Financial Consultant

Request for Qualifications

TechnoServe invites you to participate in this competitive solicitation for qualifications related to the position of Financial Consultant to support a partner agribusiness in Kenya that aggregates fresh fruit and vegetables for domestic markets and for export.

Position Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Anticipated start date: December 2024

Estimated duration: 25 days LOE over 3 months

About TechnoServe

TechnoServe (www.technoserve.org) is a non-profit, economic development organisation with a sustained commitment to its 50-year-old founding mission to work with enterprising men and women in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries. We are business specialists assisting farmers and other entrepreneurs in 29 countries, increasing their access to information, capital, and markets. The increased income our clients derive enhances resilience and prosperity for their families and communities.

TechnoServe was selected by the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to lead a two-year programme – Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusinesses (CASA) Kenya – focused on driving catalytic change in how investors view and invest in agribusinesses operating in supply chains with significant numbers of smallholder producers within Kenya.

The overarching goal of the CASA Kenya programme is to increase the climate resilience, gender equality and economic prosperity of smallholder farmers (SHFs) in Kenya, while improving the commercial performance and impact of agricultural investments in the country. The programme will achieve this by working through agribusinesses that currently source from, and/or provide services to, SHFs. The programme will select agribusinesses with the highest potential to enhance the quantity and quality of their interactions and services to SHFs, thereby responding to the challenges that they face. The programme provides technical assistance to these agribusinesses for projects which will increase the services to or purchases from smallholders and bring new smallholders into business supply chains. Over two years, our objective is to work with 20 agribusinesses to benefit 10,000 smallholders through more inclusive value chain integration.

Background

CASA Kenya is working with a partner agribusiness in Nairobi that aggregates fresh fruits and vegetables for domestic markets and for export. The agribusiness wants to increase the support it provides to the smallholder farmers it sources from to increase their yield and/or

quality and resilience through launching an inputs and services package for its highest performing farmers. A core component of the package design for the partner agribusiness will be to develop a SHF financing product(s) and to explore options to leverage off-balance sheet funding from a financial institution (either immediately or in the future).

Project Objective and Deliverables

Project objective: Assist the CASA Kenya team with developing the inputs and services package by: 1) identifying and connecting to financial institutions that could provide off-balance sheet funding to the partner agribusiness; 2) providing recommendations on the design of a financial product(s) to finance the SHF inputs and services package; 3) making high-level recommendations on the data collection (both digital and physical) and credit scoring model required to launch and operate the financial product(s).

Project activities:

• Using own network, develop contact database of stakeholders with strong expertise in developing financial products for SHFs (e.g., local / regional banks, impact investors, microfinance institutions and other non-bank lending institutions)
• Select and facilitate introductions to ~5-10 stakeholders, to be agreed with the CASA Kenya team. Support preparation of interview guide and participate in discussions in-person
• Using guidance from CASA Kenya’s agronomist consultant on most suitable inputs and services, and discussions with financial institutions, provide recommendations on the design of a financial product (incl. typical loan size, deposit size / collateral requirements, loan tenor, likely range of interest rates to be charged, seasonality constraints)
• Develop a list of key data to accurately credit score and lend to SHFs, including data required for off-balance sheet funding by a financial institution. Together with digital consultant, refine list of key data and develop proxies where required based on limitations of partner agribusiness data collection capabilities
  • Outline a high-level credit scoring model that can be used by the partner agribusiness based on data collected

Project deliverables:

1. Contact database of 20+ stakeholders that have experience in providing SHF financing through agribusinesses with name, position, company, email address, phone number (full scope of contact database to be aligned with CASA Kenya team)
2. Overview of financial product(s) to finance SHFs using the inputs & services package with outline of structure (e.g., loan size, loan tenor)
3. Outline of required data collection capabilities (both digital and physical) and existing sources of data to draw on within partner agribusiness
4. Outline of credit scoring model including a list of smallholder farmer data that will need to be collected to accurately score farmers to determine whether to lend and/or the interest rate to charge

Ways of working:

• CASA Kenya will outline project objectives and hypotheses in more detail where required. The financial consultant must work collaboratively with the CASA Kenya team during all phases of the project
• A minimum of two check-in sessions is required with the CASA Kenya team to discuss progress and findings The consultant and the CASA Kenya team will further define the timelines and the work plan at the beginning of the project.

Timelines

Overall, the financial consultant will require 25 working days to complete all deliverables over the course of the entire project design phase (November 2024 to February 2025).

Five working days will be required to shortlist stakeholders to interview, including to develop the contact database of stakeholders. Once aligned with the CASA Kenya team, start confirming the availability of prioritised stakeholders.

5-10 working days to conduct interviews with prioritised stakeholders. The consultant must make themselves available to attend meetings in-person if requested by the CASA Kenya team.

10-15 working days to complete recommendations for financial product(s) design and data collection and credit scoring model design.

Skills and Requirements

• Strong network and experience working with (or at) financial institutions, agribusinesses that lend to smallholder farmers
• Strong understanding of finance and credit scoring systems
• Experience working with SHF aggregation businesses, preferably in Kenya
• Ability to work collaboratively with multiple consultants across different disciplines (e.g., agronomy, digital) to arrive at creative solutions
• Ability to prioritize and meet deadlines
• Ability to work independently and deliver high-quality reports
• Fluent level of spoken and written English

Logistics

The financial consultant must be able to conduct interviews (in person if requested) in December- January 2024. TechnoServe will pay the financial consultant on the basis of the deliverables described above.

The financial consultant and CASA Kenya team can further define the timelines and plan based on the availability from both sides.

Terms and Conditions

1. The Request for Qualifications is not and shall not be considered an offer by TechnoServe
2. All responses must be received on or before the date and time indicated on the RFQ. All late responses will be rejected
3. All unresponsive responses will be rejected
4. All awards will be subject to TNS contractual terms and conditions and contingent on the availability of donor funding
5. TNS reserves the right to accept or reject any submission or cancel the solicitation process at any time, and shall have no liability to the proposing party submitting for such rejection or cancellation of the request for qualifications
6. TNS reserves the right to accept all or part of the submission when the award is provided
7. All information provided by TNS in this RFQ is offered in good faith. Individual items are subject to change at any time, and all bidders will be provided with notification of any changes. TNS is not responsible or liable for any use of the information submitted by bidders or for any claims asserted there from
8. TNS reserves the right to require any bidder to enter into a non-disclosure agreement with TNS as well as the agribusiness
9. The bidders are solely obligated to pay for any costs, of any kind whatsoever, which may be incurred by bidder or any third parties, in connection with the Response. All responses and supporting documentation shall become the property of TNS, subject to claims of confidentiality in respect of the response and supporting documentation, which have been clearly marked confidential by the bidder

How to apply

Submission Instructions

Interested candidates should submit their resume and daily rate in USD for implementing the required assignment and deliverables outlined in this document to Grace Kihara (gkihara@tns.org).

TechnoServe reserves the right to award the contract to the submission deemed in the best interest of TechnoServe and the Donor. The winning submissions will be notified in writing. Those who were not selected may or may not be notified, at the sole discretion of TechnoServe.

Submission deadline: 7th December 2024

Questions regarding this RFQ may be addressed to Grace Kihara (gkihara@tns.org) and must be received no later than 3rd December 2024.