Digital Agriculture Expert – Feed Africa and AAAP – AHAI (EOI) at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) Full Time

Job Title: Expressions of Interest: Digital Agriculture Expert – Feed Africa and AAAP – AHAI

Location: Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Consultant type: Individual Consultant

Background

• The Agriculture and Agro-Industry (AHAI) department of the Bank wishes to recruit Individual Consultant who will be working as a Digital Agriculture Specialist to the Digital Agriculture Flagship and the Climate Smart Digital Agriculture Technologies Pillar of the AAAP in mainstreaming digital innovations into Feed Africa investment projects, building an investment pipeline, generating knowledge products, mobilizing resources and establishing partnerships for the Flagship.
• The primary role of Agriculture and Agro-industry Department (AHAI) is to contribute to the Bank’s vision of poverty reduction through increased agricultural production, productivity, marketing and trade in its regional Member Countries (RMCs), thereby increasing farm incomes, the welfare of rural populations in general.

Context

• Recognizing that the future of agriculture will data-driven and technology-enabled, the Bank, through its Agriculture and Agro-industry Department (AHAI) has launched the Feed Africa Digital Agriculture Flagship. The Flagship specifically focuses on the role the public sector can play to accelerate the adoption and application of digital solutions.
• Its primary objective is to support the growth, outreach and impact of ICT and digital solutions which can:
  • Enhance yields and scale productivity of smallholder farmers;
  • Improve efficiency of production systems and farm management;
  • Facilitate access to markets;
  • Unlock financing for value chain actors, and;
  • Inform and optimize decision-making processes for government and other actors in the agriculture ecosystem.
• The Bank has also partnered with the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) to co-create the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) to implement the vision of the Africa Adaptation Initiative to support African countries on key adaptation initiatives.
• The AAAP is contributing to closing Africa’s adaptation gap and supporting African countries to make a transformational shift in their development pathways by putting climate adaptation and resilience at the centre of their critical growth-oriented and inclusive policies, programs, and institutions.
• It is scaling up successful initiatives fundamental to African nations’ economic development, and prosperity for women and men. The four pillars of the AAAP are: Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security, the Africa Infrastructure Resilience Accelerator, Empowering Youth through Jobs and Entrepreneurship, and Innovative Financial Initiatives for Africa.
• The Climate Smart Digital Technologies for Agriculture and Food Security (CSDAT) pillar of the AAAP has as its objective, to scale up access to climate-smart digital technologies and associated data-driven agricultural and financial services to at least 30 million farmers in Africa, supporting food security agriculture and food security across 26 countries.
• It will provide support to the African Development Bank’s investments in African agriculture by supporting the integration of smallholder farmers into digitally enabled agri-food systems. It will launch a blueprint to scale up Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS) to empower millions of farmers and local agribusinesses to become more resilient.
• In parallel, it will implement proof of concepts in several countries to demonstrate how advisories and associated services can be scaled up to benefit millions of farmers as primary users.

Description

• The African Development Bank (AfDB) hereby invites Individual Consultants to indicate their interest for a Digital Agriculture Expert to Support the Feed Africa Digital Agriculture Flagship and the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP) Climate Smart Digital Agriculture Technologies Pillar.
• The primary purpose of the assignment is to support the mainstreaming digital innovations into Feed Africa investment projects, building an investment pipeline, generating knowledge products, mobilizing resources and establishing partnerships for the Flagship.
• The Consultant is expected to support the Bank in its efforts to implement a climate smart digital agriculture approach to be used by operations staff at the division, complex and country levels to promote the adoption of digital solutions in the agriculture sector across the continent.
• The Bank invites Individual Consultants to indicate their interest in providing the above-described services. Interested eligible Individual Consultants shall provide information on their qualifications and experience through an updated CV while demonstrating their ability to successfully provide the services (documentation, references for similar services, experience in similar assignments, etc.)
• The eligibility criteria, the establishment of a shortlist and the selection procedures shall be in conformity with the Presidential Directive No 07/2022 Concerning the Procedures for Acquisition of Consulting Services funded by the Administrative or Capital Expenditure Budget of the Bank Group and its Implementation Manual. Please note that interest expressed by an individual consultant does not imply any obligation on the part of the Bank to include that Individual Consultant in the shortlist.

Objectives of the Assignment
The objective of this Assignment is to support the Digital Agriculture Flagship team in:

• Mainstreaming digitalization into the Bank’s agriculture investments across regional member countries (RMCs);
• Supporting the resource mobilization drive for the Flagship and CSDAT Pillar;
• Supporting partnership building with GCA and other relevant institutions;
• Contributing technical advisory and input for knowledge analytics, generation and preparation of knowledge products, and;
• Any other relevant activity to support the growth and adoption of digital solutions for Africa’s agriculture sector.

Scope of the Assignment
The consultant will undertake the following activities:

Strategy development and execution:

• Provide advice for strategic implementation of the Digital Agriculture Flagship and AAAP CSDAT Pillar – concept note, Board information note, summary documents, partnership notes, etc.
• Liaise with AfDB project teams/task managers and GCA AAAP team to identify Feed Africa programs/projects which can be supported by GCA and other partners.
• Prepare and update the AfDB – GCA CSDAT workplan and budget.
• Support AHAI in identifying and integrating into Bank operations, digital and frontier technologies which are best placed to be undertaken by the public sector, either as standalone public goods or in Public-Private-Partnerships (PPPs).
• Provide guidance to the Bank’s Regional Member Countries (RMCs) to develop e-agriculture strategies. The consultant will provide advisory and guidance to the Bank’s Digital Agriculture team on best practice e-agriculture strategies, the core elements for a practical, relevant and implementable e-agriculture strategy, and propose policy, institutional and investment factors which are required to develop and implement a modern e-agriculture strategy in African countries.
• Provide guidance on best practice approaches for inclusiveness and sustainability:
  • Build the capacity of farmers and farmers organizations;
  • Adopt digital and frontier technologies in the livestock sector;
  • Strengthen the participation of youth and women in digital agriculture initiatives;
• Support the Bank in developing a Bank-specific digital agriculture approach which will include a common terminology; a consistent set of fundamentals, technical guidelines and toolkit to be used by operations staff at the division, complex and country levels to promote the adoption of digital solutions in the agriculture sector across the continent.

Pipeline development and knowledge generation:

• Support the team in developing a pipeline of technical and lending operations for the Flagship. The Consultant will be required to prepare a mapping of potential investment opportunities, based on the level of digitalization of the agriculture sector, enabling policy and institutional environments and opportunities to digitize the sector in the specific country;
• Support the mainstreaming of digital solutions into Feed Africa projects.
• Participate preparing project proposals for financial support and/or technical assistance from GCA.
• Support the team in engaging with local stakeholders and the digital ecosystem, if required, e.g. innovators (tech solution creators), users (those applying the tech) and enablers (supporting systems which help scale the tech, e.g. government bodies, policies, NGOs, etc.).
• Support the team in proposing country-specific approaches to take advantage of technology and data to: address knowledge gaps at farmer level; build the capacity of farmers and farmers organizations; promotion of efficient production systems at smallholder level; better integration between agricultural value chains actors and segments; improve government decision making, etc.
• Assist in review of technical documents and papers, including preparing PowerPoint presentations related to the Flagship’s scope of work.
• Ensure the successful development and delivery of the international multi-stakeholder projects within the work program to time and maintaining effective value for money.
• Support the preparation of analytic papers, media articles, blog posts, and other knowledge material.

Resource mobilization and partnership building:

• Support the team in identifying and building strategic partnerships with development partners, private sector, collaboration with technical and financial partners (e.g. exchange and collaboration platforms with GCA, FAO, World Bank, Telcos, tech companies, impact investors, etc.).
• Support in drafting a resource mobilization roadmap for the development of a Digital Agriculture Financing Facility. This includes finalizing supporting documents to leverage partnerships as well as mobilize resource through proposal, dialogues and presentation.
• Support AHAI staff in identifying resource mobilization opportunities and preparing proposals to attract grants and co-financing in implementing operations and programs in Regional Member Countries.
• Support in organizing meetings, events and workshops pertaining to the Flagship and Pillar – from the inception to the closing phases, including providing key research to inform the design of the meeting, reporting of the events, etc.
• Identify, develop and submit proposals for financing under the Bank’s internal Trust Funds such as Korea-Africa Trust Fund, the Youth Entrepreneurship and innovation Fund, Fund for African Private Sector Assistance (FAPA), if required.

Duration, Volume and Management of the Contract

• The estimate working period (level of effort) is a maximum of six (6) months with possibility of extension. The assignment will be spread over a period of 6 months but during which the consultant will be engaged and paid for the period actually worked.
• A detailed work plan will be developed for each engagement in line with the TORs and will be discussed and agreed upon at the commencement of each of the specific assignment.
• Key outputs for each assignment will be monitored and reviewed by the Bank and other partners.
• The consultant will be expected to provide an end of contract report at the end of each assignment which will be reviewed by the Digital Agriculture Coordinator and within the AfDB for quality of delivery and successful completion of the assignment.

Required Experiences and Qualifications

• The consultant must have a minimum of a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Economics, and Agricultural Technology, Agricultural Innovation, Climate Change, Climate Adaptation ICT or in an equivalent related discipline.
• The consultant must have a minimum of 8 years’ proven experience in identifying, designing and implementing solutions for the advancement of digital innovations in African countries.
• The consultant must have a minimum of 5 years’ experience in addressing social NPC issues in Africa as well as knowledge of MDBs rules and procedures will be added advantages.
• Knowledge of and experience in supporting strategic development programmes related to agricultural development and climate change policies, programmes, analyses, etc.
• Practical experience in working in Africa accompanied by broad skills in multi-criteria assessments, stakeholder engagement and consultation, community participation, with analytical skills in assessing institutional capacities and designing implementation arrangements for complex projects will be necessary;
• Excellent analytical and writing skills, and a proven track record of academic research and publications relevant to the scope of these TORs;
• Proven experience in engaging in high level policy discussions with senior government officials and industry stakeholders;
• Fluency in English and a good working knowledge of French will be added advantage.

Selection Criteria
The consultant will be selected based on his/her qualifications, experience, and experience of working in developing countries using the criteria below:

• General qualification and suitability for the tasks to be performed – 30 points
• Experience in the specific assignment described In the ToR – 50 points
• Experience with international donor agencies – 10 points
• Language capacity – 5 points
• Knowledge of the region – 5 points

Duration

• The assignment is expected to last for a period not exceeding six (6) months and the estimated starting month is March 2023 in case of need.

Remuneration

• Remuneration will be commensurate with experience, in line with the AfDB compensation guidelines.
• In addition, for candidates who need to travel to take up this assignment, a round trip economy class air-tickets with the shortest route will be provided.
• The candidate will be responsible for obtaining personal health insurance at his or her own cost.
• The coverage should include all medical expenses, including those resulting from illness or injury incurred during the duration of the assignment.

Application Closing Date
28th February, 2023 at 17:00

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should submit the completed Application Form, Motivation Letter, and CV to “Laouali GARBA” via: [email protected] with copy to “Olukemi Afun-Ogidan” via: [email protected] using “Digital Agriculture Expert – Feed Africa and AAAP” as the subject of the email.