Notes_on_the_FtFEVCA_Pre_Bidders_conference.docx

Friday, February 26, 2016 Title: Notes on Presentations and Questions and Answeres for the Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain Activity.

Subject: Value Chain Bidders conference Introduction Opening by OAA Opening by OAA – remarks.

Goal : Program implementation by November 2016 Important Dates:

· March 11 Responses to questions to be posted on Fed Biz Ops

· March 28 Deadline for proposal submission (This has since been revised to April 8, 2016)

· June 24 if Notification to firms that are not competitive: and offered a debriefing

· Award: Mid- November 2016 B. Overview of Value Chain: EG&T Chief See attached presentation.

Important Points:

· We support AGP2 through parallel funding that supports component 4 of AGP2: Ag Marketing and Value Chains

· Value Chains: sesame, wheat and honey supported through grants to ATA.

· Lessons learned from AGP I

· Need to be engaged with GOE at all levels

· New Ministry of Livestock so include this as it is new since RFP was written.

· In proposals talk about work with other donors as well Deliverables/Time Frame:

· Basic time line indicating deliverables is in the presentation.

II. Session 1 Government of Ethiopia Presentations Presentation by MOANR AGP Coordinator: Ibrahim Mohammad. Ato Ibrahim presented an overview of AGP II. See attached presentation.

· New areas included in AGP 2: Nutrition, Climate change and Gender.

· PDO is to increase nutrition included thanks to EU that will support its through pooled funds.

· Dietary Diversity included as a PDO indicator

· AGP locations - 157 woredas , 4069 kebeles

· Extension Services supported by Component 1 Ag public support service

· Ag research new Component 2

· FTF will have a stake in this one: need improved technology, seeds etc.

· Component 3 largest SSI Development

· Component 4 Ag Marketing and Value Chains.

· Most of the FTF parallel funds will assist this component.

· Cross cutting issues will be incorporated in all the components.

· Inputs from FTF seen in Community based crop and Forage Seed production’ woredas supported in establishing Direct Seeds marketing. Working on maize so there is a stake here for FTF.

· SC 4.2 Farmers Organizations:

· Capacity building for FCU are the focus for FTF

· S.C. 4.3 MAJOR ACTIVITY SUPPORTED BY FTF: SUPPORT AGRIBUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

· SC. 4.3.2 TEC SUPPORT TO STRENGTHEN COMPETITIVE AGRIBUSINESS ACTORS.

· S.C 4.4 MARKET INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT.

· WAREHOUSES CONSTRUCTION

· DEVELOPING AND EQUIPPING MARKET INFORMATION SYSTEMS ARE THE TWO FOCUSES FOR FTF.

Q& A’s for Ato Ibrahim Q: Who is funding construction of warehouses since RFP prohibits it.

A: Not sure the activity prohibits it. It does limit the role of USAID to facilitate construction. USAID will not pay for construction. We have indicated to the government that we do not want to be involved in construction as our comparative advantage is capacity building - not construction, especially given the cost.

2. Q: Does the government have a data base of all the players of the value chain and list of all needs of value chains for marketing A: this is under the MOI and answers can be found there so all aspects of marketing can be found there.

3. Q: Component 4 not clear who is doing what A: Under sub component 4.3 most will be done by FTF and the rest done by whoever has a stake in that value chain. These areas are highlighted in the presentation. So can find in the project implementation manual who has the lead. The PIM will be made available.

4. Q: Coordination at the regional and local level.

A; Component 5 states how this will be managed. At Fed level there is a steering committee. It will get information on the technical information from the technical committee which goes down to the woerda level. ATA is part and parcel of this committee and will be reviewed monthly at all levels. So system is open and transparent this includes Development and other interested partners , so management is well outlined.

5. Q: What is the rationale for the Gross Margin and what is the starting point?

A; Farm Gate is the point of costing Gross margin is based on the perspective of the small holder farmers at the farm gate. The rational is that increases in productivity at the farm along with decreasing transaction costs should increase gross margins for the farmers.

6. Q: Can AGP II presentation and documents be made available?

A: Can get from AGP II coordination unit at MOA; Building A first floor right side. Also is on the MOA web page. USAID will do a link.

7. Q: Is there a more recent version of the Project Implementation Manual since June, 2015.

A: Generally, there are no major changes since June. Said something about since the Ministries of Lives stock and Fisheries has been separated.

8. Q: Who can we contact if we have more specific questions?

Project Coordinator is there to talk to you. Clarified that this needed to be held until the document was released.

B: Presentation by Ato Khalid Bomba, CEO of ATA:

No Power Point presentation:

· 2 mandates: 1) Identify bottlenecks in MOA and 2) integrate solutions

· Report to MOA and Transformation Council Chaired by the Prime Minister

· Links between ATA and FTF: List of deliverables that address identified bottlenecks.

· In GTP 1 there were 84 agendas across 16 program areas. These 84 are listed in the Transformation agenda and implementing partners name is listed on the agenda. This is reported to the council on a quarterly basis.

· So 16 program areas have been expanded to 29 program areas split into 4 pillars:

Productivity and Production;

Sustainable and Inclusive growth: CSA, Gender, and soil fertility Agri-business and markets: think there will be overlap with FTF. So, systemic issues do not lend themselves to one value chain.

Implementation Capacity: also part of FTF issue of sustainability; ATA mandate ends in 15 years

· The systemic bottlenecks in this area we hope will be covered by FTF

· Now have 29 Programs and 14 deliverables now designed with 104 sub deliverables and we hope FTF will help with this. Will list this on a website so you have visibility and how to integrate into responses.

· Second deliverable: ATA taking lead on Sesame, wheat and Honey. 12 value chains requested by GOE. Work is to coordinate with partners so as to avoid duplication Most of the commodities covered by FtF.

Also ATA has identified 239 Words now from a data point of view which should be included in the clusters and have identified 26 clusters that cover these 239 woredas.

All this information will be made available for USAID posting.

Areas where we can collaborate:

Provide Data information to design your project: i.e systemic issues and geographies that brings together information from MOA, MOI and MOT Coordination between the FTF activity and the various activities underway by different organizations/partners to minimize duplication Provide link access to senior policy makers for sustainable changes in policy that is important; perhaps this is our most important role. Taking things that you are taking to scale.

ATA will set up a dedicated email address that you can send questions to and will respond within 24 hours. We will provide Link to FTF The dedicated email address for bidders is ftf@ata.gov.et They should send any questions by writing to this email and we will aim to respond within 24-48 hours.

Q&A’s for Ato Khalid Q: how do you build capacity of the implementing staff of the stakeholders A: Capacity building traditionally done like training programs outside country is useless. More effective is targeting human and institutional capacity development (HICD). The stakeholders must participate in the work itself in order to learn and create sustainable organizations. For example, the ATA Soil Mapping Project was done with MOA staff taking part in every aspect of the work – from field samples, analyses and policy. Practical training is more effective way of building human capacity and in parallel building institutional capacity

2. Q: Are you expecting to make policy changes in fertilizer blending?

The fertilizer policy is drafted and with the Prime Minister. ATA’s hope is it will support private sector to be more engaged. It is the systems and processes that make this work. We did not think about upstream or downstream on operational business processing on how they work. With the bigger issues on MFC facilities and creating fertilizer factories is bigger issue of policy now being considered.

3. ATA as both a facilitator and implementer, how do you work to avoid overlap with attributions.

A: In terms of attribution, we are less concerned about this. We need to be greater than one partner. It is the combination of interventions so ATA tries to be as scientific as possible, but looks at bigger picture as what has integrated set of interventions contributed to small holder farmer. Integration is more important than single attributions. We have an exit plan so if we do engage in an implementation we prefer not to implement and if we do we try to hand over activity in 3-5 years. We always have an exist plan.

4. Q: Cluster system: how does that work and how should FTF collaborate A: Focuses on primary commodities: What is the comparative advantage of farmers in that community and identifies the market that way. The second part is working across the entire value chain. We must work across entire value chain. It is an integrated, holistic and complete value chain approach starting with people and market.

5. Q: What are the plans for market infrastructure? What is the plan to scale up sms.

A: We are going wider and broader than value chains are covered in the IDSR system and go beyond productivity. So the hope is that all farmers have access to the toll free call in system to accommodate largest volume of calls, and we should have larger bandwidth. We have improved content and infrastructure.

6. Q: Two questions: 1).Livestock not part of clustering, is this missing; and, what is time limit for availability of information for the bidder? 2). What will livestock work include and what is the role of ATA in Pastoral livestock production?

A: Our mandate is NOT pastoralist and drought affected areas;

Livestock is included in the 239 clusters layered on top the livestock to the agriculture crops: e.g., in Western Oromia natural maize, poultry so it is layered.

After we finished the crop rotation for livestock, we looked at what are areas best for dairy and beef. We identified milk sheds and livestock sheds. Ministry of Livestock has requested Ata to do the same as they did for Crops. So ATA will support MOL to identify clusters and work on coordination on data, on some aspect of implementation on the specific livestock commodities in the 239 clusters.

Design of what will happen in the livestock clusters is still open. We hope to work with FTF implementer to identify most important interventions for the different commodities. But starting point is Transformation Agenda where there are 3 areas: genetics, animal health and feed fodder.

Timing of information will try to be available by Monday, Feb 29.

7: Q: Update on New Alliance policy?

A: 12 policy issues under this New Alliance. We, Ethiopia, have taken a different approach and make the New Alliance country owned, so it is part of technical working group of RED FS. We are working with AKLDP on tracking these issues. In terms of being on track maybe 50% on track and 10% much more work.

New Alliance has 3 legs, policy, development partners and private sector. We need more work on the private sector side. Commitments have been on paper; so the private sector needs more focus and work. Need to update other ministries cooperation framework.

8: Q: 5 out of 8 value chains are livestock and implication on budget allocations A; It depends on how you count; it could be 3 and 3. The proposals should allocate across value chains as the bidder thinks is appropriate. Some may cost more than others.

9. Who is measuring household nutrition in the 239 woredas?

A: ATA, with funding from GATES, and done through IFPRI is doing it. The nutrition study will be launched end of March and be available end of year. Will do Gender desegregated and done at household weird and household level.

Baseline done this year and will be done at 5 years. Funding required for mid-term and Foundation has not committed to mid-term. USAID is also doing its own studies.

III. Session 2 Related Donor Activities Many donors but due to time limited to these three have been invited.

A. Jennifer Bloom: Canada

· Value Chain programming;

· Information is on line and USAID will make it available.

· Canada is funding $19.3 million livestock project through ILRI. It is to identify bottlenecks in livestock and fruits and vegetables in the 4 Regions. Project Browser on Canada’s web site.

· Other projects in Ag growth but not value chain focused. College curriculum, research institutes on seeds

· Completed Projects: Textile and Rice value Chain

· B_G Region small value chains B. New Zealand: Peter Zwart

· Focus Growing program in agriculture particularly in livestock. Ethiopia is a focus for us in the dairy sector doing in part with Gates Foundation.

· Work to support small holder and private sector dairy foundation

· Full tender will be on 30 March for five years; first design and second implementation on animal products and nutrition and strengthening dairy service and technical support. Requirement will be to work with other stakeholders and industry.

· Design period complements FTF planning.

· Find website.

C. Andrew Goodland, World Bank

· You can now contact me since RFP has been issued.

· REDFS: should contact Gary Wallace

· Will briefly talk about AGP experiences with working with Feed the Future. Encountered difficulties early on. We identified challenges and strengthened collaboration.

· AGP is governments largest growth program; It is comprehensive AGP is public sector and value chain is private sector, but to be successful need to link public and private and how they will work together.

· Structures to support the coordination at all levels will continue and need to make sure to ensure synergy between value chain and AGP. Value chain is embedded in a bigger program and will benefit when it can leverage from other programs

· WB is also doing Competitiveness and Industrial Services. These parks will have agro processing and MOI and MOT key players to develop infrastructure for agro parks.

· So key message is to make linkages and how this will all come together to reach higher level objective of growth and transformation.

Q&A for Andrew Goodland;

First Gary provided explanation of RED FS.

Q: What has worked in coordination and what not and what lessons learned A: Challenge under AGP I. The nature of USAID financing creates challenge, because government does not have direct oversight of value chain and can create a gap. Who owns the value chain activity? So, what has been instituted is more collaboration in development of workplaces with regional bureaus. Technical committee of RED FS is place for coordination. We’ve learned how to make this coordination work. It will always be an issue, but how to do better. We look to the proposals to support this coordination.

Point is coordination must go from district, regional to federal. So we learned this lesson.

2. Q: Industrial parks: Progress and when will they be ready for business?

A: The Bank supports 2 parks and will be ready for business in 12 months. Government is pushing this , not just Bank. This is policy of Government and looks for close linkages with value chain.

3. Q: is there an equivalent to REDFS with MOI, MOT A: Yes, there is a group with MOI and with MOFED it is the level of the DAG. On the AGP tech committee we have representative from Trade and MOI, but is a work in progress. Experience is when you do value chain the focus is MOI and MOT.