81314049-Supporting SME in selected African countries to achieve export-relevant product quality certifications

Services to be provided by the contractor:

The Alliance for Product Quality in Africa ("the Alliance") has the following objective: "Product quality has increased in selected economic sectors and locations in Africa." At the core of the project is the direct hands-on support to companies in Africa (commercial farms, individual farmers and farmer cooperatives, commercial manufacturers of finished products or ingredients) to achieve export-relevant certifications. The primary intended impact is to strengthen Africa´s position on export markets. Being part of the German government´s Special Initiative "Decent Work for a Just Transition" (also called: Invest for Jobs), the Alliance also aims at fostering good employment. Hence the importance of certifications that document an improvement of working conditions in the production processes. The Alliance has been carrying out this work since 2020, gathering substantial experience with the implementation. Cooperation and liaison with other projects of Invest for Jobs and related topics in the partner countries also helps in optimizing the effectiveness and efficiency of the work.

The contractor will contribute to the objectives of the Alliance by implementing two work packages. Work package 1 is called "Supporting African companies to achieve certifications" and its main achievement indicator is: "26 supported African companies in at least three of eight Invest for Jobs partner countries have each received at least one certificate of conformity with private standards (e.g. EU-organic, Fairtrade, GLOBALG.A.P., GOTS, COSMOS, of which at least 20 companies obtained certificates that contain requirements on improving the working conditions or on increasing the income of workers/smallholder farmers, reaching a total of 4000 workers/smallholder farmers (certificates must have concrete criteria concerning the improvement of working conditions or higher incomes, e.g. Fairtrade, Fair for Life, Naturland Fair, Demeter, GLOBALG.A.P., GLOBALG.A.P.-GRASP, Rainforest Alliance, ROC, GOTS, WRAP)." To this end, the contractor shall implement the following steps: (1) Organize calls for applications in the focus countries in order to select the companies to be supported. Pre-select the companies based on the applications and validate the pre-selection with the Alliance team. (2) Conduct on-site visits of the companies for fact-checking, validation of the selection, and first diagnosis. (3) Check compliance with ILO Core Labour Standards (4) Facilitate the signing of cooperation agreements between the companies and GIZ. (5) Establish a workplan with each company and conduct group and individual trainings as needed. (6) Organize a qualified mock audit and provide assistance to the companies concerning the non-conformities and organize the official audit with independent Certification Bodies and accompany the supported companies through the certification process. (7) Support the companies to follow up with the external audit and address eventual non-conformities (8) Provide monitoring and other reports to the Alliance team.

Work package 2 is called "Trainings on quality management". It is mostly a pre-requisit for successfully implementing work package 1, but nonetheless its achievement is monitored on its own. The indicator measuring its successful implementation is: "250 out of 350 employees of African companies/agricultural enterprises involved in quality management, 175 of them women, who participated in qualification measures on quality requirements demanded by European buyers, confirm the relevance of the contents taught for their work and that they have contributed to improving product quality in their companies after their qualification measures.

These activities will initially be implemented in the selected focus countries (Egypt, Ghana, Morocco). In the course of implementation, further activities may be implemented in the other partner countries of Invest for Jobs. The contractor is free to decide how many companies are supported in which countries, in which sectors the companies operate and which standards are supported (taking into account the conditions specified in the indicator). However, it is important here that the companies export or intend to export and therefore also strive for conformity with standards that are in demand on the international market. Also, at least one call for applications shall be carried out in each of the focus countries.

Implementation should be carried out in close coordination with the Alliance team, but the contractor retains sufficient freedom to introduce its own innovative approaches and ideas that support the economic implementation of the activities. The main focus here is on approaches and methods for selection of the companies and implementing the support, training and coaching. The Alliance expects the contractor to design the project implementation in a way that documentation, training and other necessary adjustments within the companies to achieve conformity with international private standards be carried out as effectively as possible, while at the same time guaranteeing the sustainability of the measures.