Recruitment of an Individual Consultant as a Digital Agriculture Advisor for the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Project (FSRP) Phase 2 — Minist…

REPUBLIC OF GHANA

MINISTRY OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE

WEST AFRICA FOOD SYSTEM RESILIENCE PROJECT (FSRP) - GHANA

Phase 2 of a Multiphase Programmatic Approach

Project No.: P178132

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

CONSULTING SERVICES – INDIVIDUAL CONSULTANT SELECTION

RECRUITMENT OF INDIVIDUAL CONSULTANT AS AN EMBEDDED DIGITAL AGRICULTURE ADVISOR FOR THE GHANA AGRICULTURE AND AGRIBUSINESS PLATFORM (GHAAP) AND NETWORK OPERATING CENTER (NOC)

Reference No.: GH-FSRP PHASE 2-510994-CS-INDV

BACKGROUND

The Government of Ghana has received funding from the World Bank to implement the West Africa Food Systems Resilience Project (FSRP) across the major food baskets of Ghana. The Ministry of Food and Agriculture is the implementing Ministry.

The development objective of the Food Systems Resilience Project is to increase preparedness against food insecurity and improve the resilience of food systems in Ghana. This development objective will be achieved through improving farmers’ access to usable weather, climate and advisory services; improving access to local climate information services through digital information platforms; facilitating the co-production of services between private and public sector; increasing farmers’ access to agricultural and nutrition sensitive technologies developed by a consortium of NCoS, Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and other international research institutes; establishing spatial information system to design and plan climate resilience land management practices; promoting private sector involvement in regional agricultural trade; and supporting women farmers to access services to improve marketing along target commodity value chain.

The FSRP is organized around five core distinct but interrelated components to help achieve the objectives of the project. The project components include:

Component 1: Improving digital advisory services to support timely agriculture and food crisis prevention and management - This component aims at strengthening national capacity to provide demand-driven digital advisory services. This will include agro-advisory and impact-based hydromet/climate information and early warning services, and promote their use for food crisis prevention, management, and response.

Component 2: Sustainability and adaptive capacity of Ghana’s food systems productive base - This component consolidates the regional agricultural innovation systems and strengthens regional food security through integrated landscape management. These include strengthening regional research and extension systems to deliver improved technological innovations including climate-smart, nutrition-sensitive, gender- and youth friendly technologies in a sustainable manner, as well as combination of natural resource management with environmental and livelihood activities using the integrated landscape management approach.

Component 3: Enhancing regional food market integration and agricultural inputs and output trade - This component aims at expanding food trade in West Africa to enable an effective distribution of surplus produce to deficit regions. It will facilitate production and commercialization of agricultural products, inputs, and technologies within and across national borders.

Under Component 3 the Project seeks to support the development of strategic and regional value chains i.e. (a) rice; (b) maize and (c) Poultry (Broiler) with soyabean as backward integration value chain.

Component 4: Contingency emergency response – This component aims at making available resources to strengthen the response capacity of the Government of Ghana in case of emergency. This involved making available funding to respond to eligible emergencies or crises, including pest and disease infestation such as the Fall Army Worm, locusts, swine fever, bird flu and other pandemics such as COVID -19; extreme droughts or floods; widespread and severe bush and wild land fires.

Component 5: Project Management - This component involves establishing an effective coordination, management, safeguards, and monitoring and evaluation system for the project.

In accordance with the implementation arrangements, the Food Systems Resilience Program (FSRP) intends to allocate a portion of the funds to support the oversight and technical management of the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform (GhAAP) and its associated Network Operations Centre (NOC).

The expected outcomes at the end of the program include:

• Program direct beneficiaries reach of 300,000; of which 40% are women;

• Proportion of food-insecure households in the targeted areas reduced by 25%;

• Food system actors accessing hydro and agrometeorological advisory services with 211,200; of which 40% are women;

• Producers adopting supported climate-smart agricultural technologies and services with 240,000; of which 40% are women;

• Surface area under integrated landscape management increased by 4,850 ha; and

• Share of intra-regionally traded production in selected value chains (maize, rice) increased from 20% to 30%.

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) is the government agency responsible for the implementation of the project, together with technical partners.

MOFA has developed the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform (GhAAP), and provides a single, unified platform for farmers, suppliers, buyers, staff of MOFA and Regional and District Agriculture Departments, and other stakeholders, including development partners, to access sector-wide information and services they need. This helps increase efficiency, reduce costs, and improve productivity throughout the value chain.

As the core digital backbone of the GhAAP platform, MoFA has established a modern Network Operations Centre (NOC) to support system reliability, data management, cybersecurity, and continuous service delivery. The NOC underpins the platform’s capacity to handle integrated data streams and ensure seamless operation of its modular services.

GhAAP is expected to operate on some critical data domains that provide comprehensive agricultural intelligence and decision-support capabilities across Ghana's agricultural value chain. The proposed data domains currently include weather and climate, pest and diseases, food security and nutrition, market intelligence and trade performance, and agricultural public expenditure, agricultural finance and credit.

MOFA, with support from a World Bank Grant, is seeking to hire an Embedded Digital Agriculture Advisor to manage and provide technical leadership and strategic oversight for the continued enhancement of the Ghana Agriculture and Agribusiness Platform (GhAAP) and its associated Network Operating Centre (NOC). The Embedded Digital Agriculture Advisor is expected to provide technical oversight for the development and integration of these existing domains, identify additional priority areas, and support the operational management, stakeholder engagement, and strategic communication of both GhAAP and the NOC to ensure sustained impact and adoption.

The position will be on a contract basis for one (1) year with the possibility for extension depending on performance and availability of funds.

The detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) for the assignment can be obtained at the address or at the project website given below.

The Project Coordinator

Food System Resilience Project (FSRP)

Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA)

P. O. Box MB.37, ACCRA

Email: [email protected] Website : www.fsrp.org.gh

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture acting through FSRP now invites eligible individuals (“Consultants”) to indicate their interest in providing the Services. Interested Consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the Services as specified in the TOR (attach curriculum vitae with description of experience in similar assignments, similar conditions, etc.). The criteria for selecting the Consultant are:

• Minimum of a Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field with experience in agriculture and food systems

• PhD in a related field would be an added advantage

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• Proven experience in successfully designing, developing, and hosting at least five (5) websites of similar scope and functionality

• Experience working with both the public and private sector, and on projects financed by multilateral or bilateral development partners, particularly with other challenge fund type instruments. Demonstrated familiarity with World Bank procedures, directives, and business practices.

• Proven experience leading action learning processes, platform enhancement and management, emergency response and crisis management, technical leadership and system integration, stakeholder engagement and capacity building, and monitoring and evaluation in line with the TOR.

• At least 5 years of experience managing large-scale digital transformation projects with proven impact

• Demonstrated experience in emergency response and crisis management in agricultural contexts

• Experience with farmer registration systems, input distribution programs, and beneficiary verification

• Track record of managing platforms serving 500,000+ users or beneficiaries

• Experience working with World Bank or other multilateral development institutions preferred

• Proven experience in West Africa or similar agricultural contexts strongly preferred

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