Moçambique – PARES Project, Training on Visual Quality Control of Vegetables Tempo Inteiro NOVO

Moçambique – PARES project, Training on Visual Quality Control of Vegetables.

Background and Summary

CRS is a partner of World Vision under the PARES (Partnerships for Sustainable Education Results) project, funded by USDA from 2023-2028. PARES is a school feeding initiative in the provinces of Nampula and Milange with the following objectives:

1. Improve the quality of literacy education through better-trained and constantly available teachers and administrators and greater access to inclusive literacy materials.
2. Improve student attendance and attention, reducing hunger in the short term through the provision of a daily school meal and the rehabilitation/construction of kitchens.
3. Improve student attendance by raising community awareness of the benefits of education, reducing barriers to school attendance, increasing economic incentives through savings and loan groups, and improving school water and sanitation infrastructure.
4. Improve knowledge of health and hygiene practices and increase knowledge of safe food preparation and storage through training on good health and nutrition practices.
5. Increase access to clean water and sanitation services through the construction and rehabilitation of boreholes and latrine blocks.
6. Increase access to preventive health interventions by supporting student deworming.
7. Improve the use of nutritious and culturally acceptable food that meets quality standards by developing partnerships with farmer groups to provide vegetables to the schools.

Decisions in determining the best quality of any particular food staff is based on various principles like, level of training, cultural background, previous experiences, options put forward, but in this case on a project like PARES there is need to have a uniform standard of quality to be followed by all suppliers and receivers of the vegetables at each particular school to overcomes the barrier in the different perspectives to determine the best quality. At the same time other diseases and pests need lab test which may not be available to each location as such a visual inspection can guide anyone who is supplying and receiving the vegetable at each location/school.

Observing the above project objectives the consultancy principally will respond to objectives 4 and 7 that primarily focus on the need to consider health related issues when providing food especially in this case where vegetables comes from different sources and suppliers, as such it is of paramount importance to capacitate all stakeholder involved in the supply chain of these vegetables until consumption by the pupils.

Scope of the Consultancy

a) Purpose of the consultancy – All suppliers and receivers of the vegetables must be properly acquainted with the Visual Check list of the vegetables as per design by CRS. The consultant must properly lay out and explain in detail why it is important, risks to non-compliance to the checklists and benefits to the compliance to the checklist.

b) Geographical scope – The task will be undertaken totally in the district of Milange, Zambezia province where the 100 target schools of the project are located.

c) Target Groups – The targeted training participants shall include 6 SMEs that have been already supplying the project with vegetables, 36 farmers groups with each having 5 representatives in the training, volunteer cooks for all of the 100 schools, each school providing 5 representatives and school staff that will include 2 representatives that is the school headmaster and the warehouse manager at the school level.

d) Consultant responsibility visa-vi CRS Role – CRS will provide the Visual check list that has already been developed and used in other trainings in other districts and the consultant should based on his expertise, facilitate the participants to understand it and also offer further visual quality principles that are useful to the different levels of participants in terms of their literacy levels and different background and experiences.

e) Training design and Logistics – The consultant shall choose/decide which locations he will undertake the training based on the most convenient locations taking into consideration that the participants will need to be provided for transport money and a basic snack to be provided for, just after the training including water during the training. The school representatives to participate in the training shall be based on the government rate be paid per diem. The training depending on the training methodology used can take approximately 3-5hours per day. All logistical cost shall be listed in the consultant’s proposal as per the above conditions and expected training duration for each group. The consultant in his proposal should be clear on the proposed group sizes and structure he/she is going to follow. It is also of paramount importance that the consultant should also use practical samples/examples relating to the Visual checklist to be provided by CRS.

Deliverables

• Implementation plan, schedule and methodology.
• Copies of all participants list with clearly marked dates of the training – template to be provided by CRS.
• Detailed report of the training, detailing observations, recommendations and photos of the training in both soft and hard copy which also intel feedback from the participants, observations, challenges and recommendations for the project.

Remuneration

CRS will pay an advance to the consultant to support start-up, transport and administrative costs. However, the additional fees for the service provided will be based on results of the training that are going to be done for each group. Completion of training of each group with an attached report and supporting documents can be measured as a result which can prompt a payment based on that deliverable, e.g All association representatives trained.

Qualifications and Experience

1. At least an advanced degree in Agronomy, Horticulture, Agribusiness, Rural development or any related field.
2. Proven practical experience of similar work in the Mozambican context, with the ability to provide evidence of success.
3. Experience in market systems development will be an added advantage especially in the vegetables value chains including quality control.
4. Experience working in Zambezia and Nampula Provinces is required with preference to be a consultant with residence in either of these 2 provinces.
5. Familiarity with the Milanje district of Zambezi and the inclusion of a Chichewa-speaking person in the team will also be an added advantage.

Proposals should include:

a) Letter of interest that includes a proposed approach and method.

b) A financial proposal based on the terms of the payment section above, which includes a projected number of successfully trained participants that can be completed by the 30th of June 2026.

c) CVs of the training team.

d) Official documents: Trader’s License, TIN/VRN Certificate, Tax Clearance Certificate, Business License Certificate