RFI Trade and Investment Activity_final.pdf

Activity Name: Trade and Investment Activity Date of Issuance: June 11, 2020 Responses Due: June 25, 2020 Email Responses To: rbertholon@usaid.gov with a copy to Keffiom@usaid.gov and ragojosiah@usaid.gov

The Economic Growth Office of the U.S. Agency for International Development/Ghana (USAID/Ghana) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) in order to obtain feedback from industry. This is NOT a Request for Proposal (RFP), and is NOT to be construed as a commitment by the U.S. Government to issue an RFP, or ultimately an award, or to pay for any information voluntarily submitted as a result of this request.

The issuance of this RFI is an opportunity for USAID/Ghana to obtain responses from industry to the below listed questions. See Attachment 1 - Draft Statement of Objectives (SOO), which serves as the basis for the questions.

Questions for the Request for Information (RFI)

General Procurement Questions:

1) Please confirm whether or not (yes or no or partially) you believe your entity can satisfy the

Agency’s requirements outlined in the SOO, in accordance with FAR 10.001(A). Please also indicate whether your business is classified as a Small Business or Other Than Small Business (Large Business) in the “Reps and Certs” section of SAM.gov.

2) USAID/Ghana is using a Statement of Objectives (SOO) format to detail its requirement in order to provide the maximum flexibility to each Offeror to propose an innovative approach via a Performance Work Statement (PWS), which is a statement of work for performance-based acquisitions that describes the required results in clear, specific, and objective terms with measurable outcomes. As such, it is requested that you share with USAID/Ghana any ambiguity or areas in the SOO that require further amplification or clarification by USAID in order for your organization to respond to a solicitation with a PWS. Note that USAID intends to clarify the required format for the PWS in Section L of the Solicitation.

3) USAID/Ghana intends to request a Small Business Subcontracting Plan as part of the solicitation, in adherence to FAR 19.702. It would be expected that the Prime Contractor submit the Individual Subcontract Report (ISR), and the Summary Subcontract Report (SSR) using the Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (eSRS) (http://www.esrs.gov), per FAR 19.704(a)(10)(iv). Please share any concerns you have with subcontracting to small businesses.

Technical Questions:

4) How can a behavior-led approach be brought to bear in order to achieve the proposed activity results?

5) How can nutrition-sensitive interventions be integrated into this SOO?

6) Does the SOO ensure that there is adequate participation of women, youth, and that the needs of people with disability will be addressed in proposals? If not, how can this be strengthened in the SOO?

mailto:rbertholon@usaid.gov mailto:Keffiom@usaid.gov mailto:ragojosiah@usaid.gov http://www.esrs.gov/

7) How can the Ghana Revenue Authority’s (GRA) Customs division improve the compliance of its risk management procedures among its own staff and the private sector?

8) How can the GRA best balance its needs for ensuring the secure movement of goods across borders with a customs regime designed to facilitate more efficient and cost-effective transit?

9) How can the African Continental Free Trade Agreement Secretariat be supported through this activity, particularly its relationship to Ghana trade activities?

10) How can this activity address COVID 19 related disruptions in the sector - supporting government trade facilitation efforts, assist businesses in operations, provide resilience and protocols for staff to reduce spread?

General Instructions:

USAID welcomes industry to respond to the RFI. All responses (comments, questions, suggestions, and enhancements) to this RFI are due to the email address above by the date listed above. Responders may provide responses through the email message platform, or through attachments to email in Microsoft Word compatible format or Adobe Acrobat formats. Please number pages consecutively beginning with Page 1 and limit your submission to no more than three (3) pages (not including cover page) using no less than 12-point font, single-spaced with one inch margins on the electronic equivalent of 8.5 x 11 inch paper.

USAID posts its competitive business opportunities for acquisitions on beta.SAM.gov, in adherence to FAR Part 10.002(b)(2)(iii). It is the potential Offeror’s responsibility to monitor these sites for announcements of new opportunities. Please note that responding to this RFI will not give any advantage to any organization or individual in any subsequent competition. Responses may be used by USAID without restriction or limitation, therefore proprietary information should not be sent. Responses to this RFI will not be returned and respondents will not be notified of the result of the review. If an RFP is issued, it will be announced on beta.SAM.gov at a later date, and all interested parties must respond to that RFP separately from any response to this RFI. This RFI does not restrict the Government’s approach on a future RFP.

USAID appreciates any feedback provided. Thank you for your time and interest in USAID’s activities.

Sincerely, Keisha L. Effiom Director, Regional Acquisition and Assistance Office http://www.fbo.gov/ http://www.fbo.gov/

Attachment 1 - DRAFT STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES (SOO)

Title: Trade and Investment Activity

C.1 PURPOSE

The purpose of the Trade and Investment Activity is to improve the enabling environment for Ghana’s economic growth, including, but not limited to: i) facilitating growth in export-oriented trade; ii) improving and developing quality production standards; iii) catalyzing investments in private enterprises operating in the high-value commercial crops; iv) promoting job creation, particularly among women and youth; v) promoting economic diversification; and vi) increasing foreign exchange revenues from high-value export crops. The Trade and Investment Activity will facilitate investing in firms that trade goods across borders, spur innovation, and build the capacity of the entire trade sector. This activity will form part of the USAID/Ghana Mission’s Global Food Security Program (GFSP) and will focus on promoting trade and investment as a critical component to developing Ghana’s agricultural sector.

The Mission will be using the behavioral approach in future activities. It is a paradigm shift from a traditional intervention-led approach to an approach in which key stakeholders at all levels define and solve the problem. Development results are measured as behavior change rather than as the completion of a list of programs or counting “number of people trained.” There is also a greater emphasis on systems strengthening and integration.

The Mission uses a new strategic approach that re-conceptualizes development not as donor-funded interventions, but as a process of engagement of key actors (government, private sector, and citizens) whose actions must work together (along with key supporting actors) in an integrated fashion to solve Ghana’s critical development challenges. To this end, strategic intermediate results (IR) and sub-intermediate results (sub IR) are defined as behaviors—specific actions that must be practiced to achieve and sustain the development objective and self-reliance. The government, the private sector, and citizens are primary actors in defining, planning, financing, and implementing solutions to the country’s development challenges.

USAID envisions supporting the Government of Ghana to strengthen the enabling environment for equitable, sustainable growth; businesses to expand through efficient, productive practices and increasing entrepreneurship and economic prospects for women and youth; and healthy, skilled citizens to contribute to economic growth. A more self-reliant Ghana has to be driven by a sustained capacity to accelerate broad-based economic growth.

C.2 SCOPE

The Contractor must use a systems approach to address: i) Investment Promotion and Facilitation; ii) Trade Facilitation; and iii) Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Development. The Contractor will work with businesses and the Government of Ghana (GOG) to undertake targeted interventions in trade policy, trade facilitation, international trade regulations, and other enabling environment factors that will develop the private sector. Through these interventions, the Contractor will catalyze private sector investments in agriculture, and provide technical support and small grants to SMEs that will enable them to access new market opportunities. The Contractor will partner with the GOG to reduce barriers to trade and free binding constraints that impede trade in high-value crops and private sector investments. The Contractor will also support adherence to World Trade Organization (WTO) articles; support Ghana’s role in hosting the Secretariat and developing policies to participate in the new African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), especially as they relate to Ghana’s economic relationship; and facilitate coherence between GOG agriculture, trade, and industrial policies.

C.3 BACKGROUND

Ghana is on a strong economic growth trajectory. From 2008 to 2017, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth averaged 7.3 percent and per capita GDP increased by nearly 60 percent, despite a population growth of 2.3 percent over similar period. 1 Currently, per capita GDP is around $2,200, which makes Ghana a lower-middle income country. 2 Continuous and strong economic growth has helped Ghana achieve the Millennium Development Goal target of halving poverty. In the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, Ghana made great strides to reduce overall poverty, which declined to 23.2 percentage points by the last count in 2016/17, while the incidence of extreme poverty decreased from 37 percent in 1992 to 8.2 percent in 2016.3 The poverty headcount continued to decline by about 8 percent from 2006 to 2013 before slowing down to 0.8 percentage points between 2012 and 2016. From 2012 to 2016, the total number of poor people still increased by about 400,000, and will continue to rise unless existing policies adapt to sustainably reduce the poverty headcount. Persistent inequality in household consumption (consumption by the top decile of the population is seven times greater than the bottom percentile), regional disparities in welfare (one out of three people live in rural areas), and a worsening macroeconomic environment (loose fiscal policy, high budget deficits, and a depreciating currency)4 are the main hurdles to sustained progress in Ghana.5

Several sectors of the economy potentially could support more inclusive and sustainable economic growth. The agricultural processing sector offers good growth prospects, given the demand in urban areas for prepared foods and processed products. The agri-food manufacturing sector is still populated by numerous small and medium-sized firms with low productivity, and it faces significant challenges to obtain reliable supplies of raw materials of the right qualities from producers.6 The rapidly growing services sector, the largest economic sector in Ghana, could be a source of competitive advantage if the GOG and development partners invest in the right capacity-building efforts. Getting to this point will be a challenge;

1 World Bank national accounts data, and OECD National Accounts data files 2 USAID Economic Analysis and Data Services (EADS). Country Dashboard Ghana. 2019 3 Poverty Trends in Ghana 2005 - 2017. Ghana Statistical Services. August 2018 c statistics 4 Moody’s Analytics. Ghana - Economic Indicators.

5 World Bank. Poverty Reduction in Ghana: Progress and Challenges. 2015 6 Ghana’s Economic and Agricultural Transformation Past Performance and Future Prospects. 2019 Edited by Xinshen Diao, Peter Hazell, Shashidhara Kolavalli, and Danielle Resnick.

however, as the service sector almost exclusively draws upon the informal economy with labor productivity on par with, or even lower than, jobs in agriculture. 7

Trade is the most important component of Ghana’s services sector, accounting for more than 90 percent of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product. Gold, petroleum, and cocoa account for the bulk of exports (around 75 percent), but wide swathes of the population do not benefit from the income that these industries accrue to the national coffers, primarily due to poor public financial management practices. Export concentration on three main commodities and the GOG’s inability to effectively distribute revenues from these sectors through its public financial management systems limit the gains that can be realized through trade. Although Ghana has realized significant revenue in the extractives industry and raw material exports (like cocoa and shea), it has not succeeded in developing manufacturing and and other opportunities to add value to goods in global markets. Ghanaian firms cannot effectively compete with international ones that produce goods agricultural commodities (like rice), processed goods (like animal feed), or manufactured consumer goods (like apparel) that are taking large shares of its rapidly-growing domestic markets and account for high foreign exchange outflows. Enhancing exports and increasing the competitiveness of Ghanaian firms in manufacturing and value addition could create more jobs, diversify the economy, allow Ghana to retain foreign exchange, increase national per capita income, reduce inequalities, absorb the growing young labor force, and enable more workers to shift out of traditional subsistence agriculture.

Improving trade facilitation is one of the most important enabling environment factors because it can bring more small and medium businesses into the global economy and enable inclusive, private sector-led growth. Ghana has several competitive advantages, such as its coastal location, ports, and road network that make it an ideal location for regional and international trade. In addition, Ghana has the potential to be competitive in the agricultural sector given its production capacity. For example, non-traditional export crops like shea can capitalize on a $2.5 billion export market, and vegetables and other horticultural crops (e.g. mango, pineapple, papaya) can become important sources of export revenues.

Investment and growth in these sectors supports trade acceleration and Ghana’s agricultural sector transformation, and have the potential to put Ghana on a pathway to self-reliance.

Improving Ghana’s customs regime with an eye toward improving its risk management practices in order to increase efficiency and safety can also help to improve its economic competitiveness. In international practice, customs efficacy depends on skilled staff, informed by access to data, organized to allocate time and attention proportionate to compliance risks, all with a minimum impact on the movement, release, and clearance of goods. Risk management is typically supported by data analysis which guides activities in the field and risks observed by skilled inspectors fed back into the risk identification and analytic operation. Ghana’s risk management regime under the Ghana Revenue Authority‘s (GRA) Customs division is not fully aligned with the specifications of the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the requirements of Article 7.4 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) that specifies the mandates for the release and clearance of goods. Risk management within GRA Customs

7 Ghana’s Economic and Agricultural Transformation Past Performance and Future Prospects. 2019 Edited by Xinshen Diao, Peter Hazell, Shashidhara Kolavalli, and Danielle Resnick.

is often conducted informally, without regular documentation in the GRA Customs automated systems.

GRA Customs’ organizational structure does not directly address risk management in a Customs-specific formalized unit, or with specified risk management roles and responsibilities. GRA Customs does not have a risk management policy, related standard operating procedures, or a comprehensive Customs risk management implementation plan.

To improve access to markets and efficiency, Ghana must reduce the time and cost of trade. The Ghanaian trade regime is a complicated one for exporters. According to the World Bank Doing Business report, exporters spend on average 108 hours to comply with regulations at the border, including 89 hours just to complete the required documentation. In addition, Ghananian customs and border agencies have complied with fewer than 10 percent of their commitments under the Trade Facilitation Agreement. While the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Trade Facilitation Index, which measures the performance of border procedures and policies, shows Ghana making steady improvements over the last two years, putting it slightly above the sub-Saharan African (SSA) mean, trade in agricultural products remains cumbersome. Ghana has fully notified only three of 16 articles important for agricultural trade. Regarding trade policies, Ghana’s average weighted agricultural tariff is 15.9 percent, which is the 14th highest of 35 SSA countries. In 2016, Ghana restricted imports of rice, and in 2018 made permanent a ban on imports of frozen poultry.

C.3.a. Problem Statement

Lack of trade and investment in the agricultural sector has negatively affected Ghana’s economic growth, including low job creation, a poorly diversified economy, and reduced access to foreign exchange.

Improving the agriculture and food trade sector is a critical component to support Ghana’s journey to self-reliance. If Ghana is to be a global competitor and an important trade destination and partner,; then it is necessary to reduce barriers to trade, particularly non-trade barriers, improve the ease of movement of goods, and increase the quality of food and agricultural products. Ghana, as the chosen AfCFTA secretariat, should serve as a model for trade facilitation, especially given its inherent qualities of a stable security situation, good ports and related ocean infrastructure, and political will to increase its competitiveness. The lack of enforcement and maintenance of quality standards within the sector also affects the competitiveness of Ghanaian products. Ghana cannot effectively compete in the global market unless it establishes measures to address quality standards that will help to sustain food and agriculture value chains and create new market opportunities for high-value products.

The theory of change for this activity is: IF Ghana increases the quality and quantity of its crops, processed, and manufactured goods; grows investment; establishes forward links with value chain actors; reduces its trade barriers; improves its business enabling environment; and improves and enforces standards; THEN its domestic and international investment and market opportunities will increase, its economy will grow, and the GOG will reap greater revenues to fund its development.

C.3.b. Prior Activities

USAID/Ghana informed its Trade and Investment Activity design by the results and lessons learned from previously implemented activities and assessments, as detailed below. Since 1992, USAID/Ghana implemented four trade and investment activities, including the Trade and Investment Project (TIP), Trade and Investment Reform Program (TIRP), Trade and Investment Project for a Competitive Export Economy (TIPCEE), and most recently, Trade Africa. Trade Africa provided USAID/Ghana the opportunity to implement activities in the trade and investment sector and demonstrate the need to develop a robust and systematic approach to improving trade regimes. The Ghana Feed the Future Agriculture Policy Support Project enhanced the enabling environment, improving access to land and opening opportunities for private sector investment and participation in irrigation infrastructure and high-quality seed supply.

Through the Ghana Agricultural Value Chain Enhancement (ADVANCE) activity, USAID developed new models to strengthen value chain links and introduce the outgrower business model. USAID conducted several economic growth analyses to inform the Trade and Investment Activity design. USAID/Ghana also conducted a deep dive analysis of the GRA Customs division to ascertain the bottlenecks to a compliant and efficacious Customs regime and to pinpoint areas for targeted technical assistance.

The Trade and Investment Activity is part of a portfolio of activities that USAID/Ghana designed to work together to address the GFSP purpose, which is to strengthen Ghana’s capacity to independently address poverty, hunger, and malnutrition by accelerating inclusive and sustainable agriculture-led economic growth and household income, while maintaining a resilient, well-nourished population, especially among women and children. The Trade and Investment Activity must accomplish several objectives to help the GFSP succeed, such as providing a deal pipeline for the Ghana Mobilizing Finance in Agriculture Activity and the West Africa Trade and Investment Hub, and ensuring that commercial crops are supported through other agricultural development activities.

C.3.c. Current Activities

The Contractor must improve the business enabling environment for trade and investment by improving investment promotion and trade facilitation based on commercial opportunities, and by leveraging political will to advance market-driven reforms. The Contractor will facilitate private sector participation and investment that results in agriculture-led economic growth and increased income among agricultural sector participants, with a particular emphasis on women and youth. The Contractor must ensure that activities are aligned with USAID’s Private Sector Engagement policy, including enterprise-driven development, which means aligning with the private sector as co-creators of market-oriented solutions, and promoting market-based approaches that catalyze markets to solve business challenges more efficiently and sustainably. Through this Activity, the Contractor must align its efforts with and contribute to the implementation of the Prosper Africa initiative, Clear Choice, the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity initiative, and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

The Contractor, under the direction of the COR, will partner with the USAID West Africa Trade and Investment Hub to assist participating firms by providing business support services for Trade Hub partners and consulting about the enabling environment for exports with them. It will also coordinate with the

USAID/West Africa Regional Mission on the regional trade regulatory environment. By collaborating with the USAID/Ghana Resilience in Northern Ghana II Activity and other USAID/Ghana economic growth activities, nutrition-sensitive messaging can be disseminated to producer associations and women’s groups that will be involved in partner firms.

The Contractor must coordinate with development partners like the United Kingdom Agency for International Development (UKAID), World Bank, and the United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP).

The Trade and Investment Activity is aligned with the GOG trade facilitation roadmap and the Planting for Export and Jobs initiatives.

C.4 PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES

The Contractor must achieve the following three major objectives:

A) Quality standards in domestic value chains improved and enforced.

B) Time and cost to move goods across borders decreased.

C) Investment increased, especially among small and medium enterprises (SME).

As part of the behavioral approach, the behaviors are the results anticipated. The contractor must also provide approaches to help achieve the illustrative behaviors indicated under each objective below:

Objective A: Quality standards in domestic value chains improved and enforced

Sanitary and phytosanitary standards (SPS) and food safety standards remain the main constraints for Ghanaian firms to access global high-value markets. The Contractor must help stakeholders to improve SPS measures in Ghana to facilitate market access and help the GOG to implement science-based SPS standards as agreed under the World Trade Organization.

Illustrative Aligned Behaviors:

● Businesses improve the quality and diversity of their goods and services

● Farmers adopt improved agronomic practices

Result A1: Public and private traceability systems for fruits, vegetables, and other agricultural products effectively administered, connected, and able to trace products from their origin through the supply chain, isolate threats, and recall contaminated products when needed.

Result A2: Local certification standards for plant safety, sanitary, and phytosanitary qualities, aligned with international standards, established with the private sector to improve market access for high-value export commodities.

Result A3: Capacity of farmers and processors improved to meet market requirements for a diverse set of marketing channels (local, national, and export).

Result A4: Enforcement system strengthened to effectively administer and to ensure compliance with GOG food safety standards and regulations

Objective B: Time and cost to move goods across borders decreased.

To improve access to markets and efficiency, the time and cost of trade must be reduced. The contractor must work with the GOG and private sector to improve current risk management practices to effectively address non-tariff barriers to trade, and lower the time and costs to safely and securely move goods across borders.

Illustrative Aligned Behaviors:

● Government improves and streamlines procedures for efficient trade

● Government improves policy formulation and execution for private sector investment

Result B1: Reduced time to securely move imports and exports to and from Ghana.

Result B2: Reduced cost of securely moving imports and exports to and from Ghana.

Result B3: AfCFTA institutional capacity strengthened to develop policy regulations aligned with international best practices to integrate Ghana into the continental free trade zone.

Objective C: Investment increased, especially among small and medium enterprises

Small and medium enterprises dominate Ghana’s industrial landscape and can accelerate its economic development for wealth creation and poverty reduction. They constitute about 92 percent of businesses in Ghana, account for about 85 percent of manufacturing employment,8 and contribute about 70 percent of GDP.9 The contractor must target SMEs development and work with the GOG and the private sector to support entrepreneurs, particularly women, youth and persons with disabilities, access finance and basic services to expand their businesses.

Illustrative Aligned Behaviors:

● Businesses use business development services to grow

● Businesses attract greater investment from domestic and foreign sources

● Government improves incentives to stimulate private sector investment

● Farmers link to profitable market systems

8 Abor, J and Quartey, P. “Issues in SME Development in Ghana and South Africa” International Research Journal of Finance and Economics; Issue 39. 2010 9 International Trade Centre (ITC). “SME Competitiveness in Ghana: Alliances for Action”. 2016

Result C1: Incremental income among businesses, especially SMEs, increased.

Result C2: Business registration streamlined.

Result C3: Exports from SMEs increased, including through, but not limited to those using AGOA.

Result C4: Businesses employ more skilled workers, especially women, youth, and people with disabilities.

C.5 CROSS-CUTTING TASKS

Investment promotion is the anchor to catalysing opportunities for growth. The Contractor must develop investment opportunities across all USAID/Ghana sectors of health, education, nutrition, and agriculture where applicable. Investment opportunities should include U.S. investments and reflect the Prosper Africa, Clear Choice, and Global Food Security Strategy parameters.

C.5.a. Implementation of Training & Commodities Procurement Developing human and institutional capacity is critical to implementing this contract. The Contractor must work with its counterparts to develop their capacity in the activities stated above. Both off-shore (U.S.

based and third country training) and in-country training must be part of the Contractor’s annual training plans. The majority of training programs must be conducted in-country. In-country training must include workshops, public awareness seminars and roundtables. It must also include the training provided to job seekers to improve their employability skills. Off-shore participant training (in the U.S. or third countries) is subject to USAID regulations.

C.5.b. Grants to U.S. and Non-U.S. NGOs

The Contractor may execute grants on behalf of USAID to support its technical approach. All grants must:

1) have financial cost-sharing from recipients; 2) directly link to at least one objective; and 3) support local capacity building to promote sustainability. The Contractor must customize a Grants Management Plan following USAID and Federal Government requirements. The contractor must work with USAID to finalize selection criteria, competitively award grants when possible, and obtain approval.

USAID may approve grant funding for achievement of results to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or for-profit commercial organizations from the U.S. A single grant to a U.S. non-governmental organization (NGO) is limited to $100,000. However, in accordance with 2CFR700.13, no funds will be paid as profit to any non-Federal entity that is a commercial organization.

In addition, USAID/Ghana may approve grant funding for achievement of results to Ghanaian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or for-profit commercial organizations. This award seeks to limit the value to $100,000 for each non-US organization recipient and the total value of grants administered under this award must not surpass $3,000,000. Of this amount, $1 million must be set aside for in-kind grants to the GOG in support of the behavior, “Government improves and streamlines procedures for efficient trade” in Objective B, “Time and cost to move goods across borders decreased.”

C.6 OPERATING PARAMETERS

C.6.a. Sustainability

The Contractor must integrate sustainability in the activity by promoting private sector development and unlocking catalytic investments to expand the agriculture sector. This is important as the private sector will continue to thrive, grow and provide income-generating opportunities for women, youth, and other marginalized populations. The Contractor must partner with GOG agencies to address policy and regulatory issues while building government capacity and expertise to support trade and investment in Ghana.

The anticipated results from this activity must include more diversified agricultural exports from Ghana.

The ease of doing business in Ghana and the movement of goods across borders and at the ports must be greatly improved. As a result of this activity, Ghana must be able to attract greater and diversified income sources to sustain its journey to self-reliance.

C.6.b. Gender Integration

The Contractor must facilitate equal opportunities within the trade sector. Addressing constraints to trade will create opportunities for growth in the sector for members of both sexes. For example, access to credit is one of the most important factors that prevent SMEs, particularly those headed by or significantly involving women and youth, from developing their businesses and participating in high-value export markets. Generally, only women with significant capital can produce and aggregate enough products and reap substantial profits from export-oriented activities. The Contractor must include interventions with women as the main actors and avenues that provide equal access to finance and improved skills in its activity. The Contractor must align with GOG initiatives to train women-owned SMEs on entrepreneurial skills and support opportunities to grow their business. To the greatest extent possible, the Contractor must promote activities that improve basic infrastructure (e.g. storage facilities and other labor-saving infrastructure) and address cross border and road harassment which constrain women to develop and expand their businesses.

Facilitating business relationships for women ensures access to income-generating opportunities. Women are generally less well-connected to central actors and are less likely to act as intermediaries than men.

Promoting local policies to increase the number of business connections within communities in which women live can support more inclusion. Women’s relationships are strongly rooted in the local culture, and are based on solidarity and protection against the multitude of uncertainties that characterise trade.

The Contractor must prioritize partnering with the private sector to identify and facilitate low-cost post-harvest processing and storage technologies that can be sold and used to minimize female traders’ loss, especially of fruits and vegetables and whose availability can improve household dietary diversity. The Contractor must promote value chains that can improve women’s income (e.g. shea butter) and value chains that can improve diets (e.g. fisheries) for greatest market system results.

C.6.c. Youth Integration

Fifty seven percent of Ghana’s population is under the age of 25 and unemployment is 13.7 percent among this group.10 Youth unemployment is higher in urban areas than in rural areas and young women face higher unemployment rates than young males. Unemployment rates in the formal sector are higher among the educated, as finding a well paid job is their top priority and fewer of those exist relative to the lower paying jobs in the informal sector.11 Young women face the additional challenges of early marriage and pregnancy, and as a result, less schooling and social networking, which makes it harder for them to benefit from some form of productive employment. In the case of agribusiness activities, due to the lack of opportunities in the formal sector, young people tend to engage in a mix of informal and self-employment opportunities along with household-level agricultural activities.12

Ghanaian youth face multiple challenges to participate in and benefit from the economic growth. In agribusiness-related activities, including trade, youth participation tends to be on informal, mostly street trade13 which causes a persistent poverty cycle of low productivity and low income.14 The Ghana Women's Empowerment to food security and youth assessment states the most important barriers to increase agribusiness and trade participation are lack of: (1) access to financial services, (2) collateral, and

(3) ability to obtain skills and technologies.15

The Contractor must explore innovative financing activities for young Ghanaians to expand their economic opportunities and ensure that they can effectively participate in high-value trade activities. The contractor must also partner with the private sector to target skilled internships and technology training for access to employment. The Contractor must partner with the private sector to identify and introduce low-cost post-harvest processing and storage technologies that can be sold and used to minimize female traders’ losses, especially of fruits and vegetables whose availability can improve household dietary diversity.

C.6.d. Environmental Considerations

The Contractor will work with agricultural firms and recommend appropriate approaches to promote good agricultural practices and meet required quality standards. The Contractor must also provide support to

10 Ghana Women’s Empowerment to Food Security and Youth Assessment (2019) Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment Activity.

Final Report 11 African Sector for Economic Transformation; https://acetforafrica.org/highlights/jobless-growth-is-ghanas-biggest-youth-challenge/ 12 Ghana Women’s Empowerment to Food Security and Youth Assessment (2019) Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment Activity.

Final Report 13 Rethinking Youth, Livelihoods, and Fragility in West Africa: One Size Doesn’t Fit All. (2015) Fortune, Francis; Olawale, I and Stephen, M.

World Bank Publication 14 Ghana’s Economic and Agricultural Transformation Past Performance and Future Prospects (2019) IFPRI Edited by Xinshen Diao, Peter Hazell, Shashidhara Kolavalli, and Danielle Resnick 15 Ghana Women’s Empowerment to Food Security and Youth Assessment (2019) Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment Activity.

Final Report https://acetforafrica.org/highlights/jobless-growth-is-ghanas-biggest-youth-challenge/

SMEs that addresses processing and other related activities. These mitigation measures must address workplace safety practices, awareness of environmental hazards, and proper waste disposal practices.

C.6.e. Adaptive Management

It is critical that the Contractor use adaptable systems and work plans in case of unanticipated changes, and an approach that allows for flexibility as new priorities arise during the course of this contract.

Attached Documents:

1. Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS)

2. Domestic Resource Mobilization Activity Deep Dive Customs Assessment (Condensed Report)