EoI on Community Participatory Assessment of Government Expenditure and Development of Community Scorecards on the National Agricultural Growth Scheme - Agro-Pocket (NAGS -AP) Wheat Intervention

Background

ActionAid (AA) Nigeria is an affiliate of ActionAid International, which is a global alliance of organisations working towards achieving a world without poverty and injustice in which every person enjoys the right to a life with dignity. As a large and visible development organisation, we work in 45 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. Our expertise lies in community-led approaches to development and working through partnerships with the poor and other grassroot organisations.

ActionAid Nigeria’s Inclusive Food Systems Project (IFSP) funded by GIZ through the GIZ AgSys Nigeria project aims to make Nigeria’s food systems inclusive of women, young people, vulnerable groups, and stakeholders to achieve sustainable agricultural transformation and economic growth. The project is focused on building the capacity of smallholder women farmers and young people, enabling their participation in key agriculture policy and programme decision-making processes.

The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS), in response to food insecurity, inflation, and the Presidential emergency declaration on food security, launched the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 Dry Season Wheat Farming Programme as one of the key interventions under the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro-Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project. Supported by a $134 million loan facility from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the programme aimed to produce 1.25 million tonnes of wheat annually by supporting 150,000 to 250,000 farmers with a 50% input subsidy to cultivate 200,000–250,000 hectares. The initiative also sought to promote technology-driven processes to ensure transparency and accountability, while delivering extension services, agricultural insurance, and additional financing.

The Agro-Pocket initiative is designed to improve efficiency and delivery by leveraging digital technologies and mobile platforms to ensure nationwide access to quality agricultural inputs. Key activities include updating the farmer database, reactivating and accrediting Agro-dealers, and operationalising the system to allocate inputs to farmers while facilitating government subsidy payments to last-mile dealers. This supports NATIP’s objectives of enhancing input supply and service delivery in terms of quality, affordability, availability, and accessibility. 

Given the strategic importance of this programme to Nigeria’s food security and economic diversification goals, there is a need to assess its effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness, particularly regarding the targeting of women, youth, and other vulnerable groups.

Overall Objective: The overall objective is to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the 2023/2024 Dry Season Wheat Farming Programme to determine the level of achievement of its set objectives, transparency and accountability in implementation.

Specific Objectives:

• To analyse the total amount expended on the Dry Season Wheat Farming programme and the total number of beneficiaries and the resultant output to ensure transparency and accountability of the intervention.
• To review the appropriateness, usefulness and timeliness of the Programme in addressing smallholder farmers challenges in accessing services such as agricultural extension, insurance, and additional financing as targeted through the programme.
• To assess the extent to which the programmes objectives and set targets have been achieved since inception.
• To generate information on the quality and satisfaction of the programme in addressing food security and inflation.
• Determine the number of beneficiaries in relation to smallholder women farmers and young people against other groups across the states of intervention.   

Methodology

The consultancy will employ a mixed-method approach, including: 

• Desk review of policy and programme documents.
• Key informant interviews with relevant implementing officials from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, farmer associations or groups.
• Field visits to 5 selected project intervention states for direct observation and data collection.
• Community scorecard administration and development focusing on 1 state per geo-political zone.
• Quantitative and qualitative data analysis.

Scope of Work

The consultant will undertake the following tasks:

• Desk review of the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 Dry Season Wheat Farming Programme under the National Agricultural Growth Scheme and Agro-Pocket (NAGS-AP) Project documents, AfDB funding agreements, beneficiary selection guidelines, input subsidy distribution records.
• Assess the level of inclusivity of the intervention focusing on the number and percentage of men, women, youth and persons with disability (PWD) reached.
• Verify actual expenditure of the programme.
• Examine the processes used for disbursing the subsidised inputs and providing complementary services such as extension support, agricultural insurance, and access to financing, assessing their efficiency, transparency, and accessibility to intended beneficiaries.
• Assess the extent, timeliness, and adequacy of farmers’ access to the subsidised inputs, and evaluate how effectively these inputs were utilised to improve productivity.
• Evaluate the extent to which the programme effectively addressed the key productivity challenges faced by farmers.
• Develop Community Scorecard tools and facilitate the development of the Scorecard on the Dry Season Wheat Programme (2023- 2025)  
• Present the data at a Validation workshop and capture stakeholders’ inputs and feedback in the final report.
• Present a PowerPoint presentation, summarising final report showing key findings using industry approved infographics. 

Contract Period

The contract is for a period of Thirty working days (30) effective from the date of contract award. 

Required profile for consultant:

The consultant (She/he) to be recruited should have the following experiences:

• Advanced degree in agricultural economics, public policy, or a related field.
• Have at least a minimum of 10 years’ experience in carrying out similar assignment and capacity (a report of such work done within the last 2 years is required as evidence).
• Demonstrated experience in conducting budget analysis and policy reviews, preferably in the agriculture sector.
• Experience in developing tools for the development of Community Score Cards.
• Familiarity with the National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) and budgeting processes.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to interpret complex budgetary data in simplified versions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong analytical, research, writing, presentation, and facilitation skills
• Evidence of having undertaken such assignments or related work.

Payment

The Consultant shall be paid daily consultancy fee of Two Hundred Thousand Naira (N200,000) for 30 working days, which amounts to the total sum of six million Naira (N6,000,000). 50% of the total sum shall be paid in advance at the beginning of the consultancy period. The balance of 50% will be paid when the final reports have been submitted and signed off by ActionAid Nigeria’s Director of Programmes.

ActionAid will deduct 5% withholding tax from the total sum in accordance with the Nigeria tax law for onward remittance to the Federal Inland Revenue Service.

Administrative Support 

ActionAid will provide the consultant with basic logistics support including transportation, accommodation and per diem for the consultant for data collection and scorecard development.

Reporting Lines

The consultant shall submit the analysis report, Score card report and a power point presentation to be used for the validation meeting and policy brief on finalization of the report to the Food Systems Specialist, ActionAid Nigeria who will confirm report satisfactory before balance payments are made.

Ownership of Output

Outputs of the work done as stipulated in the call expression of interest belongs to ActionAid Nigeria.

Submission of expression of interest

Please send us your expression of interest (detailing how you intend to accomplish this assignment) and profile to: procurement.nigeria@actionaid.org on or before 30th  September 2025. Applications should be sent in one Microsoft word document using the subject line “community participatory assessment of government expenditure and development of community scorecards on the national agricultural growth scheme agro-pocket (nags -ap) wheat intervention”. Only the selected applicant(s) would be contacted.