DEVELOP, TRAIN & OPERATIONALISE INTERNAL CONTROL SYSTEMS GUIDING COFFEE FARMER COOPERATIVES THROUGH THE EUROPEAN UNION ORGANIC CERTIFICATION STANDARD

Project: Traceable Organic Coffee from Kenya (TRACE Kenya Project – DANIDA – SOLIDARIDAD – ACR)

1. About Solidaridad

Solidaridad East and Central Africa is a not-for-profit organisation based in Nairobi, Kenya that strives to be an organization that understands the signs of modern times. Established in 2008 Solidaridad ECA is part of Solidaridad Network, a Dutch based development organization operating in five continents through eight Regional Expertise Centres. With its network secretariat in The Netherlands, Solidaridad has over 50 years of global experience working in the development of profitable supply chains and creating sustainable businesses and livelihoods. Solidaridad envisions a world in which all we produce, and all we consume can sustain us while respecting the planet, each other and the next generations. Solidaridad embraces the public-private partnerships in order to innovations, speeding up change and taking success to scale. Globally, Solidaridad works across 13 commodities / sectors. Coffee is one of them.

For more information, please refer to http://www.solidaridadnetwork.org

1.1 Introduction

Kenya’s coffee production continues to be increasingly smallholder dominated as large plantations, especially in the growing areas that border urban centres give way to housing developments. Both National and County governments are promoting coffee farming in non-traditional coffee growing areas as well as the rehabilitation of abandoned farms to ensure sustained production. The total area under coffee is estimated at 160,000 hectares, about one third of which is the plantation sector and the rest under smallholder sector with an estimated 700,000 growers.

1.2 Project Summary

Through DANIDA support, Solidaridad and African Coffee Roasters (ACR) have initiated the Traceable Organic Coffee from Kenya project (TRACE Kenya Project) that seeks to contribute to economic growth and promote environmental and social standards of 15,000 smallholder coffee farmers (30% women and 10% youth) in Kericho, Nandi and Bungoma counties. This will be accomplished by growing Kenya’s first organic coffee for export to consumer markets in Europe and the USA by 2023. The commercial objective of the project is to develop market access for Kenyan organic coffee in Europe and USA. This translates to premium coffee to global consumers, market expansion for ACR and enhanced market for the farmers guaranteeing better incomes and livelihoods. The project innovation is in the delivery of the first organic certified Kenyan coffee to global consumers. Adoption of organic agricultural practices will spur development of organic inputs supply chains and innovations as well as lead to improved coffee volumes thereby creating new job opportunities. Since youth are more receptive to new trends, they will be equipped with the right skills to enable them to pursue economic opportunities on and off the farm.

2.0 Assignment Objectives

Solidaridad through the TRACE Kenya Project seeks to develop Internal Control Systems that will guide coffee farmer cooperatives through the EU organic Certification. The Internal Control System guards the integrity of the organic quality of the coffee produced by the smallholder farmers. This will be accomplished by first assessing the coffee cooperatives to establish their current systems from production to processing and how best they fit into the Organic Certification requirements. This lays the basis and establishes the focal areas for each of the individual farmer cooperative. The consultant will be required to establish and operationalize the ICS in cooperatives where their current systems do not fit into the certification processes and procedures. As the farmer cooperatives adopt innovative organic practices, these ICS will come in handy to enable them meet the requirements of the certification and conform during the audits.

It’s on this basis that Solidaridad seeks to recruit a qualified firm/ consultant to assess the current ICS’s, develop and operationalize the ICS’s guiding the farmer cooperatives through the certification process. The 16 farmer cooperatives are spread across 3 counties: 5 in Kericho County, 7 in Nandi County and 4 in Bungoma County.

3.0 Scope of work

The project areas spread across the Western part of Kenya as indicated in the table below:

Cooperative Society County Target Farmers (Active Membership)

**

A Kericho 600

B Kericho 285

C Kericho 600

D Kericho 350

E Kericho 500

F Nandi 1500

G Nandi 730

H Nandi 645

I Nandi 520

J Nandi 560

K Nandi 1600

L Nandi 84

M Bungoma 3000

N Bungoma 2773

O Bungoma 3778

P Bungoma 1800

Total 19,325

**

The initial assessment will focus on the 16 cooperatives to establish their readiness to undertake organic certification but only 10 cooperatives will be pre-selected for the trainings and establishment of Internal Control Systems (ICS) based on the initial reports.

4.0 Expected outputs & Deliverables

The consultant is expected to deliver following outputs:

a) Assess and report on the cooperatives current Internal Control Systems (ICS) and the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) that all the farmer cooperatives are currently applying from production to processing of their coffee including their compliance to Responsible Business Conduct.

b) Training the responsible persons on:

• The scope of the EU Organic certification i.e. biodiversity, management of waste, management of pests etc.

• How to assess risk and measures to address these risks

• Training on internal approval procedures

• Training on non-compliance and sanctions.

c) Develop and operationalise Internal Control Systems based on initial assessment conducted from production, processing, storage and delivery of the final product. This involves:

• Establishment of the ICS personnel

• Documentation of the Internal Control Systems

• Guiding the personnel through internal inspections/audits.

d) Develop relevant forms and other documents that are key to certification.

e) Conduct at least 3 mock audits for each of the cooperatives in preparation for the actual audits with the certification body.

f) Develop and share training reports for each of the cooperatives.

g) The consultant will present the manuscript flow for discussion during inception meeting.

5.0 Coordination and Cooperation

· The Consultant undertaking the study will work under the coordination of Solidaridad (ECA)

6.0 Inputs

a) Solidaridad shall provide the consultant with background information on the TRACE Kenya Project.

b) Solidaridad shall introduce the consultant to the relevant Project team for preparatory planning. It will be the responsibility of the consultant to make contact with any external relevant organization while keeping Solidaridad in correspondence

c) The consultant is expected to refer and adhere to statutory regulations of the Cooperative Act in Kenya.

d) Solidaridad in consultation of project partner shall mobilize and avail trainees for the particular exercise as per the schedule shared by the consultant.

7.0 Duration of the Assignment

This assignment shall run from October 2020 until the lapse of the Project in December 2023.

8.0 Experts/Consultant’s;

Develop a comprehensive expression of interest (E.O.I) outlining:

• A short profile of the firm/consultant

• Firm/Consultants statement on the interpretation of the TOR, methodology of execution, work plan and budget

• Curriculum Vitae’s of consultant /firm outlining qualifications and experience in training and operationalization of Internal Control Systems for any certification in coffee

• At least a references of similar assignments undertaken in the last 3 years

• Its desirable if the consultant has previous experience in organic certification and working with certification bodies in Kenya.