Deadline: 31-Mar-23
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) is requesting proposals to build and implement innovative access models to safe and nutritious foods for farmers and workers in the rice and maize value chain.
GAIN is implementing the Strengthening Nutrition in Priority Staples (SNIPS) project which will add a nutrition lens to and deliver an integrated suite of activities to support GIZ’s Green Innovation Centre (GIC) in Nigeria. This nutrition project will strengthen the GIC priority value chains and improve food security and safety through improved diets for farmers, farm workers, other workers in businesses in these value chains, and among the wider population in Nigeria. The following broad objectives for this programme are:
- Increased consumption of safe, nutritious foods by smallholder farmers, their families, and the wider population.
- Strengthened cassava, maize, sweet potato, and rice value chains in Nigeria which provide more, safe nutritious foods to consumers.
- Increased use of nutritious varieties of the target staples in processed foods.
- Improved productivity & efficiency of farmers and other businesses to improve the production of safe, nutritious foods in the cassava, maize, sweet potato, and rice value chains
Scope of Work
- The Project will be designed to;
- build a sustainable access model to nutritious foods (i.e availability of nutritious foods at local retail shops, vendors);
- Identify value-added nutritious crops via product development (utilizing nutrient enriched staple crops i.e vitamin A maize, cassava, orange fleshed sweet potato)
- design a feasible supply chain via existing supply chain networks for the purchase and sales of these nutritious foods
- Train vendors and entrepreneurs on marketing, effective trade practices and nutrition education to attract customers
- achieve sales of nutritious foods to 1,500 households
- The selected implementing partner will support the planning and implementation of the Workforce Nutrition Component of the Project by building and implementing a sustainable access model for nutritious foods for farmers, farmworkers, their households and communities, encourage the consumption of safe and nutritious foods (including orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, vitamin A maize and Vitamin A cassava) by farmers and their household members, encourage effective demand and purchase of nutritious foods, enterpreneurs training and capacity building on the nutritional benefits of these nutritious foods, marketing, and sales, identify value-added products to be advertised and sold, develop a feasible supply chain network, ensure adequate follow-ups to measure adoption and output progress and to support community resilience and participation.
- It is important to note that the SNIPS project focuses on the promotion of bio fortified crops (vitamin A maize, vitamin A cassava, and orange-fleshed sweet potato). Value-added products from these staple crops can be developed and promoted with the innovative access model via a sustainable approach. They look forward to innovative access models that are cost-effective, viable and sustainable considering the remoteness of the locations in which they work and the uniqueness of the target audience.
- Building on this, the implementing partner will develop and implement a supply chain model including strategy and proposed methodologies, as well as a quality assurance plan to improve access to targeted nutritious foods among smallholder farmer families. The implementing partner is expected to work under the direct supervision of the SNIPS Project Manager for the Workforce Nutrition Component to carry out the following:
- Develop a sustainable market-based Supply Chain model via existing supply chain network (this could be sales of nutritious foods at local retail shops, kiosk vendors etc.) which addresses last mile delivery challenges
- Market mapping/assessment of the existing supply chain network, market access, redistribution reach, retail coverage, retail efficiency, cost efficiencies and identifying points of purchase, and assessment of the local context of the identified communities. Document number of households, shops or entrepreneurs can support in the communities.
- Identify and determine the nutritious food basket
- Identify the available nutritious foods (including value added products from nutrient enriched staple foods)
- Opportunities for product development utilizing nutrient-enriched staple crops (vitamin A maize, vitamin A cassava and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes)
- Curate the content of the nutritious food basket based on market insights
- Training and capacity building of entrepreneurs
- Recruit and train entrepreneurs on nutrition education, effective trade practices, marketing, supply chain model, retail promotion and product knowledge. These entrepreneurs will be recruited based on criteria set by GAIN.
- Branding of entrepreneurs’ points of sales and setting of targets to reach 1,000 households
- Support the GAIN team in the monitoring and evaluation of the project’s knowledge transfer activities and review knowledge uptake under the project’s training programme.
- Support the review of knowledge uptake under the project’s training programme.
- Implement market based supply chain model via existing supply chain networks and achieve sales of nutritious foods to a minimum of 1,500 households
- Document the number of sales made with evidences (Means of verification)
- Possible utilization of technology and development of an app platform to record orders and sales made.
- Project Management
- Provide project updates on a consistent basis to various stakeholders about strategy, adjustments, and progress.
- Write quality narrative reports, reflecting the progress and status of projects in a transparent, timely and professional manner.
Activities
- Design innovative access model and the supply chain network
- Implement market based supply model to reach 1,500 households
- Identify and train entrepreneurs across the communities on nutrition education, effective trade practices, marketing, supply chain model, retail promotion and product knowledge
- Provide assistance on branding, marketing, sales strategies, effective trade practices to entrepreneurs to ensure that consistent sales to 1,000 households is achieved
- Branding of points of purchases and distribution of IEC materials and kitting of entrepreneurs
- Carryout follow-up activities on the sales and marketing of nutritious foods
Eligibility Criteria
- Must operate as an independent non-politically affiliated organization.
- Must be a registered legal entity in Nigeria, as applicable, at least one year prior to the submission.
- Must have atleast 2 years’ experience implementing similar activity/project, previous implementation in Nigeria will be an added advantage.
For more information, visit Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN).