FTF Institutional and Systems Strengthening Activity Draft SOW.pdf

SPECIAL NOTICE

Special Notice Number:

Special_Notice_72061720_FTF_Institutional_and_Systems_Strengthening_Activity Subject: FTF Institutional and Systems Strengthening Activity Agency Name: USAID/Uganda Issuance Date: February 7, 2020 Response Due Date: February 24, 2020 4:00 pm (Washington/EST) Time Response to: kampalausaidsolicita@usaid.gov Subject: FTF Institutional and Systems Strengthening Activity

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation section 15.201 part (c), USAID/Uganda is sharing a draft Statement of Work with all interested parties for the purpose of soliciting comments on its clarity and feasibility as part of the process of designing the FTF Institutional and Systems Strengthening Activity.

We invite your review, comments, and questions on the statement or work for this activity.

This special notice is solely intended to solicit comments on the draft Statement of Work for the subject activity and is not a Request for Proposals. Ideas contained herein may change during the mission’s ongoing approval process.

Interested parties must submit all comments concerning this draft Statement of Work in writing to KampalaUSAIDSolicita@usaid.gov, by February 24, 2019 4:00 pm (EST) Washington, D.C.

Comments sent to any other e-mail address will not be considered. The email transmitting the comments must reference the

Special_Notice_72061720_FTF_Institutional_and_Systems_Strengthening_Activity.

Please note that responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a legally binding contract.

This Special Notice can be downloaded from https://beta.sam.gov/search?index=opp

Interested parties who are not able to retrieve the Special Notice from the Internet can request a copy by contacting USAID/Uganda’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance via email at kampalausaidsolicita@usaid.gov. Feedback in relation to the Special Notice should be submitted in written English to USAID via email in MS Word format only to kampalausaidsolicita@usaid.gov no later than the date and time shown above with a subject line "Response to Special_Notice_72061720_FTF_Institutional_and_Systems_Strengthening_Activity

FEED THE FUTURE

INSTITUTIONAL AND SYSTEMS STRENGTHENING (ISS) ACTIVITY

DRAFT STATEMENT OF WORK

1. Purpose

The purpose of the Feed the Future (FTF) Institutional and Systems Strengthening (ISS) Activity is to improve the performance and structures of Government of Uganda (GOU) ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and industry apex organizations that are vital to driving inclusive agriculture-led economic growth. To achieve this, the Activity will support selected

MDAs and apex industry organizations to improve their internal processes, so they can be more responsive to the needs of their constituents and clients. It will also strengthen structures, i.e., the vertical and horizontal linkages among these organizations and others, so that they work together more effectively to achieve their goals. ISS will seek to build trust and real partnerships, helping institutions address and overcome their constraints, and ultimately increasing local ownership in planning and managing development. This Activity will contribute to the Global Food Security

Strategy (GFSS) Uganda Country Plan goal of reducing hunger, malnutrition and poverty by supporting key national level MDAs and industry apex organizations to better fulfill their mandates, creating a more conducive environment for market actors to productively engage in the agriculture sector. It will also contribute to the USAID/Uganda Country Development Cooperation

Strategy’s 1(CDCS) 2016 – 2021 five-year goal of strengthening Uganda’s systems to accelerate inclusive economic, health, and education outcomes.

2. Overview

The ISS Activity will focus on helping select MDAs and industry apex organizations to improve the execution of institutional functions and sectoral coordination to become more responsive to the needs of market actors and effectively support coordinated agricultural sector growth. The

Activity will focus on the following institutions: Government of Uganda MDAs (for example: the

Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), Ministry of Trade, Industry and

Cooperatives (MTIC), and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI)); and

1 https://www.usaid. gov/Uganda/CDCS industry apex organizations (for example: the Uganda Seed Traders’ Association (USTA), and

Uganda Cooperative Alliance, and Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU)).

The Activity is part of the mission’s GFSS Country Plan. The country plan uses a market systems approach, which means that the plan considers the entire agriculture market to find entry points where USAID can enhance existing market strengths or help mitigate weaknesses to improve the functioning and inclusiveness of the country’s agriculture market towards the FTF goal of reducing poverty, malnutrition, and hunger. The plan discourages the creation of structures that require ongoing donor funding to survive. Under the country plan, USAID conceptualizes and manages activities that work in concert with one another towards the overall FTF goal. ISS is authorized under the Market Systems Strengthening Project, which contributes to achieving CDCS

Development Objective three (DO3): “Key systems more accountable and responsive to Uganda’s development needs.” This Activity will also indirectly contribute to the achievement of CDCS

DOs 1 and 2: “Community and Household Resilience in select areas and target populations increased” (resilience outcomes) and “Demographic drivers affected to contribute to long term trend shift,” (nutrition outcomes) respectively.

3. Background

Strong GOU MDAs and industry apex organizations are vital for achieving Uganda’s Vision 2040 goal of a modern and prosperous country. Fully developed and functional MDAs and industry apex organizations should be able to provide effective services, including finance, information, and regulation in support of sustained agriculture-led economic growth inclusively to the population.

The agriculture sector provides the main source of livelihood for most Ugandans. Agriculture also contributes to Uganda’s export earnings. Between July and August 2019, export earnings grew by

1 percent from $ 318.4 million2 to $ 321.7 million largely due to increased earnings from maize, coffee, fish, and sesame.

3.1 Agricultural Sector Institutional Context and GOU Priorities

Agriculture is central to Uganda’s economic growth and poverty reduction goals. The National

Development Plan II (NDP II) prioritizes investment in agriculture as one of the five priority

2 September 2019 Performance of the economy report www.finance.go.ug http://www.finance.go.ug/ development areas that have the greatest multiplier effect on the economy. To achieve this, the

NDP II focuses on strengthening agricultural institutions for effective coordination and service delivery. Growing the agricultural sector requires coordination by both state and non-state actors in agriculture as well as with those complementary sectors that are crucial for agricultural development, like trade, standards, information, infrastructure, technology, etc. The NDP II, therefore, recognizes the critical roles of these different actors. These include MAAIF of course but also semi-autonomous agencies under MAAIF, and other MDAs, for example: MTIC, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Uganda National Bureau of Standards, Office of the Prime Minister/Ministry for Karamoja Affairs (MfKA), Ministry of Health, and Uganda

Revenue Authority to name a few. Other actors include private sector and farmers, financial institutions, civil society organizations, academia and research institutions, and development partners.

3.2 USAID Institutional Support to the Agricultural Sector

Over the past 20 years, USAID has conducted interventions that helped to improve the functionality of MDAs and industry apex organizations. In a recent example, through the Enabling

Environment for Agriculture activity, USAID supported public institutions such as MAAIF and

MTIC and the private sector to improve the enabling environment for agricultural development, trade, and climate change adaptation. USAID currently supports the Uganda Bureau of Standards to manage annual agriculture and household well-being and nutrition surveys. It has provided hardware and training assistance to MAAIF to collect and use its own data and other data for decision-making. USAID also works closely with MfKA to improve data-driven decision making and the Ministry’s coordination among central GOU, local government, and development partners in Karamoja. It has also worked with the East Africa Trade Council to help it improve its tracking of formal and informal grain trade flows, and with the Uganda National Farmers Federation to improve its capacity to provide services to its members on climate change adaptation.

3.3 Other Relevant Development Partner Support in the Agriculture Sector

The United States, World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO) are among the largest development partners in Uganda’s agricultural sector.

The World Bank has a large value chain project that works on maize, rice, and cassava in selected agro-ecological zones. The World Bank also recently carried out several influential analytical studies including the agriculture sector public expenditure review. The AfDB’s activities focus on the construction of irrigation infrastructure, development of value chains, and export promotion while FAO’s interventions largely focus on crops, livestock, fisheries, forestry and their interaction with the environment, climate change and building resilience. Other significant donors include the

EU, DANIDA, GIZ, the Netherlands, and JICA.

4. Problem Statement

Uganda’s National Development Plans have brought about significant improvements in the institutional frameworks that govern the agriculture sector. Despite these gains and engagement by USAID and other development partners, key MDAs and industry apex organizations that are critical to driving improvements in Uganda’s agricultural sector still face capacity-related challenges that constrain their ability to function effectively. For example, most of them struggle with inadequate planning, limited use of data for decision-making, weak linkages between plans and budgets, misallocation of resources (including human resources), poor budget execution and limited transparency. Additionally, there is limited coordination, communication, and trust among key MDAs, industry apex organizations, local government, and private sector actors, resulting in duplication of mandates, misalignment of resources, and major service delivery gaps that negatively impact the market.

4.1 Sector Ministries, Departments and Agencies

MDAs involved in the agricultural sector routinely experience budget uncertainty and shortfalls and often allocate their funds towards goals that are not aligned with national and sector plans.

Alongside these budget challenges, there is a proliferation of poorly coordinated parastatals and parallel structures that create confusion, duplication, and wastage of public resources, and reduce trust and coordination across MDAs. Additionally, despite efforts by development partners, most

MDAs still lack the capacity to use available data for evidence-based decision-making.

MDAs also have weak policy enforcement processes. While many relatively high-quality policies and strategies have been developed, most of them are not well implemented. There is a lack of clearly structured implementation approaches, resulting in overlap of roles by the participating

MDAs. Public institutions are also characterized by human resources challenges such as people in place who do not have adequate skills to effectively undertake their functions and long term vacancies. In addition, although public functions are meant to be implemented across the nation and/or at the district level (or lower), in many cases, MDAs lack the capacity and incentives to effectively coordinate across the 134+ districts to ensure effective public service delivery.

The national-level MDAs to be prioritized by ISS face specific challenges. Capacity and skills gaps limit MAAIF’s ability to perform its roles and responsibilities as the lead entity for agricultural development, including coordinating among the government agencies and private sector actors working in the agriculture sector. MTIC’s capacity to effectively coordinate all the other MDAs and industry players involved in Uganda’s trade sector is constrained by inadequate resource allocation, unclear mandates for implementing the various trade-related strategies, and poor coordination with other MDAs to advance Uganda’s trade competitiveness. MOSTI has the potential to play a significant role in promoting the adoption of science, technology, and innovation

(STI) as a catalyst for development. However, the Ministry, created in 2016, is still in its nascent stages and has limited capacity to harmonize the sub-sector strategies of agencies that were subsumed under it. MoSTI faces the challenge of developing a comprehensive strategy and better linking with other MDAs to lead, coordinate, and support all the STI work in the sector.

This is not a conclusive list of either MDAs or capacity gaps. The Activity is expected to identify other relevant national-level MDAs with which it will engage, and a more expansive set of institutional challenges to address.

4.2 Industry Apex Organizations

Industry apex organizations should play a pivotal role in the growth and development of their respective members. Effective apex organizations can promote good governance and business development principles and models, and advocate for relevant reforms and enforcement in order to create an enabling environment for the private sector to flourish. Unfortunately, most industry apex organizations face several capacity challenges that limit their ability to play this critical role.

As a result, they have low membership, which affects their financial resources to deliver services, further dampening membership, a vicious cycle. Additionally, many of them lack adequate organizational and governance structures necessary for service provision and accountability to their members. In some cases, they are controlled by people who are looking out for the best interests of particular firms. Most apex organizations are structurally weak, inhibiting their ability to drive self-regulation of their industries. As an example, the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda serves as the focal point for private sector advocacy and capacity development but lacks the human resources to organize fora for productive dialogue between the private sector and GOU on issues important to its members. In another example, the purpose of the Uganda Seed Trade Association is to coordinate and oversee the development of a vibrant seed industry. It must also engage with

GOU to provide the required policies and incentives that foster seed production, conditioning, marketing, and extension of quality seed. However, the organization does not have adequate capacity to ensure a well-organized seed industry, resulting in sub-standard agro-inputs on the market, and enormous profit opportunities missed. This is not a conclusive list of either industry apex organizations or capacity gaps. The Activity is expected to identify other relevant apex organizations with which it will engage, and a more expansive set of institutional challenges to address.

5. Scope

The purpose of the Activity is to improve the performance and structures of MDAs and industry apex organizations that are vital to driving inclusive agriculture-led economic growth. It will work with key MDAs, including, but not limited to, MAAIF, MTIC, and MOSTI. It will work with industry apex organizations including, but not limited to, the Uganda Seed Traders’ Association, Private Sector Foundation Uganda, and the Uganda Cooperative Alliance, to improve their internal processes, making them more responsive to the needs of their constituents. It will also strengthen vertical and horizontal linkages among these organizations and others so that they work together more effectively to achieve their goals. The Activity is about building trust and real partnerships, convening and connecting, helping organizations address and overcome institutional constraints, and ultimately increasing local ownership in planning and managing development.

The Activity will find leverage/entry points within the key MDAs’ and industry apex organizations’ structures and systems. It will help the institutions to optimize performance and inclusiveness, and to strengthen relationships and coordination. It will introduce innovative models and approaches. ISS will identify and take into consideration the differing incentives individuals and institutions may face within and across MDAs and other organizations. It will undertake analyses at activity inception and throughout implementation to determine where the weak points and opportunities in the system may lie. Through these analyses, the Activity will be positioned to determine the viability of different models and approaches. Consistent engagement is fundamental to the Activity’s success. Together with its partner institutions, the Activity will engage in an iterative process of pursuing reforms and investments with MDAs and apex institutions to stimulate system-level change. The Activity will be flexible, such that if its analyses determine that a different intervention is required, then the Activity will change its approach. As the context or circumstances for that intervention require, the Activity will use a lighter or heavier touch. Even after an intervention concludes, the Activity will remain engaged with the partner institutions to monitor the success and sustainability of outcomes.

In selecting partner institutions, ISS will prioritize MDAs and industry apex organizations that are important players for other activities under the Market Systems Strengthening Project but that face capacity or structural weaknesses that inhibit their ability to drive inclusive agriculture-led growth.

ISS may use market systems mapping tools3 to conceptualize the agriculture market and entry points, identify potential partner institutions, and track activity progress. During the partner identification phase and throughout implementation, the Activity will apply a political economy lens to understand and manage the political realities and their effects on incentives and relationships among the targeted public institutions and apex private sector organizations.

The activities under the Market Systems Strengthening Project are expected to work in concert with one another towards achieving the MSS Project’s purpose of “facilitating the development of a competitive marketplace that is resilient and provides goods and services demanded by actors or people in an inclusive and sustainable manner.” As one activity under the Market Systems

3 Illustrative tools are here: http://bit.ly/MSM_Activity_Overview, http://bit.ly/MSM_Full_System_Map, http://bit.ly/MSM_Subsystem_Maps, http://bit.ly/MSM_Finance_Pathways, http://bit.ly/MSM_Mapping_Handout, http://bit.ly/MSM_System_Pathways, http://bit.ly/MSM_Market_Access_Research http://bit.ly/MSM_Activity_Overview http://bit.ly/MSM_Full_System_Map http://bit.ly/MSM_Subsystem_Maps http://bit.ly/MSM_Finance_Pathways http://bit.ly/MSM_Mapping_Handout http://bit.ly/MSM_System_Pathways http://bit.ly/MSM_Market_Access_Research

Strengthening Project, ISS will seek to integrate and collaborate with other project activities to achieve the project’s purpose. ISS will undertake collaborative work planning and proactive communication with other MSS Project activities under the overall leadership of the MSS project manager.

6. Objectives

The goal of ISS Activity is for key national level MDAs and industry apex organizations to better fulfill their mandates, leading to pathways to prosperity, improved resilience, better nutrition for the people of Uganda. To support this higher-level goal, the purpose of the Activity is to improve the performance and structures of MDAs and industry apex organizations that are vital to driving inclusive agriculture-led economic growth and where appropriate, improving resilience and nutritional outcomes.

The Activity’s objectives are to:

● Support selected MDAs and industry apex organizations to improve their internal processes, making them more responsive to the needs of their constituents.

● Strengthen the “structures” or key vertical and horizontal linkages within, between and among institutions so that they work together more effectively to achieve their goals.

7. Theory of Change

The overall theory of change for the activity is:

If USAID improves the performance and structures of MDAs and industry apex organizations that are vital to driving inclusive agriculture-led economic growth, then these institutions will more effectively fulfill their mandates, thereby creating a more conducive environment for market actors to productively engage in the agriculture sector. This will contribute to more pathways to prosperity for the people of Uganda.

Assumptions:

● There will be political will and buy-in to support the institutional reforms among the MDAs and political leadership.

● There will be willingness by the industry apex organizations to embrace reforms.

8. Results

This Activity will be a success if the key MDAs and industry apex organizations that are critical to a well-functioning agriculture sector better fulfill their mandates. Institutions that fulfill their mandates can effectively coordinate the sector (as relevant), use data for decision making, effectively develop and implement policies and strategies, and provide valuable services to their members. Such institutions readily adapt to changing circumstances – for example, if there are budget cuts, trade sanctions, changing political priorities, etc., they are still able to achieve their targets. They collaborate effectively both at the intra-agency and inter-agency levels. They have the necessary structures in place so that services are cascaded down from the national to the local level, and policy implementation and enforcement occurs.

Illustrative indicators:

● Number of MDAs that attain an improvement of at least XX percent from baseline per year within the Government Effectiveness Index4

● Percentage of MDAs and industry apex organizations that achieve at least XX percent of their annual performance targets

8.1 The Activity is expected to achieve the following results under each objective:

a) Improved internal processes of key MDAs and industry apex organizations

This result speaks to all forms of institutional and human resource technical and management capacity required to be effective. This includes developing the right institutional governance and administrative systems, strengthening financial operations to ensure transparency and sustainability, as well as developing and maintaining a capacitated human resource pool. This result also includes supporting institutions and organizations to strengthen their ability to implement and enforce policies. It relates to supporting institutions’ capacity to analyze and

4 Government Effectiveness captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies.

www.worldbank.org/governance http://www.worldbank.org/governance improve existing policies as well as develop new policies and strategies based on prevailing conditions.

Illustrative indicators:

● Number of industry apex organizations with increased membership as a result of USG assistance

● Milestones in improved institutional architecture for food security policy achieved with

USG support.

● Percent of stakeholders that agree that any specific institution in a key system is accountable, as determined through public surveys, interviews, etc.

● Percent of USG-assisted organizations with improved performance

● Number of individuals participating in USG food security programs (required)

b) Strengthened structures within and among target institutions and with local-level institutions

This result speaks to improving relationships, building trust and increasing transparency within and across the institutions. It comprises developing and strengthening vertical and horizontal relationships, including those between institutions, within institutions, and with the private sector for joint planning, and enforcement of policies and strategies. It speaks to addressing corrupt behaviors within institutions, building trust across agencies, and addressing the barriers to cooperation across organizations. Finally, it considers the interactions between the institutions and local governments/communities, especially for policy implementation and enforcement.

Illustrative indicators:

● Number of functional Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) signed to improve coordination of MDAs and industry apex organizations as a result of USG assistance.

● Perception of trust among agriculture system actors

● Level of cooperation among agriculture system actors

8.2 Results pathways

USAID recognizes that in any market system, relationships, roles, and influences are highly complex and interconnected. The behaviors of market actors are influenced by other actors’ decisions, as well as by rules, incentives, socio-economic factors, and geography. This interconnectedness is reflected in interlinked pathways that may be direct or indirect, strong or weak, and certain or uncertain. Throughout the life of ISS, the Contractor must develop, monitor, and revisit its results pathways and adjust interventions accordingly. The Activity’s results pathways will link interventions to higher-level outcomes as described in ISS’ theory of change, including indicators to show progress along the pathway and allow for learning whether the pathway is viable. The monitoring process should also capture aspects of why and how tactical actions (inputs) translate, or do not, into outcomes along the pathway. ISS should use innovative approaches to measure systems dynamics that underpin the results pathways such as leadership, new or improved relationships, and shifts in informal rules, including norms, attitudes, and behaviors.

9. Place of performance

The Activity will seek to work with those GOU national level MDAs that are critical to driving inclusive agricultural-led growth. The initial target MDAs are MAAIF, MTIC, and MOSTI, and others to be identified during activity inception and implementation. The Activity will work with industry apex organizations, including Uganda Seed Traders Association, Uganda Cooperative

Alliance, and Private Sector Foundation Uganda and others to be identified during activity inception and implementation.

10. Coordination with host country counterparts and other implementers

The Activity shall coordinate both programming and learning with other development partners and

USAID activities under the Market Systems Strengthening Project to achieve better results. ISS is envisioned as being part of three core activities under the project: ISS, Inclusive Agricultural

Markets (IAM), and Strategic Investments for Inclusive Development (SIID). The three activities will work in concert with one another and with other Market Systems Strengthening project and

FTF activities to drive systemic change at high, medium, and low levels of the market system towards achieving the project purpose.

ISS is expected to work with the Inclusive Agricultural Market (IAM) activity. IAM conducts interventions that create efficiencies in cross-market functions through three key lower/local level market entry points: agribusinesses, market actor organizations, and GOU institutions. With IAM focusing on firm-level interventions and working with MDAs at the lower government levels, ISS will place its attention on the national-level MDAs and industry apex organizations. ISS and IAM will, therefore, be complementary to each other to enable systemic change in the agriculture sector.

Illustratively, IAM will support the capacity development of producer organizations and their individual members to engage as viable business entities in the sector while ISS may work with the producer organizations’ apex organization, the Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA), to build its institutional capacity and governance structures so that UCA can provide efficient services to its members (the producer organizations). This could include developing a member code of conduct and advocating for relevant policy reform. In this way, ISS is a higher level, complementary activity whose success has a direct bearing on the success of IAM. IAM and ISS must collaborate to ensure synergies are maximized throughout activity implementation.

ISS is also expected to work with the Strategic Investments for Inclusive Development

(SIID)activity. SIID aims at facilitating domestic and international investments by unlocking commercially driven capital. While SIID will focus on facilitating transactions, investments, and relationships between the investor and investee, ISS will conduct interventions to build the capacity and systems of investment-related MDAs and apex industry organizations. Where SIID will provide due diligence services for identified investors in potential sectors, ISS will work with, for example, the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA) to build the capacity of its after-care division to ensure that UIA provides the required levels of technical support to those investors who have invested in-country. ISS complementary support to SIIDs interventions will help ensure sustainability of investments, thereby incentivizing other potential investors to invest in the country.

11. Activity Progression

Activity implementation will consist of three interrelated phases. While they are largely sequential, the phases of ISS will be interconnected and elements of each phase may be happening at any given point in the activity. The phases are described below:

1. Partner selection and analyses: The Activity will conduct analyses of the target institutions listed in Section 9, including constraints, opportunities, and leverage points for each result at both the inception and throughout the life of the Activity. The Activity will also develop criteria for selecting additional public and private institutions to work with. The Contractor will carry out analyses to determine interventions. It will also conduct political economy analyses, market system analyses, and organizational capacity analyses, and others as needed. The Contractor will conduct analyses both at the beginning and throughout the life of the Activity.

2. Implementation: Activity implementation will prioritize approaches and pathways that are consistent with the results pathways discussion in Section 8 and the guiding principles described in Section 12. The Contractor will continuously re-evaluate actions and assumptions to minimize risk, eliminate what does not work, and test and scale-up what is practicable. Some partner interventions may commence immediately if prior analytical work is not needed.

3. Collaboration, Learning and Adapting (CLA): CLA is vital to the success of ISS and the activity will incorporate it throughout. Development work presents many opportunities to collaborate and engage with a broad set of stakeholders to learn from both evidence and experience and to adapt iteratively to unexpected results or changes in context. Therefore, USAID places “Collaboration, Learning and Adapting” at the center of its Program Cycle, both as a connector between and an integrated part of the components. More on the principles of CLA follow in Section 11.3.

11.3 Collaboration, Learning and Adapting

Approaches that incorporate learning and adapting will be critical to the success of the Activity and the Contractor must build adaptive learning into program implementation. Driving and monitoring the Activity’s effectiveness will require the Contractor’s careful consideration of what types of short, focused studies and methods for providing rapid program feedback would be suitable and provide evidence for making program course corrections and decisions. These types of action-learning, monitoring and program reflection methods used to measure program effectiveness in complex implementation environments, are now well documented. They include participatory methods such as stakeholder feedback, network analysis that can reveal informational flows and relational dynamics of ‘who decides and who benefits’ and making program adjustments based on responsive program feedback that can foster more practical, problem-driven iterative adaptation.

11.3.1 Collaboration enables sector integration, convergence, and effective interventions to maximize development resources and enhance development results. The Contractor will collaborate with USAID-supported activities under the Mission’s Market Systems Strengthening project and engage with stakeholders (defined collaboratively with USAID COR) to facilitate delivery of integrated services to achieve the project’s outcomes.

11.3.2 Learning is intentional, systematic and resourced. Sources for learning include data from monitoring, portfolio reviews, findings of research, evaluations, analyses conducted by USAID or third parties, knowledge gained from experience, stocktaking exercises, and from other sources.

The documents produced by USAID will be shared with the Contractor by the COR for consideration in the learning phase of CLA. These sources will be used to develop and implement plans, be used in adaptive management, and contribute to the USAID/Uganda knowledge base in order to improve development outcomes. A collaborating, learning, and adapting focus helps to ensure that programming is coordinated, grounded in evidence, and adjusted as necessary to remain relevant and effective throughout implementation.

Knowledge generated by learning will be applied throughout programming to implementation approaches, processes, and stakeholder engagement. Knowledge generated by learning should also be disseminated to the Activity stakeholders, partners, and collaborators in appropriate fora and format (like learning questions, reports on the Activity’s findings, etc.) so that it may be translated into decisions and actions that enhance the success of approaches and interventions designed to achieve common intermediate results.

The Contractor will share information and knowledge generated by monitoring data, portfolio review results, research findings, evaluations, analyses, and experiences with other USAID implementing partners and other Development Partners. The Contractor will apply actionable information and knowledge gained from collaborating partners from activity implementation in order to improve results. USAID implementing partners will convene on a periodic basis to reflect on actions taken, exchange analysis, and propose decisions that affect implementation.

11.3.3 Adapting: The Contractor will demonstrate adaptability that is informed by knowledge gained through learning and recognize behaviors and incentives necessary to create change.

Knowledge gained through learning will influence decision making, resource allocation, and adaptation to contextual shifts. The application of new knowledge to implementation decisions will be reflected in the Annual Work Plan and Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan.

Decisions to adapt may be based on but not limited to, the following:

⮚ Extraneous changes in the operating environment (i.e., emergency or natural disaster;

national policy changes)

⮚ Financial and human resource constraints

⮚ Evidence that signals targets are unmet

⮚ Emerging evidence that interventions are not working or could work better if adapted

Any changes to the scope of the contract must be approved by the Cognizant Contracting Officer in a modification to the contract. Changes in technical approach may be approved by the COR by way of the COR’s authority to provide technical direction and approve Annual Work Plans.

12. Guiding Principles

The Activity must incorporate the following guiding principles in all aspects of its work.

12.1 Apply a holistic approach to Collaborating, Learning & Adapting: The Contractor shall collaborate and coordinate both programming and learning with others to achieve better results. This Activity is part of the GFSS Country Plan and the Mission’s Market Systems

Strengthening project. For mutual benefit, the Contractor must actively seek out others with whom to strategically coordinate and jointly facilitate where substantial gains can be realized. Through

CLA, the activity shall continuously re-evaluate actions and assumptions to minimize risk, eliminate what does not work, and test and scale-up what is practicable. The approach to CLA shall also support transparency and accountability.

12.2 Demonstrate broad and inclusive stakeholder engagement that enables Ugandan leadership: The Contractor will engage broadly with partners at the national level. These stakeholders shall inform the design and participate in the implementation and monitoring of activities throughout the Activity lifecycle. This engagement should identify promising leaders/actors that are receptive to reform and can adopt change processes. The desire to effect the change must come from within the public institutions and apex private organizations.

12.3 Be problem-driven and focused, while ensuring all program approaches analyze and adjust to the local context: The Activity must maintain a problem-driven focus, with appropriate analysis to understand and adapt to the local context. The Activity should address the root causes of institutional and systems constraints.

12.4 Employ a market facilitation approach: The Contractor will work with and through market actors and target activity resources to partner with actors who demonstrate a commitment to investment and a willingness to change. Traditional direct delivery approaches that insert the

Contractor into the system as a market actor are generally not appropriate.

12.5 Infuse and prioritize inclusive development – including but not limited to women and youth empowerment: The Contractor must employ a gender-conscious lens to consider traditional gender roles and dynamics between men and women, as well as girls and boys. The

Activity must pursue interventions that create opportunities for women, youth and other marginalized groups to invest in the market and also obtain appropriate products and services.

13. Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning

Institutional and systems strengthening activities contribute to improved economic and social outcomes through various complex pathways that are both interconnected and independent. Given this complexity, innovative approaches to monitoring and evaluation need to be used to capture changes for learning and refinement of Activity interventions and performance and ensure that the

Activity goals are met. The Contractor should prepare and maintain an up-to-date map of Uganda’s political system and the institutional environment that connects partners and interventions to

Activity-level results, purpose and goals as described in the Theory of Change. This will include the articulation of results pathways for the interventions. Change along these pathways should be monitored using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The Contractor will design a monitoring and evaluation system that utilizes innovative approaches to measure how the Activity is changing relationships between and among institutions. Of interest is the quality of the relationship and the definition of a strengthened relationship. The Contractor will also develop approaches that measure institutional operational transformation. The activity will work closely with the Uganda Learning Activity to measure its contribution to the Market Systems

Strengthening project goals and objectives and to implement its learning agenda.

USAID/Uganda recognizes that the success of the Activity will depend on the contributions of actors directly and indirectly engaged with the Activity, as well as institutions and processes beyond the manageable interests of the Contractor. While some of the Activity’s interventions may on their own be sufficient to result in a change in practice or behavior at the individual or institutional level, other interventions may be necessary but not by themselves be sufficient to effect desired change. The Contactor should make all efforts to understand and articulate the way its intervention contributes to a results pathway and define all the relevant contributors to a results pathway, even if they are outside ISS’s direct control.

14. Environmental review

All USAID funded activities must comply with 22 CFR 216. Pursuant to this, USAID Uganda is in the process of amending the Markey Systems project Initial Environmental Examination

(IEE) (the Uganda_MSS_IEE_2019-2024_02062019) to incorporate the ISS activity. This IEE amendment is under development and it is recommended that funds will not be committed until the IEE is approved by the Bureau Environmental Officer, and all approvals obtained.

USAID has recommended A CATEGORICAL EXCLUSION for the proposed ISS Activity, which includes providing institutional capacity to build technical assistance that improves the execution of institutional functions, budgeting, planning and implementation and enforcement of policies, as well and systems strengthening technical assistance that includes developing stronger vertical and horizontal institutional linkages to improve relationships. This indicates that these activities are expected to have no significant adverse effect on the environment. The ISS activity has no attached environmental management conditions.

15. Climate risk screening

USAID supports strengthening development outcomes by integrating climate change into

Agency programming, learning, policy dialogues and operations. The Automated Directives

System (ADS) 201 requires climate risk assessment and management for all new projects and activities across sectors to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of project and activity objectives in the face of extreme weather and climate events.

Per ADS 201 and the climate risk screening process detailed in the mission’s approved CDCS, climate risk analysis has been conducted for the Institutional and Systems Strengthening (ISS) activity. The analysis established that climate risks are low for all the planned interventions.

Rather, the activity rather presents opportunities to reduce climate risks. The interventions could include capacity building and establishing relationships for institutions to better identify and manage climate risks in the agricultural sector. Per ADS 201 and the climate risk screening process detailed in the mission’s approved CDCS, no further climate risk analysis or action is required for the ISS activity.