Request for Proposal for Consultancy for Agri-Enterprise Commercialization and Market Access Advisor

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

RFP AGRA-RW-1092

CONSULTANCY FOR AGRI-ENTERPRISE COMMERCIALIZATION AND MARKET ACCESS ADVISOR

Disclaimer |AGRA 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.

Section 1: Synopsis of the Request for Proposal

1. Introduction

AGRA invites qualified consulting firms to submit proposals to bid for aConsultancy for Agri-Enterprise Commercialization and Market Access Advisor. This document outlines the requirements and guidelines for the submission of proposals.

2. Background 

AGRA is a not-for-profit organization working with African governments, other donors, NGOs, the private sector, and farmers to enhance the productivity and incomes of resource-poor smallholder farmers in Africa. AGRA aims to catalyze an inclusive agricultural transformation in Africa by increasing incomes and improving food security for millions of smallholder farmers in Africa. For more information about AGRA, please visitwww.agra.org. 

YEFFA supports young people to participate in agriculture as viable entrepreneurs across Rwanda. Phase 1 interventions, delivered through implementing partners, have equipped youth with production skills, value addition capabilities, business development services (BDS), financial literacy, and linkages to VSLAs and financial institutions. 

As enterprises mature, the principal constraint shifts from production capacity to commercialization. Youth-led and women-led enterprises continue to face challenges in securing reliable buyers, meeting market requirements, negotiating commercial agreements, accessing growth capital and integrating into competitive value chains. Women-led enterprises constitute a core target group; YEFFA commits to a minimum 70% participation rate. 

A defining feature of the YEFFA target population is that participants are predominantly underserved and economically excluded rural youth with limited formal education and business management experience. Many enterprises are not legally registered and operate informally. For the purposes of credit access, financial inclusion and collective marketing, enterprises are typically organized into cooperatives or youth groups. Any service provider engaged under this ToR must demonstrate a deep understanding of the peculiarities and complexities of working with such market actors, including their literacy levels, geographic dispersion, limited digital access and the trust dynamics that govern group-based economic activity. 

AGRA therefore seeks to engage a suitably qualified consulting firm to act as the strategic Commercialization and Market Systems Advisor for the entire YEFFA programme portfolio, facilitating the transition of youth-led and women-led enterprises from capability-building interventions into commercially viable and scalable agribusinesses.

YEFFA Rwanda Commercialization Pathway

The diagram below maps the structured progression from foundational capacity-building to sustainable commercial income for YEFFA-supported enterprises. The Commercialization and Market Systems Advisor will operate primarily across stages 5–8, while reinforcing upstream stages through feedback loops with implementing partners.

Shaded cells (stages 5–8) indicate the primary mandate of the Commercialization and Market Systems Advisor. Stages 1–4 remain the responsibility of implementing partners, with the Advisor providing demand-side feedback to strengthen upstream programming. At stage 4, youths are expected to transition from subsistence to commercially oriented enterprises that will be sustainable long after the YEFFA programme.

3. Objectives 

General Objective
To serve as the strategic commercialization instrument for the YEFFA programme, facilitating the transition of youth-led and women-led agribusiness enterprises from production-oriented activities into commercially viable and scalable businesses through structured market access, private sector engagement, enterprise readiness development and market-driven financing mechanisms.

Specific Objectives

• create a national commercialization strategy for the YEFFA enterprise portfolio. 
• Assess commercial readiness and create structured enterprise readiness pathways for 16 anchor firms working with AGRA’s Implementing partners across Rwandan country 
• Establish and oversee a dynamic buyer engagement platform connecting youth enterprises to domestic, regional and export markets. 
• Facilitate deal-making, contract negotiations and off-take arrangements in shared responsibility with implementing partners. 
• create and execute an enterprise readiness framework aligning quality, compliance and packaging standards to market requirements. 
• Leverage commercial market linkages to enhance youth enterprise access to growth capital. 
• Ensure inclusive commercialization with a minimum 70% participation by women-led enterprises. 
• Convene a national YEFFA commercialization showcase event to demonstrate outcomes and attract investor and buyer interest. 

4. Scope of Work and Workstreams 

The Advisor shall deliver four primary outputs that together constitute the strategic commercialization architecture for YEFFA. Actual transaction facilitation is a shared responsibility between the Advisor and implementing partners, with the Advisor providing frameworks, platforms and deal assist, while implementing partners oversee enterprise-level relationships on the ground.

Scope of Work 1: Commercialization Strategy 

A national-level strategy defining the commercial positioning of the YEFFA portfolio, target value chains (chili, avocado, French beans, poultry, passion fruits, and maize )and market segments, competitive entry strategies for youth enterprises, aggregation and collective marketing models, and a phased commercialization roadmap. The strategy shall be context-sensitive to the realities of rural youth operating in group-based enterprise models. For the sake of helping AGRA Rwanda to achieve its intended results, the consultant will work closely with 19,651 who are identified as youth in work and 84,504 identified as work enabling outreach by connecting them with buyers, suppliers, aggregators, processors, and anchor firms, and track their sustainable social economic status throughout the journey. At the end of the day, the consultant will indicate the graduation levels in market facilitation as follows: 

• Youth will be outreached through being given training, information about market access and awareness of local and internal market standards requirements 
• Market-Readiness: The beneficiaries will be given the capacity to get local and international market certification. 
• Market linkage: Youths will be connected to the buyers, aggregators, suppliers, through contract farming and job placement due to market facilitation. 
• Youth in Work: Youth will be earning significant income through sales which might be increasing at the rate of 10%. (Employment, self-employment, entrepreneurship, or agricultural value-chain activities). 

Scope of work 2: Buyer Engagement Platform 

A structured, living market platform comprising: a buyer and market actor database; an active supplier/buyer engagement log; a framework for business-to-business (B2B) facilitation; and documented off-take arrangements and memoranda of understanding. The platform shall track the progression of enterprises from initial buyer introduction through to concluded commercial agreements, and shall be designed for handover and ongoing management by AGRA or implementing partners beyond the assignment period. 

Scope of Work 3: Enterprise Readiness Framework 

A practical framework enabling youth enterprises — including those organized as cooperatives and youth groups — to meet the quality, grading, packaging, traceability and compliance requirements of target markets. The framework shall include differentiated pathways for cooperatives versus individually operated enterprises and shall be operationally accessible to enterprises with limited formal education and administrative capacity. It shall also include a commercial finance readiness component facilitating access to growth capital. 

Scope of work 4: Deal Facilitation assist

Structured assist for the negotiation and conclusion of commercial agreements between youth enterprises and buyers, aggregators, processors, exporters and institutional purchasers. The Advisor shall guide deal structuring and documentation while implementing partners deliver ground-level enterprise assist. The Advisor shall keep a deal pipeline tracker and report on transaction value, number of agreements concluded and finance mobilized.

Workstream 5: Women’s Economic Empowerment 

All outputs shall be designed with an explicit gender lens. The Advisor shall detect barriers facing women-led enterprises in accessing commercial markets, design targeted commercialization solutions, and track and report gender disaggregated outcomes throughout the assignment. 

Workstream 6: YEFFA Commercialization Showcase Event 

Towards the close of the assignment, the Advisor shall plan and convene a national YEFFA Commercialization Showcase Event. The event shall bring together youth and women entrepreneurs, buyers, financial institutions, government representatives and development partners to demonstrate the commercial outcomes of the YEFFA portfolio, facilitate business matching, attract investment and generate evidence for programme scale-up and replication. The Advisor shall be tasked with event design, participant mobilization, facilitation and post-event reporting. The consultant will be tasked with tracking the event outcome such as participation target, buyer engagement, and clear guidance on YEFFA Commercialization pathways.

Workstream 7: Financing Strategy 

For the sake of improving the aspect of access to finance, the financing pathway for at least16 anchor firms will be performed, including bankability assessments and tailored financing solutions such as working-capital loans, asset finance, guarantees, and blended finance. The Advisor should engage at least4 commercial banks, 3 SACCOs/MFIs, and 2 investors or guarantee providers, while maintaining a pipeline of at least30 enterprises from assessment and application through approval and disbursement. To strengthen accountability, the TOR could targetat least 20 enterprises receiving actual financing and USD 1 million in finance mobilized, measured through the existing growth-capital and finance-mobilization KPIs. 

Workstream8: 

The consultant will establish the digital commercialization platform by leveragingexisting e-commerce, digital trading, traceability, and market intelligence platformsrelevant to the targeted enterprises and value chains. The Advisor should also facilitate the use of these existing tools to assistbuyer identification, market information, product promotion, traceability, and commercial transactions, without developing new digital systems that can capture the progress of market facilitation mechanisms through thenumber of enterprises using existing digital platforms and the buyer linkages or transactions facilitated through them

5. Methodology

The Advisor shall adopt a participatory and market-systems-based methodology. Recognizing the specific context of working with underserved rural youth organized in cooperatives and informal youth groups, the methodology should prioritize trust-based engagement, simplified business communication tools, community validation processes and gender-responsive facilitation approaches. Core methodological elements include: 

• Desk evaluate of programme data, enterprise profiles, enterprise-viability models for the target value chains/agri-enterprises and market intelligence. 
• Stakeholder consultations with enterprises, buyers, financial institutions, government and development partners. 
• Enterprise diagnostics and commercial readiness assessments adapted for low-literacy and cooperative contexts. 
• Market systems analysis to detect systemic barriers and leverage points. 
• B2B facilitation events, trade fairs and structured buyer engagements. 
• Pilot testing of enterprise readiness tools and frameworks. 
• Validation workshops with implementing partners and youth enterprise representatives. 
• Continuous learning reviews and adaptive management. 

6. Deliverables

The four primary outputs are embedded within the following deliverables schedule. Payment milestones are tied to accepted deliverables.

Note: The YEFFA Commercialization Showcase Event (Deliverable 10) shall be an in-person national event. The Advisor is tasked with all aspects of event planning, logistics, facilitation, documentation and post-event reporting. The budget allocation for the event shall be detailed in the Inception Report but will be funded directly by AGRA.

7. Annual performance Targets

The following annual targets shall guide the Advisor’s work plan and be tracked through quarterly progress reports. Targets are indicative and will be confirmed in the Inception Report following baseline assessment and data from implementing partners.

8. Location and nature of the assignment 

The assignment will be implemented across Rwanda and it will require a strategic commercialization procedure, market access, as well as enterprise development assist to youth-led and women-led agribusiness enterprises under the YEFFA programme. Besides, The consultancy is a 12-month, deliverable-based assignment requiring market systems advisory services, buyer engagement, financing facilitation, enterprise readiness assist, and coordination with key stakeholders to strengthen the commercial viability of supported enterprises.

9. Duration

The contract will be for a period of12 months.The contract will be deliverable-based, and payments will be made upon completion of the agreed deliverables.

10. Reporting, Communication and Coordination

The Advisor shall report to the designated AGRA Contract Manager and work closely with the YEFFA Programme Unit, IMTF Team and implementing partners. The following reporting cadence shall apply:

• Monthly progress updates (written) submitted by the 5th of each month.
• Quarterly evaluate meetings with the AGRA YEFFA Programme Team.
• A formal mid-term evaluate at month 6 to assess progress against targets and adjust the workplan where necessary.
• A final debrief and handover session at the end of the assignment period.

11. Responsibilities

AGRA 

• deliver access to programme information, youth enterprise/participants databases and implementing partner networks. 
• organize multi-stakeholder engagements and facilitate introductions to government and other actors. 
• evaluate and approve deliverables within agreed timelines. 
• deliver Contract Management oversight and ensure alignment with YEFFA programme strategy. 

Commercialization and Market Systems Advisor (Consulting Firm) 

• guide the development and delivery of all four primary outputs and associated deliverables. 
• deliver strategic direction, technical leadership and deal facilitation expertise.
• organize continuously with implementing partners to align commercial activities with enterprise readiness. 
• Design and execute all activities in a manner that is accessible and appropriate to underserved rural youth, cooperative structures and informal enterprise groups. 
• keep the buyer engagement platform, deal pipeline tracker and gender-disaggregated performance data. 
• Plan, organize and convene the YEFFA Commercialization Showcase Event. 
• Submit all deliverables on time and keep high-quality documentation. 

Implementing Partners 

• deliver access to supported enterprises and beneficiary-level data which will include the following: 
• Enterprise Analysis highlighting the minimum viable scale required to transition into dignified and fulfilling work .
• Pipeline of youth transitioning from subsistence/livelihoods focused activities to commercially oriented agribusiness. 
• Key value chains, number of youth entering the program and projected graduation data. 
• Collaborate in ground-level training on quality standards, transaction facilitation, co-facilitating deals structured by the Advisor. 
• assist enterprise mobilization for buyer engagements, assessments and showcase events. 
• deliver feedback on enterprise-level constraints and contextual dynamics to inform the Advisor’s strategy and AGRA’s 

12. Copyright 

All materials/documents arising out of this consultancy work shall remain the property of AGRA.

13. Qualifications and Experience 

a) Firm Experience

Proposals are invited from consulting firms with demonstrated capacity in agricultural commercialization and market systems development. The following qualifications are required:

Firm-Level Requirements 

• Registered consulting firm with a minimum of 7 years of operation in agricultural market systems, value chain development and private sector engagement. 
• Demonstrated track record of facilitating commercial transactions and market linkages in African agricultural markets. 
• Proven experience working with youth and women entrepreneurship programmes, including enterprises organized as cooperatives or informal groups.
• Strong understanding of the specific challenges and market behaviors of underserved and excluded rural youth as commercial actors.
• Experience managing buyer engagement platforms and commercial deal pipelines.
• Experience organizing multi-stakeholder events including agribusiness showcases, trade fairs or investor forums.
• Experience in Rwanda and/or East Africa is required; familiarity with Mastercard Foundation programming is an advantage.

Team Composition (Minimum)

• Team Leader / guide Advisor: Master’s degree or higher in Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics, Business Administration or related field; minimum 12 years’ experience in agricultural commercialization, private sector engagement or value chain development.
• Market Systems Specialist: Minimum 8 years’ experience in market systems analysis and buyer engagement.
• Gender and Inclusion Specialist: Demonstrated expertise in women’s economic empowerment within agricultural markets.

Enterprise Development Specialist: Demonstrated expertise in enterprise readiness and cooperative development, including experience with low-literacy and informally organized enterprise.

14. Evaluation Criteria

a) Mandatory Requirements if firms are targeted:-

These documents to be attached in the technical proposal

1. Company profile. 
2. Trading license or Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration 
3. Valid Tax Compliance certificate 
4. CVs of Key personnel. 

b) Technical Evaluation Criteria Summary

Interested firms shall be evaluated against the following technical evaluation criteria: -

a. Organizational Experience in Similar Services (30%)

1. Company profile, background, size, mission, and history.
2. Company accreditations, certifications, industry standards, or formal recognitions relevant to the services.
3. Company experience and client portfolio relevant to the assignment (as per the requirements indicated in section 10 above)

b. Proposed Methodology, Work Plan, and Approach Criteria (30%)

1. Demonstrated Understanding of the ToR
2. Proposed Methodology/Concept and Approach 
3. Proposed workplan

c. Key Personnel Criteria (40%)

1. Proposed team for the assignment
2. Team leader Relevant Qualifications and experience
3. Key Personnel Qualifications and Competence for the Assignment

NB:Only Firms with the best technical proposal equal or above 75% shall be considered for financial negotiations.

Weightage: Technical – 80%; Financial – 20%

15. Definition of success

• Commercial agreements concluded: Commercial agreements concluded is the formal business agreements successfully finalized between supported enterprises and buyers or other market actors.
• Market linkages established: This is successful connections created between supported enterprises and buyers or other relevant market actors to facilitate business opportunities.
• Finance mobilized:This is the total amount of funding secured or facilitated from financial institutions, investors, or other financing sources for supported enterprises
• Jobs created or improved:Is the number of new employment opportunities generated or existing jobs enhanced through better income, working conditions, skills, stability, or productivity.
• 1Transaction value facilitated is the total monetary value of commercial transactions enabled or supported through market linkages, agreements, financing, or other market facilitation activities.

16. Proposal Submission Requirements for firms 

To be considered for this consultancy, consultants must include the following in their proposal:

Technical Proposal

• Technical Proposal submission letter
• Approach and methodology to deliver on the scope of work
• CVs of key personnel
• Staffing schedule
• Proposed work plan 
• Past performance on similar projects
• All mandatory documents (Company profile,Trading license or Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration and Valid Tax Compliance certificate)

Financial Proposal

• Financial submission letter
• Detailed cost breakdown (including fees, taxes, etc.)
• Payment schedule based on deliverables or milestones

17. Payments

a. Invoices

The successful firm shall submit invoices to AGRA as per guidance provided in the contract. Payments are made upon AGRA’s approval of deliverables, which must incorporate AGRA's comments.

b. Reimbursable costs

Reimbursable expenses must be incurred and invoiced with valid receipts. They will be paid upon submission of all assist documentation (Receipts).

18. Proposal Submission Instructions

Proposals shall be submitted electronically through our oracle system by the deadline indicated in the system.

1. Bidders shall use the bid submission forms that have been provided under Annex 1 & 2.
2. The proposals SHALLbe submitted via oracle system by the deadline indicated on theoracle system.
3. The Proposals shall be prepared inEnglish.
4. Late submissions will not be accepted, as the system is configured to automatically reject proposals after the deadline. To avoid any issues, especially for new users, bidders are strongly encouraged to submit proposals at least one day before the deadline. 
5. AGRA assures bidders that we can’t access proposals before the deadline provided by the system.
6. VALIDITY of the proposal shall be for a period of90 days from the date of bid closure. 
7. The detailed financial proposal shall be uploaded under the lines section in oracle.
8. The financial proposal shall include all taxes. If the financial proposal is silent on taxes, AGRA shall assume that these are inclusive.
9. Prices must be quoted in USD.Contracting will be in USD, and bidders are encouraged to have a USD bank account.
10. Please note that the oracle system will seal the financial proposals until the technical evaluation is completed. 
11. All communications regarding the RFP should be directed toprocurement@agra.org. 

19. Contract template

• Please refer to Annex 4 on contract templates.

Annexes 

Annex 1: FIRM- TECHNICAL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION FORM.docx

Annex 2:FIRM- FINANCIAL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION FORM.docx

Annex 3- AGRA Partner code of perform:LINK

Annex 4- Contract Template

1. Company contract sample for Rwanda BU:RW (company) - Consultancy Agreement.docx