Kenya: Feasibility Study for Mobile solutions for Sustainable Agriculture in your Mobile Phone Project

Organization: Vi Agroforestry

Country: Kenya

Closing date: 15 Nov 2015

Location: Nairobi

Type of Contract: Short term

Starting Date: 1^st Dec 2015

1 About Vi Agroforestry

Vi Agroforestry is a Swedish NGO, improving livelihoods of small-holder farmer families through agroforestry and sustainable agriculture land management practices. The organisation has been working in the East Africa region for over 30 years, primarily around Lake Victoria Basin in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda. Its head office is in Stockholm, Sweden. Since its inception, Vi Agroforestry has reached 1, 8 million people and helped planting over 100 million trees. The foundation of Vi Agroforestry"s work is sustainable agriculture and agroforestry – growing trees alongside crops and livestock. It provides increased access to food, access to sustainable energy sources, more income. Sustainable agriculture contributes to the mitigation of climate change and protects against the negative effects of climate change

Vi Agroforestry’s firm belief that functioning ecosystems are a precondition for secure food supply, economic development and democratic systems. People living in poverty and without enough resources cannot be expected to protect or improve their environment. Therefore, the protection of the environment and a sustainable use of land resources, must go hand in hand with an improved agricultural production leading to increased food and income security.

2 About the Project

The project is funded by Swedish Postcode Lottery. The aim of the project is to improve the capacity of Vi Agroforestry and partner organisations to via mobile devices enhance monitoring and evaluation system for traceability and accuracy of results, improve dissemination of information to farmer groups and improve accessibility of manuals and guidelines by field officers and community facilitators. It will therefore focus on web-based knowledge management system, the dissemination of information via mobile devices and digital content for enhanced professional development in order to strengthen the effectiveness of rural development programs. This will lead to Vi Agroforestry increasing the proportion of households that implement agroforestry and sustainable agricultural land management (SALM) practices. Increased implementation of SALM will improve the livelihoods of tens of thousands of rural households, mitigating the effects of climate change and build resilience to climate change in local communities.

1.1 Project Solutions

The projects goal will be achieved through successful development, testing and deployment of the following solutions

1. Integrated SMS-based system for field data collection and communication to farmers with different access and approval levels


2. A learning platform for disseminating learning material to field officers and assessing knowledge imparted thereafter through a smartphone.

3 Purpose of the Feasibility Study

The purpose of this Feasibility Study is to provide Vi Agroforestry with the information from which it can be safely deduced that the project solutions being considered can indeed be developed, tested, deployed and run successfully (over the next 2 years) as planned.

4 Scope of work

The selected consultant is expected to provide a detailed study of the proposed solutions, how they can be developed, tested, deployed and run in Kenya (Kisumu, Siaya, Bungoma and Kitale counties), Uganda (Masaka and surrounding districts) Tanzania (Mara and Kagera region) and Rwanda. The feasibility study should also include;

· Gender disaggregated metrics on the key areas below;

o Proportion of farmers in farmer groups with functional standard or smart phone

o Proportion of Vi Agroforestry and partner field officers with smart-phones

o Usage of on-line messaging services such as whatsapp, telegram, etc among farmers and field officers

o Proportion of farmers in farmer groups who can read and understand simple instructions of sending coma separated data using SMS

o Proportion of farmers in farmer groups able to understand sample system generated SMS feedback

• Proportion of farmers willingness to pay for advice from mobile information providers e.g. Mfarm, iCow, etc

· Mobile network and internet coverage situation in the targeted areas

· Test different technical solutions for the field officers learning platform (e.g. drop box, mem card etc) and different methods of learning (formatted text, film, infographics etc)

· Partners organisations interest and capacity to use the solutions

· Available off shelf solutions in the market and possible models for running the solutions sustainably in future

· Field staffs needs of the learning platform

· Country offices needs of the learning platform

· Partner organisation needs of the learning platform

It is important that staff from country offices and partner organisations, field officers, farmers groups and farmers are involved in the study and give their input.

5 Available resources

· A running web-based M&E system based on PHP, MySQL and Apache

· Reasons learnt from Pilot SMS data collection for a project based in Kenya

· Feasibility study report by Darlana University and Vi Agroforestry on project ‘Accessing, Communicating And Sharing Information On Climate Safe Agricultural Practices Using ICT In The Transition From Analogue To Smartphone Technology – A Case Study Of Kitale And Nyando, Western Kenya’

· Country offices and partner organisations which can easily collect any required field data when provided with data collection tools

6 The Team

The consultant entrusted with the preparation of the Feasibility Study shall ideally be composed of one ICT specialist (system development and software with bias to mobile technologies) and one online training specialist, both with extensive knowledge of the target areas, both in technical and socio-economic sense.

7 Activities

a. The consultant shall be required to produce a detailed report on their findings pertaining to the possibilities, problems and obstacles related to the development and implementation of the two solutions.

b. It is assumed, that the consultant will undertake a visit to at least two countries (Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) implementing the solutions, meeting people in different levels such as; country office, partner organisation, field staff, farmers groups and farmers.

c. Vi Agroforestry country offices will provide local logistical and administrative support and backstopping and will assist also in administering questionnaires to farmers and field officers if needed.

How to apply:

8 Submission package

Interested and qualified consultants are asked to submit their proposal package to Peter Wachira through peter.wachira@viagroforestry.org and a copy to Dorcas Munyua at dorcas.munyua@viagroforestry.org latest 15th November 2015. The proposal package should include the following;

· Letter of Intent

· Technical proposal that include;

o A brief description of consultant understanding of each project solution

o Methodology and work plan for carrying out the feasibility study

o CV’s of the key personnel

o Financial proposal for carrying out the feasibility study (including the cost of visit to

· implementing countries)

8.1 Addendum

We are looking for a consultant that will carry-out the feasibility study and also implement the solutions thereafter. We therefore would like to see your understanding of the next phase. In this regard, include as an addendum to the submission package, a brief write-up of at-least two options for developing each project solution and cost implication of each option.