European Commission (BAFS): Promotion of Agribusiness and Innovative Farming

Deadline: 15 March 2019

Under the 11th European Development Fund, the European Union and Sierra Leone have formulated the “Boosting Agriculture and Food Security (BAFS)” Programme. With a budget of EUR 35 million, the BAFS Programme (2016-2023) has the overall objective to:

Reduce poverty and food insecurity in Sierra Leone through better governance and increased agricultural productivity and diversification.

This Call for Proposals “Promotion of Agribusiness and Innovative Farming” is to support Result 3.2 under Specific Objective 3 of the BAFS Programme, which states that:
Sierra Leone non-state actors, like FBOs (farmer-based organisations), CBOs (community-based organisations), NGOs, Associations and Federations, together with Local Authorities build economically viable agribusinesses along with the private sector, assuring Added Value Chains (AVC) covering the whole AVC from input to marketing.
The Contracting Authority (CA) for the grant contracts of this call is the National Authorising Office (NAO) of Sierra Leone.
Grant Contracts will fall under the overall governance structure of the BAFS Steering Committee (SC). The SC is chaired by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and its composition includes members of the Minister’s technical advisory team (Agricultural Coordination and Transformation Team, ACTT), Directors and members of MAF Divisions, representatives from the NAO and the EU Delegation. Its main role is to supervise implementation of the BAFS Programme.

Implementation of BAFS is coordinated by the Programme Coordination Unit (PCU), whose main role is to ensure that all contracts implemented under BAFS contribute to the outcomes of the programme. The PCU is supported by Technical Assistance.

This call for proposals aims at establishing effective and efficient partnerships between key actors of development in Sierra Leone including non-state actor, private sector and farmers as well their associations, and cooperative). Building on private sector initiatives this partnership should be tailored and relevant to the challenges faced by a particular agriculture value chain, capitalize from the individual of the partners and achieve economic, social and environmental sustainable growth and creation of decent jobs.

Target groups:
 Small and medium-scale farmers (actual & potential) and out-growers in specific value chains.
 Sector (producer, industry) associations, farmer unions, public and private institutions.
 Private sector such as agro-aggregators, processors, manufacturers, distributors as well as retailers (e.g. butchery, supermarkets, exporters) in specific value chains.
 Service (insurance, extension, finance, etc.) providers and inputs suppliers in the specific value chain(s).
Priority issues:

1. Understanding and measuring Value Chain performance: The Value Chain (VC) is analysed and understood with due consideration to value creation in the all areas of the market; with consideration to VC actors’ performance and behaviour, relationships between them and finally how the whole VC is governed. VC performance is measured to demonstrate possible areas for improvement.
2. Improvement of Value Chain performance: vision and strategy are developed by VC actors; upgrading / upscaling activities are implemented and strategic multi-actor partnerships are established.
3. Improvement of business services (legal advice, extension, education, research, information) and financial services to VC actors: investment and service delivery are improved and competitive.
   Proposals must address all Priority Issues.

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