Recruitment of a National Consultant for Technical Support to the Implementation of the National Agriculture Sample Census (NASC) 2026 — Gambia Bur…

Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West and Central Africa (HISWACA)

Project Implementation Unit (PIU), C/o Gambia Bureau of Statistics,

Kanifing Institutional Layout, Kanifing, The Gambia

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

Country: The Gambia

Project: Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West and Central Africa

Grant No.: IDA E1750-GM

Assignment Title: Recruitment of a National Consultant for Technical Support to the Implementation of the National Agriculture Sample Census (NASC) 2026 The Gambia

The Project Implementation Unit (PIU), operating under the Gambia Bureau of Statistics, has obtained funding from the World Bank for the Harmonization and Improvement of Statistics in West and Central Africa (HISWACA) Series of Projects (SOP1), The Gambia. A portion of these funds is designated for the recruitment of consulting services. The consulting services (“the Services”) include:

CONTEXT

The primary objective of this project is to facilitate institutional reforms, enhance statistical performance, promote harmonization, and improve data accessibility among participating countries and regional bodies in West Africa. Additionally, it aims to support the modernization of national statistical systems, enabling governments to make informed decisions for the effective monitoring of national commitments, such as the Interim Reference Plan and the Economic Recovery Programme, as well as international obligations, including the ECOWAS Vision 2050, the African Union Agenda 2063, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

To achieve this objective, the project will implement a series of targeted activities structured around four (4) key components:

• Component 1: Harmonization and production of basic statistics using international standards This component supports the implementation of planned reforms to develop and adapt harmonized methodologies and standards within the project's target area, aiming to enhance the production and quality of demographic, economic, social, and poverty statistics. It comprises five sub-components: (i) regional coordination and adoption of harmonized data quality standards to ensure consistency and comparability; (ii) production of demographic and socio-economic statistics to strengthen data collection on population, labor markets, and social indicators; (iii) production of real and fiscal sector statistics to improve macroeconomic data, including national accounts and public finance; (iv) production of agricultural and climate change statistics to monitor agricultural productivity, food security, and environmental impacts; and (v) curation of sectoral and sub-national administrative data to enhance data integration and support policy planning. Collectively, these efforts ensure the availability of high-quality, standardized statistical data for informed decision-making and sustainable development.

• Component 2: Statistical modernization, institutional reform, human capital, data accessibility and use This component plays a pivotal role in modernizing statistical systems by fostering technological advancements, supporting institutional reforms, enhancing data dissemination, and strengthening human capital to meet the growing demand for high-quality data and ensure more effective monitoring of commitments. It comprises five key sub-components: the modernization of National Statistical Systems (NSS), institutional reforms for selected NSSs, strengthening of human capital, enhancing data accessibility and dissemination, and the utilization and analysis of data to inform public policy.

• Component 3: Infrastructure Upgrade and Modernization This component is designed to facilitate the modernization of the national statistical system's physical infrastructure, with a particular focus on the National Institute of Statistics. It enhances the capacity of the NSS by strengthening its ICT and statistical infrastructure, ensuring improved efficiency, accuracy, and sustainability in data collection and analysis.

• Component 4: Project management, monitoring and evaluation Under this component, the PIU will oversee the implementation of all project activities and ensure the achievement of its objectives. This unit will consist of two key sub-components: project management, which will be responsible for planning, execution, and coordination, and project results and user satisfaction monitoring, which will focus on evaluating outcomes and assessing stakeholder satisfaction. To support the effective implementation of the project, the Project Management Unit seeks to recruit a highly qualified individual consultant

As part of the implementation of this project, the Project Implementation Unit wishes to recruit an individual consultant

Terms of Reference for the Recruitment of a Consultant to Support Administrative Data Collection for the National Accounts Rebasing Exercise

• Background The Government of The Gambia, through the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Security and the Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), is preparing to implement the National Agriculture Sample Census (NASC) 2026. The census is a major statistical exercise designed to generate comprehensive, reliable, and disaggregated data on the structure of agriculture in The Gambia, including crop production, livestock, fisheries, and related rural activities.

In line with the recommendations of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on agricultural censuses, NASC 2026 will provide a critical statistical basis for evidence-based agricultural planning, policy formulation, and monitoring of national priorities, as well as regional and global commitments, including the ECOWAS Agricultural Policy (ECOWAP), the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The census will also generate baseline data to support food security monitoring, resilience measurement, agriculture-related investment planning, and broader analysis of the agricultural sector. In addition, the results of NASC 2026 are expected to provide important benchmark data for the agricultural sector to support the rebasing of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Since 2024, substantial preparatory work has been undertaken with technical assistance from the World Bank, FAO, and other partners. This has included survey planning, methodological development, questionnaire design, development of the Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) application, and institutional coordination. As implementation approaches, the key challenge is now to ensure effective technical operationalization of the census across the full statistical production cycle.

As a result, the Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West and Central Africa Project – Series of Projects One (HISWACA-SOP1), a regional statistical initiative funded by the World Bank, is supporting efforts to strengthen national and regional statistical capacity, improve foundational data sources, modernize statistical infrastructure, and enhance the systems used to produce official statistics. Under Component 1, which focuses on the harmonization and production of core statistics using standardized methodologies, the project supports the implementation of major statistical operations and the production of harmonized, reliable, and comparable data for national and regional use. In this context, the HISWACA project intends to support the implementation of an integrated system of agricultural sample censuses and surveys and will finance the recruitment of a National Consultant to provide the technical support required for the effective implementation of NASC 2026.

• Objective of the Assignment The objective of the assignment is to provide hands-on technical support for the effective implementation of NASC 2026, including field preparation, real-time data quality assurance during fieldwork, data processing, statistical analysis, reporting, dissemination, and technical capacity strengthening of national staff. This assignment is intended to complement existing national coordination arrangements and ongoing technical assistance by focusing on technical execution and operational support.

• Scope of the Assignment The consultant shall serve as a technical expert and operational support resource across key stages of the agricultural statistics production cycle. The assignment shall cover, but not necessarily be limited to the following areas of work.

• • Technical Operationalization of NASC 2026

The consultant shall:

• Support the final technical readiness of NASC instruments, manuals, guidelines, and CAPI applications, including testing, refinement, and validation prior to deployment.
• Support the implementation of CAPI systems, data transmission protocols, and troubleshooting during field operations, in close collaboration with the Data Processing Manager and the technical team.
• Establish and support field quality assurance mechanisms during implementation, including field check tables, routine monitoring outputs, and regular bi-weekly data quality reports tracking enumerator performance, completion rates, missing data, outliers, protocol compliance, and back-check results by area and by enumerator. The consultant shall support feedback loops with supervisors to ensure that identified issues are addressed promptly during fieldwork.
• Support the technical supervision of field data collection in collaboration with national supervisors, with emphasis on adherence to field protocols, completeness, and data quality.• Data Processing, Analysis, and Quality Assurance

The consultant shall:

• Contribute to the development and implementation of data cleaning, editing, and validation procedures, including appropriate scripts, consistency checks, and data verification routines.
• Support the continuous application of data quality assurance measures during field implementation to minimize downstream errors and improve the quality of final out