Terms of Reference: Technology Platform Onboarding for Cotton Traceability, MRV, and Sustainability Dashboard

Ask Me Anything Session: May 12, 2026; 3:30-4:30 pm IST

Ask me anything for Technology Platform Onboarding for Cotton Traceability, MRV, and Sustainability Dashboard | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams

Stichting IDH (“IDH”) accelerates and up-scales sustainable trade by building impact-oriented coalitions of front running companies, civil society, governments, knowledge institutions, and other stakeholders in several commodity sectors. We convene the interests, strengths and knowledge of public and private partners in sustainability commodity programs that aim to mainstream international and domestic commodity markets. We jointly formulate strategic intervention plans with public and private partners, and we co-invest with partners in activities that generate public goods.

Under this mandate, IDH is implementing the Regenerative Production Landscape Collaborative (RPLC) in Madhya Pradesh, India. The initiative brings together brands, implementing partners, and local institutions to promote regenerative agriculture, strengthen farmer livelihoods, and build traceable, low-impact cotton supply chains. The program is supported by a Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) framework, designed to capture environmental and socio-economic outcomes at scale. The program is also building traceable cotton supply chains linked to global brands and integrating MRV systems to track environmental outcomes

On basis of these Terms of Reference (“ToR”), IDH aims to select a service provider to design, customize, deploy, and support a comprehensive digital platform for cotton traceability, regenerative agriculture Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV), and sustainability performance reporting.

IDH seeks to onboard a technology platform to strengthen end-to-end cotton traceability, regenerative agriculture monitoring, and sustainability reporting across the cotton value chain. The platform will support farmer enrollment, baseline and endline assessments, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV), farm-to-gin traceability, and dashboard-based data visualization

This initiative aims to improve transparency, data reliability, compliance, and sustainability outcomes while enabling stakeholders to track project progress and impact effectively.

IDH is therefore seeking an experienced service provider to execute technology platform implementation services and deliver an integrated digital system that supports supply chain transparency, field-level sustainability monitoring, and stakeholder reporting.

Objectives

The primary objective is to select and implement a digital technology platform capable of:

• Digitally onboarding farmers and producer groups, and monitoring the various field activities such as the running of our bio-inputs centres and biochar Centre,
• Capacity to collect the output and outcome data
• Establishing farm-to-gin cotton traceability
• Delivering real-time dashboards and analytics for project stakeholders
• Supporting donor, partner, and compliance reporting

Scope of Work

The selected technology partner will be responsible for the following:

3.1 Farmer Onboarding and Profiling

• Digital registration of farmers
• Geo-tagging of farms and plots
• Farmer demographic and socio-economic profiling
• Farm size, crop practices, and input usage records as per the regenerative certification requirements, along with key detailed documentation required for the project, covering all relevant indicators.
• Integration with field teams for data collection
• Agri extension agent profile and data collection
• Agri-entrepreneur profile and data collection

3.2  MRV Data Collection, Management, and Reporting Requirements

The implementation partner shall clearly define and establish protocols for seamless integration between MRV datasets and RPLC data systems into the tech platform the MRV indicators including but not limited to:

• Farm size and landholding details
• Crop type, cropping patterns, and cultivation practices
• Soil health parameters and regenerative agriculture practices adopted
• Input usage records (chemical fertilizers, pesticides, bio-inputs, compost, etc.)
• Water management and irrigation practices
• Farmer adoption rates of regenerative interventions
• Yield and productivity metrics
• Farmer income and livelihood indicators
• Greenhouse gas emissions, carbon, or other environmental indicators, where applicable
• Certification-related compliance indicators
• Training, capacity-building, and farmer engagement records
• Geo-tagging, traceability, and verification documentation as required
• MRV output indicators on field level implementation and progress tracking
• The partner must ensure that the MRV system is adaptable to evolving project requirements, supports the addition of new indicators when required, and maintains data quality, traceability, and audit readiness throughout the project lifecycle.

3.3 Cotton Traceability System

• Seed cotton procurement records
• Lot-level tracking
• Gin-level aggregation and segregation
• Supply chain mapping
• QR code or digital identity generation
• Chain of custody validation
• Transaction logging across supply chain stages, feature for the premium recording as per individual farmer.

3.4 Dashboard and Data Visualization

• Interactive dashboards for:
  • Farmer progress
  • Procurement
  • Traceability flows
  • Project based KPIs
  • MRV indicators at outcome and output level
• Role-based dashboard access and a structured approval hierarchy shall be developed to ensure secure data access, workflow management, and appropriate authorization levels across all stakeholders.
• Exportable reports and download features shall be available as required for donor and management purposes, with outputs in Excel and other relevant formats.
• Real-time or periodic data refresh
• Offline data collection functionality shall be available for field operations, with automatic data synchronization enabled whenever internet connectivity is restored.
• Availability of offline data collection and synchronization functionality to ensure uninterrupted field operations in low-connectivity or remote areas

3.5 Training and Capacity Building

• Platform onboarding for field teams and regular handholding support
• User manuals and SOPs
• Admin and governance training
• Ongoing technical support

Deliverables

The deliverables of this assignment will be:

The vendor is expected to deliver:

1. A configured technology platform with the capability to add, modify, and update indicators as required throughout the project lifecycle.
2. Flexibility to customise: add, revise indicators as project needs evolve
3. Farmer onboarding module
4. Dashboard and analytics suite
5. monthly progress reports
6. Mobile application availability for field teams, enabling field-level data collection, offline access, real-time synchronization
7. Training materials
8. Governance and escalation framework
9. Data security and compliance documentation
10. Cotton traceability

Project will be implemented in 3 phases:

Here’s your project plan reformatted into clear bullet points:

• Phase 1
  • Platform setup
  • Customization
  • System integration
  • Team onboarding
  • Timeline: Within 15 days from project commencement
• Phase 2
  • Farmer onboarding
  • Timeline: Within 1 month from project commencement
• Phase 3
  • Ongoing monitoring
  • MRV (Measurement, Reporting, and Verification) data collection
  • Reporting
  • Verification
  • Technical support
  • Timeline: Continuous throughout project duration
• Phase 4
  • Project closure
  • Final reporting
  • Data handover
  • Compliance verification
  • Transition support
  • Timeline: As per project closure timeline

The procedure will be as follows:

1. Publishing the tender and/or inviting services providers to submit a proposal based on this ToR.
2. Option for the interested parties to submit questions regarding the assignment and the ToR. Questions will be answered via an information notice that will be shared with all service providers that indicated their interest in the assignment and/or submitted questions.
3. Evaluation of the proposals by the chair of the evaluation committee. The 3 proposals that receive the highest scores will be presented to the evaluation committee. The chair of the evaluation committee and the evaluation committee will evaluate the proposals based on the selection criteria as published in this ToR. OR Evaluation of the proposals by the evaluation committee. The evaluation committee will evaluate the proposals based on the selection criteria as published in this ToR.
4. Decision on selecting the service provider.
5. Inception meeting with the selected service provider.

The schedule below indicates the timelines for the tender procedure:

• Terms of  Reference published :4 May 2026
• Ask Me Anything session: 12 May 2026
• Deadline for submission of proposals: 19 May 2026

After the deadline to submit a proposal has passed, the IDH evaluation committee will assess the proposals.

The proposals will first be tested for completeness:

• The absence of the documents referred to in Section 6 of this document can lead to exclusion from further participation in the tender procedure. This is also the case when minimum requirements listed in this ToR are not met.
• If the proposal is complete, the selection committee will evaluate the proposal based on the criteria as set forth in Section 6.

The assignment will be awarded to the service provider with the most economically advantageous tender. This is determined based on the evaluation criteria of price and quality (see Section 6).

IDH will reject the proposal if any illegal or corrupt practices have taken place in connection with the award or the tender procedure.

IDH is requesting the service providers to hand in a proposal of maximum [number] pages (excluding company biographies, CVs, sample work, and references). The proposal must be handed in a MS Word or PowerPoint version next to a PDF submission to facilitate any copy-and-pasting of content that we may need during evaluation.  

The proposal must at least include:

Content:

1. A succinct, well-documented approach addressing the requirements set out in this ToR. We request that the proposal structure match the selection criteria as closely as possible
2. Maximum of three client references and a sample of previous work relevant to the deliverables in this ToR,
3. An overview of the project team, including the CVs of the project team members,
4. Budget (as per template in Annex 2),
5. Description of safeguarding approach (does the service provider have a safeguarding policy in place, and if not, are they able and committed to comply to and implement IDH’s safeguarding policy (to be found here); steps (to be) taken to identify risks in relation to safeguarding in the project at hand and description of approach to mitigate these safeguarding risks (if any),
6. Statement on Ground for exclusion (see Section 7 below).
7. Completed detail request form (Annex 3),
8. Copy of most recent (audited) financial accounts, if available
9. Statement of acceptance draft contract (Annex 6)

Administrative:

The proposal must be submitted to secretariat@rplcollaborative.org before 19 May 2026 by 2300 hours IST.

• Grounds for exclusion 

1. Applicants shall be excluded from participation in this tender procedure if:

• they are bankrupt or being wound up, are having their affairs administered by the courts, have entered into an arrangement with creditors, have suspended business activities, are subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or are in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
• they or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgment which has the force of res judicata;
• they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the IDH can justify;
• they have not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established, or with those of the Netherlands or those of the country where the contract is to be performed;
• they or persons having powers of representation, decision making of control over them have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organization, money laundering, or any other illegal activity.
•  conflict of interest (see below).

Applicants must confirm in writing that they are not in one of the situations listed above.

1. Applicants shall not make use of child labor or forced labor and/or practice discrimination, and they shall respect the right to freedom of association and the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining, in accordance with the core conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Conflict of interest

Applicants shall not have a conflict of interest in submitting a tender application to IDH. Conflict of interest refers to any situation where an Applicant’s application may be compromised or not impartial and objective for reasons involving family, personal life, political or national affinity, economic interest or any other connection or shared interest with another person. Should the Applicant suspect any potential conflicts of interest on its part, it shall submit a written statement setting forth all conditions and circumstances of such potential conflict(s) of interest to IDH together with its application. A conflict of interest that cannot be solved effectively by less restrictive means constitutes an optional exclusion ground to an applicant, pursuant to article 2.87(1)(e) of the Dutch Procurement Act.

Minimum criteria

Applicants or proposals not fulfilling the minimum eligibility criteria outlined below will be excluded from the tender procedure and will not be assessed against further technical or commercial evaluation criteria.

The minimum criteria are as follows:

• Proven experience in developing, deploying, and managing digital traceability, dashboard, analytics, and MRV platforms for large-scale agriculture, sustainability, certification, or supply chain projects, preferably within agricultural or cotton value chains.
• Availability of a ready-to-deploy, configurable technology platform with the capacity to initiate implementation immediately upon contract award, including platform setup, customization, stakeholder onboarding, system integration, and technical support within the agreed timeline.
• Demonstrated expertise in scalable platform configuration capable of integrating evolving project indicators, workflows, reporting systems, and enterprise-level data management requirements.
• Proven capability in deploying mobile applications for field teams with features including offline functionality, synchronization, geo-tagging, real-time data capture, and seamless integration with central MRV systems.
• Strong experience in system integration with existing data platforms, dashboards, reporting systems, and secure enterprise infrastructure.
• Expertise in role-based dashboard development, approval hierarchies, user access management, secure data governance, validation systems, traceability mechanisms, verification protocols, and audit-ready documentation.
• Ability to generate customizable, exportable reports in multiple formats for donor, management, compliance, and certification purposes.
• Knowledge of regenerative agriculture, certification standards, agricultural data structures, and sustainability indicators relevant to MRV implementation.
• Availability of qualified technical, operational, and project management personnel with proven experience in phased platform deployment, implementation, customization, maintenance, monitoring, and project closure.
• Capacity to deliver multilingual user support, stakeholder onboarding, training, capacity building, and ongoing technical assistance in both Hindi and English.
• Compliance with robust data security, privacy, infrastructure management, and applicable regulatory standards.
• Operational team presence in India to ensure timely field travel, stakeholder coordination, on-ground implementation support, training delivery, and continuous technical assistance throughout the project lifecycle.
• Acceptance of IDH contractual terms, safeguarding requirements, and all compliance policies.
• Submission of all required administrative, technical, and financial documentation as outlined in this ToR.

The selected partner must demonstrate the technical and operational capability to deliver a robust, scalable, and configurable technology platform that supports end-to-end project implementation, farmer-level data collection, reporting, compliance, and long-term sustainability.

The assignment will be awarded to the Applicant with the most economically advantageous tender. The most economically advantageous tender is determined on the basis of the evaluation criteria of Price and Quality.

The evaluation criteria are compared and weighed according to the procedure below. This concerns a general outline of the scoring methodology and an explanation how the service provider can demonstrate compliance with the requirements.

Step 1 - Criterion Quality

Evaluation scores will be awarded for each of the components. The evaluation committee will score each component unanimously.

[IDH values quality highly, therefore a minimum grade of 3 must be scored by the Applicant on each component. If the Applicant scores a grade of 3 or less on one of the components, he will be excluded from the tender procedure and awarding the contract.

The proposal will be assessed based on the following selection criteria:

• Component 1: Proposal overall
  • Criteria:
    • Extent to which the proposal meets requirements set out in Section 3 and throughout the document
    • Ability of the Applicant to deliver required deliverables
    • Ability to provide a comprehensive solution
  • Max. Grading: 5
• Component 2: Design and Development process
  • Criteria:
    • Clear design and development process demonstrated
    • Adequate consultation with IDH for input during design and development
    • Clarity on what is required from IDH (human resources, digital assets, other input) without being too onerous on staff
  • Max. Grading: 5
• Component 3: Track record
• Criteria:
  • Applicant presents required expertise and knowledge at both team member and company level
  • Clear description of project team, relevant experience (especially similar projects), and time allocation per team member
  • Relevant experience in the non-profit sector is advantageous
• Max. Grading: 5

The evaluation committee will unanimously score each component by assigning scores from 1 to the maximum grading, with the maximum grading representing optimal performance on the component and 1 representing extremely poor performance on the respective component.

Step 2 -  Criterion price

The Applicant shall follow the Budget template (attached as Annex 2 to these Terms of Reference).

Please note that a combined price in Euros (excluding VAT) is to be presented. This is to be broken down by team member rate and hours.

Given the non-for-profit nature of IDH, we encourage Applicant to clearly mention if the budget might be positively impacted by partial pro-bono work or reduced rate as a contribution to the successful delivery of the assignment.

The financial proposal must include a detailed budget breakdown for all cost components and clearly specify both per-hectare and per-farmer implementation costs for an annual basis to support transparent cost analysis, efficiency assessment, and comparative evaluation.

The criterion for assessment is “the best price for the proposed level of quality” with a maximum grading of 5.

Step 3 - Weighting

The final score will be weighted 60% on Quality and 40% on Price.

If scores of service providers are equal, priority will be based on the total scores that were given for the Criterion Quality. The assignment will be awarded to the service provider that has received the highest score for the Criterion Quality. If the evaluation of the Criterion Quality does not lead to a distinction, the score for the component “Proposal overall” will be decisive. If this does not lead to a distinction, the ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots.

Award

Once IDH has decided which Applicant it intends to award the assignment, a written notification thereof is sent to all Applicants participating in the tender procedure.

The Applicant is contracted via a letter of assignment, following IDH’s template (Annex 4

Please note: the payment schedule set out in the letter of assignment template may be amended, subject to unilateral decision of IDH.

All participants will ensure that all its contacts with IDH, with regards to the tender, during the tender procedure take place exclusively in writing by e-mail to Rajni Jain at jain@idhtraide.org and Yashwant Sethi at sethia@idhtrade.org . The participants is thus explicitly prohibited, to prevent discrimination of the other participants and to ensure the diligence of the procedure, to have any contact whatsoever regarding the tender with any other persons of IDH than the persons stated in the first sentence of this paragraph.

The documents provided by or on behalf of IDH will be handled confidentiality. The Applicants will also impose a duty of confidentiality on any parties that it engages. Any breach of the duty of confidentiality by the Applicant or its engaged third parties will give IDH grounds for exclusion of the Applicant, without requiring any prior written or verbal warning.

All information, documents and other requested or provided data submitted by the Applicant will be handled with due care and confidentiality by IDH. The provided information will after evaluation by IDH be filed as confidential. The provided information will not be returned to the Applicant.

IDH respects the effort and time that participants are expected to put into this tender procedure. However, IDH must use its financial means as economically as possible. Therefore, IDH will not remunerate participants for their interest and/or participation in the tender procedure. 

IDH reserves the right to update, change, extend, postpone, withdraw, or suspend the ToR, this tender procedure, or any decision regarding the selection or contract award. IDH is not obliged in this tender procedure to make a contract award decision or to conclude a contract with a participant.

Participants in the tender procedure cannot claim compensation from IDH, any affiliated persons or entities, in any way, in case any of the aforementioned situations occur.

By handing in a proposal, participants accept all terms and reservations made in this ToR, and subsequent information and documentation in this tender procedure.

Annex 1: Budget Template

Annex 2: Detail Request Form

Annex 3: Letter of Assignment

Annex 4: IDH General Terms and Conditions for Services

Annex 5: Statement of acceptance