BACKGROUND

The USAID-funded BEST program has the main goal to help grow and diversify Mongolia’s economy by increasing lending to SMEs and improving economic governance and accountability. The five-year program, which began in December 2019, serves as USAID’s flagship program for helping Mongolia develop a more resilient and diversified economy, with a primary focus on SME capacity building and good corporate governance. 

The BEST program objectives will be achieved through five components: 

• Objective 1. Increase SME access to finance;
• Objective 2. Improve corporate governance among SMEs;
• Objective 3. Improve capacity within Mongolian institutions;
• Objective 4. Maintain an analytical agenda for strategic learning; and
• Objective 5. Provide small grants to reach disadvantaged, but otherwise well-qualified small enterprises.

The program area covers 13 activity locations including Ulaanbaatar, Bayankhongor, Darkhan-Uul, Dornod, Dornogovi, Khovd, Orkhon, Selenge, Zavkhan, Uvurkhangai, Khuvsgul, Umnugovi and Khentii aimags. 

RATIONALE AND SCOPE OF THE BASELINE SURVEY

The overall objective of the baseline survey is to assess and identify the status and opportunities of agribusinesses and value chain mapping. The baseline will cover, but is not limited to, the aspects of the agriculture practices, technologies and key inputs, food security, their income, market system, its challenges and opportunities, gender role in agriculture, private sector engagement with agri-industry associations/NGOs and access to finance, information and services, perception on climate-induced risks, vulnerabilities, and its impact on agriculture.

Although the agribusiness sector is broad and extensive encompassing farming and farming-related all activities in the entire chain, the BEST program is preliminary specified the agribusiness sectors as (i) animal husbandry, (ii) crop cultivation and horticulture, (iii) food production, and (iv) warehousing, transportation and intermediaries. 

To secure and support the companies and businesses in the agribusiness sector, the BEST program is needed to conduct the baseline survey of agribusinesses in Mongolia and analyze the accurate and coherent interventions and activities based on their needs assessment. This survey will emphasize verifying the bottlenecks in the value chain of agribusiness and providing guidelines and solutions on where to start and focus specifically.

The scope of the study is expected, but not limited as follows;  

• Estimated number of agribusinesses and number of employments in the specified agro-sectors
• Collect and analyze demographic, socio-economic data of targeted agribusinesses including their income, costs, opportunities and their key challenges;
• Assess agribusinesses’ knowledge, skills, local practices, technologies, key inputs, and infrastructure regarding market systems;
• Assess  systemic chain-level issues and bottlenecks at the local and regional levels.
• Assess access to finance, market, information, technologies, and agro-services including infrastructure such as roads, markets etc;
• Assess the perception of the local community on climate change and its impact on agriculture and adaptive practices adopted.

SAMPLING AND DATA COLLECTION: 

The expected sample size is 1,000 in the agribusiness sector baseline survey following the relevant statistical sampling methods. The mixed methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative surveys, should be employed in the baseline survey. Methods should be appropriate and cost efficient. The qualitative data collection may include the systematic review of the agribusiness sector and semi-structured (open-ended) in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. 

The BEST program has been implementing the community level interventions and activities in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by increasing lending to SMEs and improving economic governance and accountability in over a half of Mongolia. In addition to the SMEs, the agribusiness sector is additionally being administered to the BEST program from Year 4, so the baseline data shall serve to inform the evidence in the program implementation. 

The geographic location for data collection should align with the BEST program’s activity locations. 

The sampling methods and key attributes to select sample sites and respondents and estimated number of sample communities, groups, and/or individuals should be proposed by the Offeror. 

Along with employing the primary data from quantitative and qualitative methods, the secondary data that will be used for the agribusiness activities – planning and implementation – should be considered as well. 

The period of assignment is expected to be from November, 2022 to January 2023.  However, the commencement data of the survey may subject to change.

DELIVERABLES AND REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

The following are the deliverables under this contract:

S.N.	Deliverables	Estimated weeks	Deliverables against installment payment
1.	Inception report	3 weeks	40%
1.1	In-briefing presentation within up to three (3) working days
1.2	Summary report of desk study, survey design and implementation plan
2.	Field data collection	5 weeks	40%
2.1	Orientation to enumerators, field pre-testing, and finalization of questionnaires
2.2	Quantitative and qualitative field data collection and quality monitoring
3.	Submission of the Reporting	4 weeks	20%
3.1	Data analysis and Draft report Debriefing presentation
3.2	Final report submission including Fully-fledged report in an electronic format in Mongolian and English (in PDF and MS Word formats), incorporating all survey elements Electronic version of the database in relevant software i.e. SPSS, excel and word formats Minutes of the interviews in audio format and compiled in excelDocumentations of focus group discussions and other associated elements collectedQuestionnaires exercised in the study in excel or word format exactly matching with SPSS dataset, andPictures and other visual materials.
	Total	12 weeks	100%

Team Composition 

The baseline study team shall be composed of a team leader and agricultural experts. A team leader shall take overall responsibility for the advisory packages of the study, and ensure the quality of control and effective communication and reporting in accordance with deadlines.

A team leader should possess the following qualifications:

• At least a Master’s degree in a field of economics, agriculture and related to the tasks 
• At least 8 years of experience in conducting high-quality baseline survey and research studies in the context of socio-economic and agribusiness in Mongolia. Similar research experiences in Central Asian countries and agribusiness-related publications and articles under his/her senior leadership is an advantage and advised to be submitted for review by Development Solutions. 
• Adequate knowledge and skill in appropriate research and survey methods for conducting quantitative and qualitative surveys and research studies. Adept in both quantitative and qualitative analyses, and the use of appropriate software for data analysis.
• Strong technical writing skills and strong ability in report writing.   
• Fluent proficiency in English is required.

Should the Offerer suggest to employ the agricultural expert(s), who shall guide and design the overall methodology and study framework of agribusiness and food security. A Offerer may propose other required technical resources for the data collection and facilitation, who shall take overall responsibility of data collection design and data entry-quality for analysis, and supervision of local enumerators/facilitators in the fieldwork 

ANNEX I. SUBMISSION OF THE OFFER         

Interested entities are invited to submit the following documents:

Technical Proposal [not exceeding 30 pages]

• Organizational background showing evidence of prior performance in conducting the socio-economic and agricultural related baseline surveys and similar studies in the  development projects
• Outline of proposed services, quality controls, and proposed data collection methods, tools, and analysis,
• Implementation timetable to carry out the tasks 
• List of proposed Team Composition together with Curriculum Vitae (CV) for each member. (Each CV must not exceed 5 pages) specifically assigning the duties to perform.
• At least three (3) references for successful prior projects of a similar nature. These references should include contact names, e-mail addresses, and telephone numbers of people who can be contacted regarding the Offeror’s prior performance

Cost Proposal

The Cost Proposal includes estimated costs (MNT) per main activity throughout the survey. The template is available on the website of Development Solutions specifying the detailed cost breakdown and the total price of the services being offered in response to this SOW.

The Offeror is suggested to submit via procurement@dsmongolia.org with the title of Agriculture Baseline Survey Offer for BEST Program by 14:00 October 24, 2022.

Questions/Queries regarding this SOW should be delivered to the task manager: Mrs. Purevdulam Jamiyansuren – purevdulam@dsmongolia.org +976 95195331 88089553

ANNEX II. EVALUATION OF OFFER

The interested entity’s technical proposal will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

1.     Technical Proposal (evaluation weight: 40 points)

• Organizational experiences (legal entities i.e., research firms, NGOs etc.,) having at least 5 years of establishment have previously contracted with conducting socio-economic and sector-specific researches, studies and surveys in the development projects and programs (15 points).
• The degree to which the proposal incorporates a sound understanding of the requirements of the survey in addition to the survey design and framework (including proposed sampling and data collection methods specifically explained) in the SOW. (15 points)
• Capacity of resources coordinating and carrying out the nation-wide survey by assigning the subject-matter experts and fieldwork enumerators to perform the tasks, and available equipments and supplies required during the data collection and management (10 points).

2.     Personnel qualification and expertise (evaluation weight: 30 points) 

• Past Experience in conducting agribusinesses related baseline surveys in development projects, especially in the area of the private sector and SME development, using multiple approaches (15 points)
• Relevant academic backgrounds/degrees of the related tasks (10 points)
• Experience in working with agribusinesses and SMEs facing challenges with an emphasis on rural businesses (5 points)

All team members should be residing in the country upon the commencement of the survey and throughout the survey process. 

After the final technical evaluation (above mentioned), only the Cost proposals of bids with at least 50 points will be opended and evaluated. Technical proposals below 50 points will be considered as technical not acceptable. The technical proposal has a weighing of 70%, the cost proposal 30%.