Terms of Reference for the establishment and operationalisation of the Kenya/East Africa Food Systems Transformation Alliance
Introduction
The Growing Together program, led by IDH and funded by Norad – the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, is a transformative initiative aimed at strengthening food systems across East Africa. It brings together public and private sector actors, including SMEs, financial institutions, and off-takers, to empower smallholder farmers and scale inclusive, sustainable food value chains.
Despite Africa’s agricultural potential, food and nutrition insecurity remains a challenge due to climate shocks, environmental risks, and economic disruptions. Structural inefficiencies, underinvestment, and limited participation of women further constrain progress.
To address these issues, IDH partners with local food businesses to grow them into sustainable businesses that support food production and distribution to improve food security. We believe that the collective changes in business practices of multiple companies in the food value chains is a step towards improving sector governance that promotes responsible sourcing and conservation of soil, water, and biodiversity.
To support the SMEs in this growth towards sustainable local sourcing, IDH has partnered with the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, Rikolto, and the Eastern Africa Grain Council to provide specialised technical assistance to the SMEs in the maize, beans, sunflower, and soybean value chains. The TA support is aimed at increasing farmer productivity and incomes, enhancing climate resilience across production landscapes, promoting economic participation of women and youth in food supply chains, and generating insights from data to inform policy and investment decisions.
Operating in Ethiopia and Tanzania, the program will:
- Co-invest with 30 food businesses to support 120,000 farmers to increase food production through sustainable production practices
- Improve resilience of 120,000 hectares of farmland to climate shocks through regenerative and climate smart agriculture practices.
- Mobilise USD 15 million in financing for SMEs and farmers to support sustainable local food production, processing and distribution.
- Mobilise the collective effort of businesses through national and regional and Pan-African Food Systems transformation alliances with commitments to investments in food systems by the government.
These business alliances will serve as multi-stakeholder platforms to align efforts, influence policy, and commit to shared social, economic, and environmental goals—driving sustainable transformation of Africa’s food systems.
Assignment Objectives
IDH seeks to engage a service provider to support the establishment and operationalisation of the Kenya/East Africa Food Systems Transformation Alliance (FSTA), in collaboration with leading food manufacturers and other key stakeholders in the region. The selected party will be responsible for:
- Designing an engagement framework for mobilising business-led initiatives for alliances at national and regional (Eastern Africa) levels that commit to changing their business (procurement) practices to support sustainable local sourcing of raw materials and ingredients for agri-food processors.
- Building a pipeline of interested agri-food businesses, engaging the businesses to identify areas of interest for alliances with like-minded companies, and framing the broad agenda for convening a business alliance.
- Facilitating and convening interested businesses in the alliance to build consensus on the collaboration structure and framework and accountability mechanisms. This would result in signed covenants from the businesses joining the alliance.
The ToR details the full scope of the assessment, including the objectives and proposed evaluation questions, key deliverables, timelines, and guidance on utilising the accompanying annexes
We encourage all interested and qualified parties (both individual parties and consortia) to thoroughly review these documents and apply.
Questions regarding the Assignment must be submitted by 13th October 2025 at 5 pm. EAT by email to IDH Kenya at kenya@idhtrade.org
The proposal must be submitted by 17 October 2025 at 5 pm. EAT by e-mail to IDH Kenya at kenya@idhtrade.org