Consultancy services for Designing and Piloting of a Farmer-Led Irrigation Development (FLID) intervention in Zambia

                                                     REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA

                             MINISTRY OF FINANCE AND NATIONAL PLANNING

      NATIONAL AUTHORISING OFFICE OF THE EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT FUND

                                     REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

                                    (CONSULTING SERVICES - FIRMS SELECTION)

Country: Zambia

Name of Project: Irrigated and Sustainable Agriculture for Transformation (ISAT) Project (P182068)

Loan No./Credit No./ Grant No.: E5970

Assignment Title: Consultancy services for Designing and Piloting of a Farmer-Led Irrigation Development (FLID) intervention in Zambia

Reference No. ZM-MOFNP-570604-CS-QCBS

The Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) has received financing from the World Bank toward the cost of the Irrigated and Sustainable Agriculture for Transformation (ISAT) Project Preparation and intends to apply part of the proceeds for consulting services.  The Project Preparation Grant financing is intended to support the identification, technical assessment, and preparation of priority irrigation schemes that can be taken forward under the full ISAT operation.

The consulting services (“the Services”) include Designing and Piloting of a Farmer-Led Irrigation Development (FLID) intervention in Zambia.

Objectives of the Assignment

The objective of the assignment is to support the design of a FLID component for the ISAT project, including the design and piloting of a Results-Based Financing framework tailored to FLID.

Scope of Work

The consultant is expected to undertake the following tasks:

a) Fast diagnostic (data collection, analysis): Understand the bottlenecks to scaling up FLID in Zambia and scoping for a Result Based Financing (RBF) framework around the identified irrigation schemes.

• Characterize FLID potential at farm level (farm size, assets, affordability gaps)
• Survey the current private sector landscape that is providing goods (supply of irrigation equipment) and services (irrigation services) to assess equipment capital and operational costs for the range of farmer types and farm sizes, understand private sector challenges and draw on private sector insights into opportunities for rapid irrigation technology uptake and expansion.
• Understand the existing public financing structures and mechanisms for financing smallholder irrigation.
• Explore the policy and legal barriers in the enabling environment constraining smallholder farmers in autonomously carrying out small-scale irrigation development.

b) FLID intervention and RBF Design: Translate the diagnostic into a set of feasible, scalable FLID intervention models.

• Develop the design of potential FLID interventions within the ISAT project, providing different options and potential scenarios based on the diagnostic of farmers’ assets, willingness to pay, providers’ capacity, among others.
• Design an RBF framework and its parameters: Key Result Indicators (KRIs), payment triggers/schedules, eligibility, verification, financial flows, subsidy/rebate, risk-sharing.

c) Piloting the Methodology: The pilot phase serves as a controlled environment to test the feasibility, scalability, and sustainability of the proposed FLID intervention. Particularly irrigation modernization, financing mechanisms, and private sector partnerships. The four sequential stages of the methodology include:

• Elaborate a piloting methodology of the proposed interventions in Zambia accounting for the time constraint of the project preparation, outlining the process for selecting testing sites, testing financing mechanisms, partnering with irrigation equipment providers and any other intervention design aspects that might be piloted.
• Identify 10 appropriate sites for piloting based on a set of pre-defined characteristics.
• Onboard participants of the pilots such as providers, financial institutions, districts, farmers.
• Define the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) framework to assess the pilot’s performance.

d) Pilot implementation and evaluation: Implement FLID interventions with continuous technical support, collect baseline, midline and end-line data, identify challenges along the implementation process to refine the model and document lessons for national scale-up. Specifically:

• Deploy the FLID interventions and RBF mechanisms in the selected zones.
• Execute the MEL framework.
• Conduct a structured assessment of pilot outcomes and rank the best-performing options

Duration of the Assignment

The assignment is expected to be completed within seven (7) calendar months after signing of contract between November 2026 and May 2027.

Invitation

The National Authorising Office now invites eligible consulting firms (“Consultants”) to indicate their interest in providing the Services. Interested Consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the Services. The shortlisting criteria are:

1. Must be a legally registered firm with a minimum of 5 years of continuous operations in providing consultancy services.
2. Experience in similar assignments, evidence of at least three similar assignments completed in Sub-Saharan Africa within the past ten years. Experience must include:

• At least one assignment related to Farmer-Led Irrigation Development or smallholder irrigation systems
• At least one assignment involving performance-based or results-based contracting.

      3. Proven track record working with government agencies, private sector actors, and                          development partners (Consultant to provide copies of contracts for past assignments or                completion certificates as evidence).

      4. The firm must demonstrate strong technical multidisciplinary expertise in Irrigation and                Water Resources Engineering, Agricultural Economics, Market Systems Development and            Private Sector Engagement and Environmental and Social Risk Management

      5.  Managerial capabilities indicating the general qualifications and experience of Principals               (key staff of the firm) and the structure of the organization.

The above required relevant qualifications and experience relate to the qualifications and experience of the firm and should not be based on individual experts as this is not required at this stage.

The attention of interested Consultants is drawn to Section III, paragraphs, 3.14, 3.16, and 3.17 of the World Bank’s “Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers” Seventh Edition, September 2025 (“Procurement Regulations”), setting forth the World Bank’s Policy on Conflict of Interest.

Consultants may associate with other firms to enhance their qualifications but should indicate clearly whether the association is in the form of a Joint Venture and/or a sub- consultancy. In the case of a Joint Venture, all the partners in the Joint Venture shall be jointly and severally liable for the entire contract, if selected. Therefore, each member of JV shall independently meet the requirements of the evaluation criteria. The experience, technical & managerial capability of the Sub-Consultant shall not be evaluated to enhance the qualification of the Lead Firm or JV.

A Consultant will be selected in accordance with the Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) Method set out in the Procurement Regulations.

Interested Consultants firms may obtain detailed terms of reference (ToRs) at the address below during office hours from 08.00 to 17.00 hours Local time Monday to Friday except public holidays or visit https://nao.gov.zm/

Expressions of interest must be delivered in a written form to the address below (in person, or by mail, or by fax, or by e-mail) by 1st October 2026, at 10:00 Hours Central African Time (+2hours GMT), clearly marked “EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FOR CONSULTANCY SERVICES FOR DESIGNING AND PILOTING OF A FARMER-LED IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT (FLID) INTERVENTION IN ZAMBIA

The firms that will submit their EOI via e-mail must get confirmation of the receipt of their documents. In case the firm does not receive acknowledgement within two working days after sending the documents via email, they should call the numbers provided below for follow-up.

The address referred to above is:

The Coordinator; and Deputy National Authorising Officer

National Authorising Office of the European Development Fund

Ministry of Finance and National Planning

Plot No. 488a/37/0/1/4, Lake Road, Kabulonga

P.O. Box 50376

10101 Lusaka

Zambia

E-mail: tenders.agriculture@nao.gov.zm

Tel: +260 211 250828