RFI no. 72047221RFI00001_USAID_Timor-Leste’s Nutritious Agriculture Market Systems activity (signed).pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Nutritious Agriculture Market Systems

Reference Number: 72047221RFI00001 Release Date: March 30, 2021 Response Due Date: April 19, 2021, 12:00 pm (Bangkok noon time) Issued By: USAID/Timor-Leste

Subject: Request for Information on USAID/Timor-Leste’s Nutritious Agriculture Market

Systems activity

Pursuant to FAR 52.215-3 Request for Information (Oct.1997), the United States Government, represented by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Timor-Leste, is publishing the subject Request for Information in order to obtain information and recommendations from all interested public and private parties on development of the market systems involving nutritious agricultural products in Timor-Leste.

This announcement is a Request for Information (RFI), issued solely for information and planning purposes, and does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP). A response to this RFI is not a proposal and will in no way be deemed to form any binding contract with the RFI issuing authority.

USAID/Timor-Leste will not provide any answers to any questions submitted as a response to this

RFI.

This RFI will not be construed as a commitment by the U.S. Government to issue any solicitation, award any contract, or pay for any information submitted as a result of this request. Respondents are solely responsible for bearing all expenses associated with preparation and submission of a response to this RFI. Any future development activities related to this sector will be announced separately on https://beta.sam.gov/ at a later date. It should be noted that responding to this RFI will not give any advantage to any organization in any subsequent procurement.

Thank you for your interest in USAID’s activities.

Sincerely, Craig Smith Regional Contracting Officer

USAID/RDMA

https://beta.sam.gov/

RFI no. 72047221RFI00001 USAID/Timor-Leste’s Nutritious Agriculture Market Systems activity

BACKGROUND

Agriculture is the primary economic activity for 70 percent of the people in Timor-Leste, but it is mainly practiced at a subsistence level. More than 50 percent of children in Timor-Leste are stunted (third worst in the world). This is largely driven by the limited availability and affordability of nutritious foods, and limited dietary diversity. Given this dual challenge, increasing the demand for highly nutritious agricultural products and building the systems that provide the products and services necessary for sector-wide growth will be a major step in improving people's incomes as well as their nutritional status.

Achievements through USAID/Timor-Leste’s recently completed Avansa Agrikultura Project (Avansa) demonstrate how targeted interventions in the horticulture sector can increase market participation across product and service providers active in the sector. Farmer-producers, transporter-collectors, micro-finance institutions, input suppliers, retail outlets, and others, all experienced increased market opportunities, enterprise growth, and increased profits and savings as a result of interventions delivered through Avansa. Dietary diversity, farming productivity, and climate-smart production practices also improved across Avansa beneficiaries. Keys of success for Avansa were the introduction of new high value, nutritious crops such as strawberries, broccoli, and cauliflower and facilitation of connections and business relationships between farmers and other enterprises active in the value chain such as collectors, supermarkets, agriculture equipment suppliers, and sources of micro-finance. This engagement with the private sector helped transform the lives of thousands of Timorese producers and those providing services to them.

Avansa, however, provided the vast majority of technical assistance to the farmer-producers and other project beneficiaries operating in the horticulture sector directly though project staff. As a result, Timorese systems and organizations remain underdeveloped and unable to meet the needs of individuals and enterprises operating in the horticulture sector. With Avansa’s closing, stakeholders across the horticulture value chain may be having a more difficult time finding each other and engaging in business-to-business transactions or in acquiring the financing or other products and services needed to expand their enterprises.

Learning from this experience, future USAID agriculture interventions, informed by responses to this request for information, will seek to develop local systems, firms and organizations capable of generating sufficient financial resources to sustain operations, further reducing dependence on foreign assistance to drive development.

The purpose of future USAID/Timor-Leste agriculture programming will be to strengthen Timor- Leste’s market systems for nutritious agricultural products and the ability of enterprises and organizations to expand their businesses eventually operating independently of direct USAID or other development partner assistance. Building sustainable business-to-business relationships based on mutual benefit among finance providers, transporter-collectors, aggregators, input suppliers, farmer-producers, wholesaler-retailers, value-added processors, waste recyclers, and community-based entrepreneurs--collectively referred to as “value chain actors,” or “VCAs”--will be a primary goal. Success will be measured by the degree to which VCAs are able to directly participate in Timor-Leste’s nutritious agriculture value chains and expand their enterprises without market subsidies or direct assistance from donor-funded project staff.

For the purposes of understanding the objectives, USAID anticipates that the activity will be funded for a period of five years, with the estimated budget ranging from $13 to $15 million.

Additionally, in responding to the specific questions listed below, “nutritious agriculture products” are defined as at least fresh vegetables and potentially fruit with justification; at least tilapia and potentially other animal-sourced products with justification; and potentially edible oil with justification.

OVERALL ACTIVITY OBJECTIVE:

One or more Timorese organization(s), with business plans and sources of revenue not solely dependent on donor funding, are developed to lead organized and coordinated efforts that advance agriculture sector development objectives, particularly those related to nutritious agriculture and national in scope, while empowering value chain actors to expand their markets and implement solutions to constraints limiting growth of the sector.

INFORMATION REQUESTED

USAID is specifically interested in responses to the following questions:

1. How might one or more Timorese organization(s), with business plans and sources of revenue not solely dependent on donor funding, be developed to lead organized and coordinated efforts that advance agriculture sector development objectives, particularly those related to nutritious agriculture and national in scope, while empowering value chain actors to expand their markets and implement solutions to constraints limiting growth of the sector? Are there existing organizations that currently work in this space that either have the capacity or their capacity can be further developed to meet these needs?

2. Are there one or more Timorese organizations that are able to deploy a business model in analyzing and effectively disseminating agriculture commodity price information? If not, are there organizations that can be strengthened to provide these services?

3. How can finance utilization by for-profit VCAs across nutritious agriculture value chains increase and result in enterprise growth?

4. How might a cadre of community-based entrepreneurs providing price information and technical advice to an expanding network of farmer-producer customers while connecting these customers to upstream and downstream product and service providers or purchasers across nutritious agriculture value chains become established? What do you feel would be important concerns for USAID to consider in establishing this cadre?

5. How might for-profit enterprises providing goods and services across nutritious value chains expand their customer base and grow capabilities in supplying inputs, purchasing, collecting, transporting, storing, processing, aggregating, wholesaling, extending the shelf life of products, and reducing or recycling post-harvest loss of often highly perishable nutritious agriculture products?

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING RESPONSES/COMMENTS:

Please send all responses to this RFI via email to Suthicha Chussananalin, Acquisition and Assistance Specialist, USAID/RDMA, at schussananalin@usaid.gov with a copy to Craig Smith, Regional Contracting Officer, USAID/RDMA, at csmith@usaid.gov by the date and time indicated above with the title “RFI no. 72047221RFI00001 USAID/Timor-Leste’s Nutritious Agriculture Market Systems activity”.

Respondents will only receive an electronic confirmation acknowledging receipt of response but will not receive individualized feedback on any suggestions. No basis for claims against the U.S.

Government shall arise as a result of a response to this request for information or from the Government’s use of such information. Specific questions about this RFI should be directed only to the email addresses identified above.

The submitted response should include the following information:

Reference Number: RFI no. 72047221RFI00001 - USAID/Timor-Leste’s Nutritious Agriculture Market Systems activity Date:

Name/Email:

Affiliation/Organization:

Address:

Attachments: Please attach any documents that support your comments to the above questions.

Respondents may also include self/organization information including past experiences working in this subject area, experience working with other stakeholders, or capacity information.

There is no page limit on responses, but due to time and resource limitations, USAID may not be able to review lengthy submissions. Focused answers and materials will be appreciated.

- End of the RFI no. 72047221RFI00001 -