81284489 - Strengthening of agriculture in Lebanon

Description

The project Strengthening the Resilience of Smallholder farmers, Micro and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Local Communities primarily follows BMZ strategy paper 02/2020 Strategy on Transitional Development Assistance. It also follows the Lebanon Reform, Recovery & Reconstruction Framework drawn up in August 2020 by part of the international donor community and the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan revised in 2020 and relates to the national agricultural strategy of the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture (in effect from 2020 to 2025). A country strategy for Lebanon is currently being revised. It is the objective of the transitional development assistance project to strengthen the socio-economic resilience of vulnerable groups in Bekaa and Mount Lebanon. The transitional development assistance measure planned aims to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable groups and is divided into three fields of action. These fields are: (1) strengthening the agricultural sector, reflected in the first project objective indicator, (2) funding for MSMEs and start-up funding, reflected in project objective indicators 2 and 3, as well as (3) promotion of social cohesion at the local level (fourth project objective indicator). The project therefore contributes to the implementation of the BMZ Strategy on Transitional Development Assistance and particularly assists with field of action 1 'Food and nutrition security' and 4 'Peaceful and inclusive communities' set out in the strategy. By strengthening production capacities in the country and promoting local economic and business cycles, a contribution to the cross-cutting issue of employment security will also be made. Transitional development assistance field of action 'Peaceful and inclusive communities', as an integral aspect of the Strategy on Transitional Development Assistance ('Overcoming crises, strengthening resilience, creating new prospects'), is addressed indirectly since economic relations and the exchange of information for dealing with the crisis across political-sectarian lines of conflict are supported. In specific terms, the project will play a role in promoting social cohesion at the local level by encouraging social participation and transparent decision-making in selected communities and by supporting solidarity initiatives for strengthening communities. Support in the form of a behavioral science-based community survey during implementation, particularly in terms of promoting social cohesion, will increase the effectiveness of the project since the findings of the survey are to be incorporated into the conflict-sensitive monitoring process and will help with the collection of new evidence - for example in order to improve horizontal social cohesion (attitude towards other groups) within the selected communities. Lot 1: The subject of the call for proposals is field of action 1. Field of action 1 of the project relates to the promotion of agricultural production (not the transitional development assistance strategy) and is depicted in project objective indicator 1 and backed by output A. The contractor is responsible for achieving the target indicator, output and output indicators described in the terms of reference. The results hypothesis of Output A aims to support selected agricultural associations to adapt their production systems to the crisis-changed market conditions through Good Agricultural Practices. The hypothesis is that through optimised cooperation, an adaptation of their product range and a reduction of import dependency, agricultural Micro and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises can increase their competitiveness, stabilise their income and thus maintain or create new jobs. In addition, the amount of local agricultural products increases, which contributes to food security. In addition to stabilisation and adaptation capacities, a contribution to transformation is made by opening up new markets. Output A aims to adapt selected agricultural enterprises to the crisis-induced changes and to achieve economies of scale through mergers. To this end, smallholder farmers are motivated to organise themselves into loose communities through start-up financing, flanked by capacity development, or established co-operatives are selected whose production is not adapted to the current crisis situation. In both scenarios, the increased area under cultivation or the higher number of livestock leads to increased production adapted to the target markets. The market position of the jointly organised, gender-balanced agricultural Micro and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises is improved by strengthening their technical and entrepreneurial capacities. A participatory value chain analysis, including market analysis, identifies a cluster of products with a high potential in the crisis despite strong market shifts and explores possibilities for import reduction. The competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises for the national, regional and international market is thus increased. The respective social, economic and ecological added value and the risks, including environmental and climate risks, also for municipalities and rural districts (Field of action 3) are to be worked out in concrete terms in order to convince small farmers to convert their production systems. Milestones include: The value chain analyses, and product identification are available, best practices have been recorded and processed into models of resilience promotion, horizontal associations and vertical co-operations have been identified.