The Better Than Cash Alliance is working in partnership with the Ethical Tea Partnership to identify opportunities to promote inclusive growth, boost productivity, and improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and tea estate employees in the tea supply chain through digital payments. This project will endeavor to sustain and scale ongoing payment digitization initiatives in the tea sector whilst supporting the alignment of these initiatives with the Responsible Digital Payment Guidelines.

The purpose of this request for applications (RFA) is to support the partnership between the Ethical Tea Partnership and the Better Than Cash Alliance, to understand how digitizing payments can lead to increased efficiency and improved incomes for tea farmers, tea estate employees, factories, and retailers in Rwanda, through a digital payment assessment of the tea sector.

The Better Than Cash Alliance is seeking applications from qualified technical partners (e.g., commercial for-profit consulting firms, non-profit organizations, social enterprises) with proven experience in conducting primary and secondary data collection including multi-stakeholder interviews, and strong analytical expertise in reviewing information. They need to have experience of facilitating multi-stakeholder workshops and providing action-driven recommendations based on innovative approaches. The service provider needs to have experience working on access to financial services in Rwanda, with a particular focus on the adoption of digital financial services and business model analysis

Expected outputs are:

• Research strategy, work plan, and structure:
• Digital payment assessment of the tea sector identifying what has been done to date, the challenges and potential for enhancing and scaling responsible payment digitization solutions along the tea value chain
• Presentation of findings and recommendations at a key stakeholder event to be organized by The Better Than Cash Alliance.
• Pilot options for implementing/enhancing digital payments in their supply chain.

UNCDF will contribute a grant of up to USD 80,000 and will award one applicant pending on the investment readiness level and outreach potential of the solution proposed. The selected applicant who will be technically responsive to this Request for Application will sign a Performance-Based Agreement (PBA).

Inquiries about the RFA should be submitted via email to Katherine.rickard@uncdf.org; copying in (cc) momenat.al-khateeb@uncdf.org, and mimo.he@uncdf.org

Note that the deadline for:

• Submitting questions and inquiries on the RFA is July 9, 2021
• Applying to this RFA is July 19, 2021 - 23:59h EDT time

Please apply trough UNCDF's e-investment platform:

https://apply.uncdf.org/prog/btca_rfa_digitizing_payments_in_the_tea_sector_with_the_ethical_tea_partnership_in_rwanda