). The programme responds to the continuing poverty, food insecurity, and conflict and climate vulnerability of female small-scale farmers in South Sudan who are excluded from the opportunities of agriculture value chains that could increase incomes, reduce risk and climate exposure, and transform their livelihoods.

The overall objective of IIW-SS is to economically empower women in the agricultural sector – specifically in Central Equatoria and Eastern Equatoria states, by investing in women-focused businesses and women’s entrepreneur associations to create climate smart, gender sensitive value chain opportunities for thousands of rural women and youth from poor and food insecure households.

The programme seeks to:

1. Reduced gender-specific barriers for women’s participation in agricultural value chains including unpaid care burden in Eastern and Central Equatoria States in South Sudan
2. Increased adoption of gender-sensitive climate smart agricultural practices by women farmers in Eastern and Central Equatoria States in South Sudan
3. Improved employability and livelihoods for women in agriculture and food systems in Eastern and Central Equatoria States in South Sudan

The Immediate Outcome of the programme are.

• Increased capacity and knowledge provided to farmers to reduce barriers to accessing productive resources e.g., land, information, capital, and access to human rights
• Improved enabling environment for women including the security of their assets
• Increased capacity and knowledge to conduct climate-smart agricultural practices that are gender- sensitive.
• Increased production and productivity of crops, and livestock that are grown and kept by women.
• Farmers reduce their post-harvest loses and increase production, processing and marketing of their surplus produce and products

The IIW-SS have a specific emphasis on gender equality when it was designed, the launch of the Feminist International Assistance Policy in 2017 led to an increasing focus on the effective inclusion of women into programme outcomes.

AECF deploys an investee led results reporting system based on the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development’s Results Measurement Framework, which provides biannual information on a wide range of development impact metrics. This information is available for all the years of implementation.

1. Scope of Work

This engagement aims to assist AECF roll out pre-investing technical assistance coupled with mentorship & coaching for IIW SS prospective investees. The overall goal is to equip the business with management and entrepreneurship skills that will contribute to their growth and pre-pare them for investing by AECF or grant funders in South Sudan.

The overall objective of of this assignment is to sustainably improve and support the prospective investees to grow and expand through the provision of business technical assistance and mentorship support. It is expected that this will fuel the success of these MSMEs and enable them to survive and grow their revenues, customers, jobs created among others commercial indicator

This assignment is intended to work with at least 10 prospective investees to improve their capacity in the following areas:

• • Sales and marketing
    – Financial management and modelling
    – General business strategy

We envisioned to impact, among others:

1. Empowerment of Business Owner to Managers: The business mentorship aims to provide business owners/managers of the selected firms with the ability to make better business decisions and to improve overall strategic business planning ability.
2. Improved Companies’ Ability to Deal with Challenges: help business owners and managers to be prepared to handle business challenges as and when they occur.
3. Improved Financial and Economic Performance: to create stronger and more stable business enterprises and that the businesses would perform well financially through improved business turnover, sales, production and productivity and thereby enabling the businesses to create jobs and wealth for owners.
4. Business Growth and Improvement: to contribute to business growth and improvement. Through encouraging innovation, new products and services, new ways of working, identifying cost savings, new revenue streams, better marketing strategies and an optimal company structure.
5. Access to External Resources/ Improved market linkages: It is anticipated that the businesses would significantly improve the market knowledge, contacts and relationships that mentees have through interaction with mentors and other stakeholders, which would facilitate better access to potential clients, investors or partners such corporate companies amongst others.
6. How did the financing provided by AECF improve the business performance of the supported enterprises? What would have happened to these businesses without the funding? Specific Deliverables for the Assignment

The consultant will be required to prepare and provide the following deliverables:

1. 1 (One) 2-day Mentorship bootcamp session

This shall cover the cross-cutting needs across the enterprises. The enterprises shall be grouped into; SMEs and Early-stage companies and the cross-cutting needs tackled through group trainings.

The last day of the bootcamp shall see the mentors conduct further individual entrepreneur need assessment which the mentors shall be expected to close through both one on one on- site and virtual coaching sessions.

1. 1 (One) On Site Individual Mentorship Session

The mentor/coach shall conduct at least 2 hours of one-on-one physical mentorship session to the entrepreneurs under their portfolio. This shall provide the mentor with an opportunity to better understand the nature of the business and offer on- site mentorship/ coaching to close the gaps identified.

1. 2 (Two) Virtual Individual mentorship sessions

2 subsequent individual sessions shall be conducted virtually to each entrepreneur. The sessions shall last at least 2 hours per mentee.

5. Assignment reporting

The consultant shall provide:

• An inception report after 5 days confirming the methodology and scope of work.
• A final report after competition of activities. The main report should not exceed 20 pages (annexes can be additional). The Consultant will draft a report with the following key areas:
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Overview of activities
• Outcome (including Case Studies and Success Stories)
• Key Lessons
• Recommendations
• Conclusion

Once the draft report is developed it will be submitted to The AECF for comments and additional inputs. The consultant will then incorporate changes, comments, and input from the AECF as well as undertake refining of the document. The document will then be re-submitted to The AECF for an additional round of comments and input before the final draft is developed, submitted, and approved.

1. Duration of Service

The Assignment will be conducted over a period of two months (2) months and expectation of deliveries the following outcomes.

1. Reporting

The consultant will report to the Programme Manager – Investing in Women South Sudan, AECF Investment Manager and Head of Programmes- Agribusiness.

1. Qualifications/experience required

The applicant should possess the following qualifications:

1. Demonstrate strong capacity to deliver the assignment on time.
2. Must have at least a bachelor’s degree in Commerce/Economics/Accounting
3. Minimum of three years’ experience performing similar duties to private sector and development institutions
4. Have a local understanding / or a member who understand the South Sudan context.
5. Proposal Submission

Qualified firms /Individual Consultants are invited to submit the proposal that includes the following:

1. Methodology and approach for conducting the assignment for the different work packages.
2. Reference list of similar assignments done in the past, including assignments in South Sudan.
3. The financial proposal clearly showing the budgeted cost for the work to be conducted under the scope of work above.
4. Registration and other relevant statutory documents (applicable to firms).
5. At least three signed reference letters of similar work done

Please note, Technical and Financial proposals should be submitted as separate documents.

1. Evaluation Criteria

An evaluation committee will be formed by the AECF which will include employees. All members will be bound by the same standards of confidentiality. Bidders should ensure that they fully respond to all criteria to be comprehensively evaluated. In deciding the final selection of qualified bidder, the technical quality of the proposal will be given a weighting of 70% based on the evaluation criteria below. Only the financial proposal of those bidders who qualify technically will be reviewed. The financial proposal will be allocated a weighting of 30% and the proposals will be ranked in terms of total pointsscored.

Evaluation Criteria

Marks

An understanding of the consultancy requirements

10

Methodology and work – plan for performing the assignment

10

Relevant services are undertaken by the bidder in past engagements with evidence of LPO/LSO, letter of engagement, completion certificate

20

Qualification and experience of the consultant/team and evidence of relevant certification, at least three signed reference letters of similar work done

20

All the required registration and certification document

10

Financial proposal; clarity, relevance, reality to market of value/ value for money of cost for the assignment (inclusive of any applicable tax).

30

Total Score

100

1. Pricing

The AECF is obliged by the Kenyan tax authorities to withhold taxes on service contract fees as well as ensure VAT, is charged where applicable. Applicants are advised to ensure that they have a clear understanding of their tax position with regards to provisions of Kenya tax legislation when developing their proposals.

1. Disclaimer

AECF reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party.

How to apply

1. Application

The AECF is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The AECF considers all interested candidates based on merit without regard to race, sex, colour, national origin, religion, age, marital status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

1. Interested training firms and individuals are requested to submit their technical and financial proposals aecf[email protected] by 10th November 2022**
2. The Subject of the email should read “Request for Proposal IIW SS Pre – Investment Technical Assistance Consultancy”. The AECF shall not be liable for not opening proposals that are submitted with a different subject.
3. All questions and clarifications should be sent toaecf[email protected]**

For more information please visit our website as per the link below

https://www.aecfafrica.org/careers/terms-of-reference-for-investing-in-women-in-south-sudan-pre-investment-technical-assistance-business-mentorship-coaching-october-2022/