USAID FEED THE FUTURE NIGERIA AGRIBUSINESS INVESTMENT ACTIVITY FACILITATION OF PAYMENT-FOR-RESULT WORKSHOP WITH BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT SERVICE PROVIDERS (BDSPs)

Background

The Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity has been strengthening the enabling environment for agribusiness finance and investment in Nigeria since its inception in December 2018. Interventions have been delivered to actors across rice, cowpea, soy, maize and aquaculture value chains in Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi, and Niger States as well as at the national level. Through the lead firm approach, driven by market-oriented strategies and private sector engagement initiatives, the Activity has worked with diverse stakeholders to deliver on its four result areas, namely: (i) improving the enabling environment for agricultural sector growth through legal and regulatory reforms; (ii) broadening access to finance by mitigating the credit risks of agribusinesses; (iii) promoting and facilitating investment opportunities for agribusinesses to expand and scale up operations; and (iv) sustainably enhancing the performance of agribusiness micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs). In line with the U.S. and Nigerian governments’ commitment to growing the non-oil-based economy, these efforts have increased the depth, breadth, dynamism, and competitiveness of Nigeria’s agribusiness sector.

To date, the Activity has contributed to the formulation, review, and approval of 6 national policy instruments and 9 policy reforms across the seven focal States. Key stakeholders and market actors performing different functions in the agrifinance market system in Nigeria have been engaged, supported, and empowered to better perform their core functions more efficiently. Across the five commodity value chains, more than 16,000 MSMEs and individuals have received different levels of support to access over $224 million in new financing as either debt or non-debt capital. 80% of the MSMEs supported have reported improvement in their organizational performances with enhanced participation in the local economy thereby contributing to food security and inclusive economic growth objectives of the Government of Nigeria. The Activity has been able to stimulate system-level consciousness among stakeholders in the formulation and implementation of reform agenda that are supportive of agribusiness operations and has empowered the private sector to have more consistent and result-oriented dialogue with policy actors. The Activity has also enabled the agrifinance market actors to become more intentional in driving initiatives that would open up the finance and investment space for agribusinesses.

Activity’s Approach

The Activity works with lead firms by using market-system approaches and private sector engagement initiatives with the aim to stimulate improved market efficiency and optimization of relationships among market actors. These approaches are intended to eventually motivate different market actors to perform their functions more efficiently thereby making for a better interplay between the demand and supply sides of the agrifinance market in Nigeria. These approaches are also hinged on the principles of ‘demand-driven’ and ‘cost-sharing’ to promote ownership, co-creation of ideas, and sustainable outcomes.

Different interventions have been delivered to a cross-section of market actors performing core, supporting, and or regulatory functions in different markets. These actors include agribusiness MSMEs (processors, aggregators etc.), commodity/farmers’ associations, financial institutions, investment organizations, investment facilitators, linkage facilitators, agritech organizations, and government institutions (Ministries, Departments, and Agencies). In doing these, the Activity significantly leveraged the vast experiences and dynamism of Business Development Service Providers (BDSPs) and Subject Matter Specialists (SMSs) to complete internal capacities of Activity’s workforce. Our BDSP and SMS partners have been instrumental to process improvement, productivity enhancement, increase in efficiency, and adaptive market processes across the value chains.

As the Activity closes soon in December 2023, it is important to engage these BDSPs and SMSs to learn from their experience working with the Activity in delivering different intervention supports to agribusiness MSMEs and other market actors. Learning from them will help to co-create ideas that can sustainably ensure that their services are available in the market to more market actors beyond the geography, value chains, and life of the Activity. It will also help the Activity to create a pool of partners willing and motivated to sustain the different aspect of the intervention stream the Activity has championed in the past five years.

Payment for Performance (or Payment for Result) Approach

The Activity recognizes the important role played by relationship and partnership building in stimulating efficient market activities as against transaction-based engagements. At a broader level, development agencies and donors have started recalibrating development assistance to beneficiary entities to reflect the need to prioritize partnerships that produce agreed outcomes to efforts producing outputs. Interest in using pay-for-results (PfR) strategies in development has risen sharply in recent years, in line with growing attention to aid effectiveness and the need to use scarce funding resources more efficiently. PfR is seen as a disruptor, providing an alternative to the traditional cost reimbursement service procurement model which has remained predominant in the market.

This approach is believed to: 

• Encourage innovation in development.
• Attracts new funding sources (including from the private sector).
• Facilitate alignment of interests among funders and implementers—toward achieving development outcomes rather than inputs.
• Fosters evidence-based development.

At the micro levels, experience has shown that technical assistance provided by BDSPs and SMSs to agribusinesses, public institutions and other actors are oftentimes considered ‘intangible’ by recipients. Recipients of these ‘intangible’ assistance tend not to appreciate the providers or agencies facilitating the assistance compared to those offering them direct cash assistance, inputs supply, food assistance and the likes. However, these interventions are later found to be of great benefit and values to recipients after patient engagement by the intervening agencies. Generally, agribusinesses may not be motivated enough to pay for services of BDSPs and SMSs because such investments are easily frustrated within the business environment in which they operate. The Activity is interested in engaging BDSPs that have worked with it over the years to understand their perspectives as to why agribusinesses and other actors consider technical assistance as intangibles whereas such supports are necessary for their businesses to be better structured and positioned to access finance, markets, and other opportunities. The Activity will therefore be stimulating an engagement for a modified Payment-for-Performance/Result relationship as a model that can build stronger partnerships among BDSPs and agribusinesses towards more sustainable outcomes.

Workshop Objectives

The main objective of the workshop is to engage and influence BDSPs to consider context-specific relationship approaches that are result and performance-based rather than transactional engagements when working with agribusinesses. other objectives are:

1. To learn from the BDSPs what they consider as factors making technical assistance interventions less valued by recipients.
2. Introduce to the BDSPs the concept of payment-for-performance or payment-for-results and their experience implementing it across different programs.
3. Co-create with the BDSPs approaches for firm-level context-specific payment-for-performance relationship to make more agribusinesses have access to finance, investment, market opportunities and others.
4. To jointly develop sustainability framework for post-Activity supports to agribusinesses supported by the Activity on different areas.

A facilitator that is experienced in development programs’ approach to technical assistance delivery is required to support the team in coordinating this workshop.

Expected Deliverables

The facilitator will be expected to work with the Deputy Chief of Party (DCoP) to deliver the following:

Proposed Date and Venue

The workshop will be held in Abuja, FCT, Nigeria between July 11 – 12, 2023 at a venue to be determined.

Qualification and Experience of Facilitator

The Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity is seeking an experienced facilitator/trainer based in Nigeria with at least five years of experience in delivering business development services including capacity building and training facilitation. The facilitator should have the following qualifications:

• Master’s degree or higher in Agricultural Economics, Agribusiness Management, Development Studies, Development Project Management or other related fields.
• At least five years’ proven experience in providing technical assistance services to businesses, associations, development agencies, and implementing organizations.
• Minimum of five years of experience with private sector engagement, market systems development, partnership building, technical capacity building, program strategy development, and/or value chain and market analysis on donor-funded projects.
• Well organized, strong analytical skills, creative thinker, innovative, demonstrated personal initiative, stress tolerance, integrity, and ethics.
• Sound knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and sound skills in report writing, analysis, and presentation.

Qualified individuals that meet the above criteria are invited to submit their application on or before July 4, 2023. Applications should include the following:   

1. Expression of interest (Cover or Application Letter) not more than one page.  
2. Updated Resume/CV.  
3. First draft of detailed presentation on pay-for-performance covering its relevance, successes, application, challenges, and prospects in the context of this SoW.
4. First draft of an indicative framework for pay-for-performance model adoption for firms and enterprises.
5. Financial proposal/quotation.

Complete application should be sent via mail to [email protected] (include “Payment-For-Result Workshop Facilitator” in the subject line of the email).