REQUEST FOR APPLICATIONS TO CONDUCT A STAKEHOLDER MAPPING FOR HEIFER INTERNATIONAL RWANDA

Funded By:  Heifer Project International

Background

Heifer International’s approach to ending hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth focuses on creating wealth through viable value chains that harness the social capital of communities to drive market development. Heifer’s primary focus is to increase farmers’ incomes, improve their family nutrition status, empower rural women, strengthen community resilience, mobilize farmers, and improve social capital. Heifer has been supporting Smallholder Farmers (SHFs) around the world to lift themselves out of poverty. This is achieved through capacity building, promoting sustainable agricultural practices, establishing links to the dairy value chain, strengthening market links for small livestock chain actors, and enhancing livestock quality through artificial insemination services.

After over 80 years with more than 50 years in Africa of proven community development approach, Heifer International is now accelerating its strategic approach to closing the Living Income (LI) gap for additional 10 million households by 2030, through the design and implementation of Signature Programs (SPs).

Since 2000, Heifer International Rwanda (HIR) has been dedicated to transforming communities by reducing poverty and hunger through sustainable agriculture. With a focus on empowering smallholder farmers, HIR connects them to markets, enhances agricultural productivity, and promotes value-added agriculture in key sectors such as dairy, poultry, and horticulture. To date, the organization has positively impacted over 1.48 million families and continues to collaborate with the Rwandan government and international partners like the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to improve agricultural livelihoods.

By 2030, Heifer Rwanda has set out an ambitious goal of supporting 300,000 smallholder farmers towards attaining a living income and build sustainable and resilient economies. This will be achieved through capacity building, CSA practices, catalyze market access, strengthen partnership and enhance program operational efficiency in Rwanda.

The current approach to programs, designed to be long-term (up to 10 years), are private sector driven, market system led; promote changes at scale, advance partnerships with producers, private and public sectors, and have permanence of impact. They fast-track rural market growth rapidly and help SHFs achieve sustainable LI more rapidly.

In 2023, Heifer introduced the Sustainable Locally Led Development (SLLD) to ensure that power over development decisions is fully devolved to local communities and will lead to more impactful results as farmers forge their own pathways to progress. This approach requires more resource mobilization in all countries. Moreover, since 2024, Heifer International has been reviewing its strategy and approaches to align with existing contexts of the food systems. While its mission remains to work with communities to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth, Heifer is committed to delivering programs that create thriving and resilient Smallholder Farmer (SHF) households. This mission is pursued through four key objectives that drive food system transformation:

• Support the implementation of sustainable food system principles & practices
• Facilitate more inclusive markets, including private sector engagement
• Promote the collective agency, power, and resilience of Farmers Organizations, associations and businesses
• Strengthening the policy & regulatory environment.

As Heifer Rwanda looks to strengthen its programs and scale up and deepen its impact to the smallholder farmers in the food systems, it is crucial to consider the evolving partner landscape, understand emerging funding trends, and forge strong partnerships. A comprehensive donor and partner mapping exercise is vital to achieving these goals and ensuring the continued success of our mission.

Heifer International Rwanda’s ability to deliver meaningful programs across its regions depends heavily on the collaboration of our donors and partners. These stakeholders not only provide essential financial backing but also contribute technical expertise and collaborative synergies that drive positive outcomes at the community level. By identifying and nurturing relationships with both existing and potential donors and partners, we can ensure sustainable scale up and impact of our programs to the smallholder farmers we serve -—particularly as we prepare for the 2026-2030 period.

Objectives

Objectives of the assignment

The primary objective of donor mapping is to systematically identify, analyze, and categorize both potential and existing donors, partners, and funding sources. This exercise is designed to enhance strategic decision-making, optimize resource mobilization, and strengthen partnerships. Ultimately, the objective of donor mapping is to build a robust, diversified, and sustainable funding base that will support the organization’s mission and long-term strategic goals.

By conducting this mapping, Heifer Rwanda will achieve the following specific objectives:

1. Anticipating Funding Trends: By mapping out the donor landscape, it will allow to anticipate future funding trends, identify emerging funding mechanisms, and align Heifer Rwanda’s strategic priorities with donor interests. This proactive approach will allow for diversification of funding sources and the potential for co-funding opportunities.
2. Building Strategic Partnerships: The exercise will also focus on cultivating partnerships with organizations whose expertise complements Heifer Rwanda’s mission. This will enhance the overall effectiveness of our programs and provide opportunities for collaborative efforts that create more impact.
3. Positioning for Future Challenges: The mapping process will ensure alignment with Heifer Rwanda’s strategic priorities while identifying gaps in support. It will also help position the organization to respond to future challenges, especially in key areas such as market systems, nutrition, and climate change. By understanding shifting donor expectations, we can better adapt and align our programs.

Scope of work

The Consultant will specifically be expected to:

• Conduct research to identify traditional and non-traditional donors including Foundations and Trusts, and strategic partners, in line with Heifer Rwanda thematic areas.
• Develop a donor-funding tracking matrix with updated information on current and emerging donors. This should include a detailed analysis of donor architecture: the entire framework, where the donors are located, areas of current interest, trends in their support – looking at both national, regional and global levels and donor priority interventions mapped against Heifer Rwanda’s strategic priorities. including institutional strengthening.
• Propose a resource mobilization strategy allowing Heifer Rwanda to engage with different stakeholders.

Methodology

The selected Consultant will work primarily with the Signature Program Technical Lead and will refer to the Heifer Rwanda’s current strategy, project documents, studies, and any other relevant documents and materials.

The mapping exercise will include three elements: (a) desk review and online research (b) consultation/discussions with relevant donor and partner offices and (c) drafting of report and validating the donor engagement strategy and the donor tracking matrix instrument.

Deliverables

• An Inception Report
• A donor funding tracking matrix which should include an updated list of donors and strategic partners (current and emerging) highlighting the following:
• Names of all the institutional and major donors including Foundations and Trusts.
• Strategic priorities and objectives in Rwanda.
• Strategic areas of synergies with Heifer Rwanda’ priorities.
• Full address in the Country (Key contact persons and any connections to them i.e., Name of the CEO or Country Representatives, Physical address, E-mail address, tel. number, contact person) and full address of their headquarters.
• Areas where partnerships can be enhanced.
• Funding criteria and eligibility requirements, including average funding amounts; Funding cycles per agency; Aid strategies, key policies and development approaches.
• Profiles of all the strategic partners identified.
• Donor engagement strategy for the purpose of establishing Institutional Strengthening donor group.

Tentative timeline

The duration of the entire exercise will be for a maximum period of three months from the award of the contract. This will cover all activities needed for the successful completion of the assignment. A detailed schedule and work-plan will be prepared by the Consultant during the inception phase.

Required education and experience

The candidate to be selected is expected to have an advanced University degree in relevant fields, including International Development, Social Sciences, Business Administration, Management, Marketing, Communication or a related field.

The experience required is the following:

• 7 years of experience in Resource Mobilization and donor engagement, having completed similar assignments;
• Proven understanding of the donor environment; with thorough knowledge of International Development issues that include aid environment and trends, donor relations, partnerships, environment, human development, resource mobilization, regional integration;
• Experience in working with donors in an international context especially major donors, private foundations, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, UN agencies, trusts and other institutional donors including the private sector;
• Excellent knowledge of the Heifer context and Government priorities;
• Ability to lead strategic analysis with demonstrated experience in conducting donor mapping surveys;
• Ability to work with minimal supervision; and
• Proven research, analytical, communication and report writing skills and a strong command of English.

Budget

The Offeror will propose a well detailed breakdown prices the entire assignment in Rwandan Francs.

Application procedure

Heifer International Rwanda invites qualified consultants to submit a proposal discussing the approach you intend to use to execute this assignment effectively. The proposal must contain:

Technical proposal

• A formal cover letter;
• Your interpretation of the tasks set out in the RFA. Please include a short description of your understanding of the role of the consultant and the approach to be used as outlined in these Terms of reference and highlight any risks/challenges you perceive facing as you work on this assignment.
• A description of how you intend to fulfil the Services within the suggested timeline and confirmation of your ability to meet the timelines
• Your experience on similar assignments proven by copy of similar previous assignments and 3 completion certificates;
• A detailed CV with reference to similarly accomplished assignments, education background and professional qualifications.

 Financial proposal

A financial offer for the entire assignment including both professional fees and reimbursable expenses (if any).

Proposed budget must be submitted separately in both excel and PDF formats, and it should be in Rwandan Francs (Rwf). The proposed budget should have sufficient detail to allow the evaluation of costs proposed. It should at least contain:

• Itemized budget
• Narrative explanations of budget items.

Heifer International Rwanda reserves the right to request further information supporting detailed costs and prices.

Interested individual consultants are requested to submit their proposals, marked with clear subject line: “Stakeholder mapping for HI Rwanda”, to procurement-rw@heifer.org not later than April 4^th, 2025, by 5:00 Pm Kigali time. Proposals received after the submission deadline will not be considered. Offerors are responsible for ensuring their proposals are submitted according to the instructions stated herein.

Heifer retains the right to terminate this RFA or modify the requirements upon notification to the bidders.

Submission must be in English and typed single-spaced on standard type white paper. All pages must be numbers, including the Request for Applications (RFA) reference number and name of the organization at the bottom of each page.

Administrative documents

The following administrative documents shall be submitted:

• Business registration certificate (If registered in RDB as freelance consultant)
• Valid tax clearance certificate (if registered with a Tin number RRA).
• Qualification certificates (notarized degrees).
• Copy of ID/Passport.

NB: submission through documents link is not allowed

 Evaluation of Proposals:

Selection method: The procurement selection committee will evaluate the proposals using the Quality-Cost Based methodology as detailed below:

1. Preliminary examination of administrative requirements compliance to this Request for Applications on a pass/fail basis.
2. Detailed Technical evaluation will contribute 80%.
3. Financial scores will be allocated 20% to determine the best evaluated bid.

Proposals failing any stage will be eliminated and not considered in subsequent stages.

Minimum technical score: The mark required to pass the technical evaluation is 70% of the Technical Score.

Total scores:Total scores shall be determined using a weighting of 80% for technical proposals and a weighting of 20% for financial proposals.

Selection Criteria

Submitted applications must clearly demonstrate alignment with the scope of work outlined above and with the appropriate level of details. Heifer’s goal is to ultimately sign on with the offeror whose proposal best follows the instructions in this RFA, includes the strong evaluation team, and is most cost effective.

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

Evaluation of Proposals:

1. Selection method: The procurement selection committee will evaluate the proposals using the Quality-Cost Based methodology as detailed below:
2. Preliminary examination of administrative requirements compliance to this Request for Applications on a pass/fail basis.
3. Detailed Technical evaluation will contribute 80%.

Proposals failing any stage will be eliminated and not considered in subsequent stages.

Minimum technical score:

The mark required to pass the technical evaluation is 70% of the Technical Score.

Total scores: Total scores shall be determined using a weighting of 80% for technical proposals and a weighting of 20% for financial proposals.

Technical proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

The selection committee will evaluate the technical proposal based upon the criteria listed above and the financial proposal will be evaluated the reasonableness of costs and cost-effectiveness in the budget.

Validity of Proposals

Proposals submitted shall remain open for acceptance for 30 days from the last date specified for receipt of the proposal. This includes, but is not limited to, pricing, terms and conditions, service levels, and all other information. If you are the selected consultant, all information in this document and the negotiation process are contractually binding.

Limitations

This RFA does not represent a commitment to award a contract, to pay any costs incurred in the preparation of a response to this RFA, or to procure or to contract for services or supplies. Heifer reserves the right to fund any or none of the applications submitted and reserves the right to accept or reject in its entirety and absolute discretion any proposal received as a result of the RFA.

Intellectual Property

Section XV.1. Ownership Generally. Subject to Section 8.2 below, any intellectual property (including but not limited to copyrights, trademarks, service marks, and patents), intellectual property rights, deliverables, manuals, works, ideas, discoveries, inventions, products, writings, photographs, videos, drawings, lists, data, strategies, materials, processes, procedures, systems, programs, devices, operations, or information developed in whole or in part by or on behalf of Contractor or its employees or agents in connection with the Services and/or Goods (collectively, the “Work Product”) shall be the exclusive property of HPI. Upon request, Contractor shall sign all documents and take any and all actions necessary to confirm or perfect HPI’s exclusive ownership of the Work Product.

Section XV.2. Prior-Owned Intellectual Property. Any intellectual property owned by a Party prior to the Effective Date (“Prior-Owned IP”) shall remain that Party’s sole and exclusive property. With regard to any of Contractor’s Prior-Owned IP included in the Work Product, Contractor shall retain ownership, and hereby grants HPI a permanent, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, irrevocable right and license to use, copy, reproduce, publicly display, edit, revise, perform, and distribute said intellectual property, in any format or any medium, as part of the Work Product.

Section XV.3. Work Made for Hire. To the extent copyright laws apply to the Work Product, the Parties agree that (a) HPI specially ordered or commissioned the Work Product, (b) the Work Product is a “work made for hire” under United States copyright laws, and (c) HPI shall be deemed the author thereof and shall own all right, title, and interest therein. To the extent such rights, in whole or in part, do not vest in HPI as a “work made for hire”, Contractor hereby irrevocably grants, assigns, and transfers to HPI, exclusively and in perpetuity, all of Contractor’s rights of any kind or nature, now known or hereafter devised, in, to, and in connection with the Work Product, and HPI shall solely and exclusively own any and all rights therein, and in the elements thereof, including but not limited to any and all allied, ancillary, subsidiary, incidental, and adaptation rights. Contractor hereby waives any and all rights known as “moral rights”, and any similar rights, which Contractor may have in connection with the Work Product. The description of Services and/or Goods provided in this Agreement shall in no way limit the manner in which HPI may use the Work Product.

Heifer International Rwanda