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Terms of reference to develop a publication for the innovative finance

Terms of reference to develop a publication for the innovative finance

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a partnership of The Rockefeller Foundation,
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the UK Department for International
Development (DFID) working with African governments, other donors, NGOs, the private sector
and African farmers to significantly and sustainably improve the productivity and incomes of
resource poor farmers in Africa. AGRA is registered as a charitable organization in the US to provide
policy advocacy, resource mobilization functions and programmatic operations. AGRA is
headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya and has an office in Accra, Ghana.
AGRA’s Innovative Financing efforts recognize that in many African countries, strong economic
growth rates over the past decade left commercial banks with excess liquidity. Yet, due to the
constraints mentioned earlier, financing agriculture has remained relatively thin. The goal of
Innovative Finance is to reduce the risk of lending to agriculture to ensure that actors along the
agricultural value chain have access to affordable loans and financial products.

Innovative Finance strengthens capacities of financial services providers, through technical
assistance, to ensure that loans reach farmers and are used effectively. It serves all of AGRA’s
programs to ensure that the capital constraints limiting uptake of agricultural technologies and
investments by seed companies, agro-dealers, fertilizer suppliers and agro-processors are
effectively addressed. The initiatives work to drive systemic change in the way that commercial
banks, microfinance and other financial institutions in Africa lend to smallholder agriculture and
agricultural value chains that support them.

Due to its impressive success and impact AGRA feels it is time to take this model to scale. For this to
successfully happen, there is need to document the process highlighting the successes, lessons
learnt and challenges.

Objective:
Document the innovative finance models that have been facilitated by AGRA with the aim of
replicating the best practices to other countries across the continent.

Expected outputs
Document the development of the innovative finance models developed and implemented
by AGRA and its partners
Highlight successes and lessons learnt
Highlight impact stories from farmers
Provide a selection of photographs on the various beneficiaries and stakeholders
Provide ready to print publication

Deliverables
Develop content for the publication
Take relevant photos to accompany the content on the publication
Edit and proof read the content
Develop the design and layout for the publication
Quotes and Features stories

Duration:
The consultancy will run for 2 months (August – September)

Fees:
Negotiable
All applications should be submitted to communications@agra-alliance.org by 30th June 2012