Call for Expression of Interest – Consultant to assess “The Impact of Rainforest Alliance Certified Coffee Production Practices on Farmer Well-being and Resilience in the Central Highlands of Vietnam”

Vietnam's coffee-producing regions are highly vulnerable to climate change, with smallholder farmers particularly unprepared for its consequences. Phuc Sinh Corporation (“Phuc Sinh”), a leading promoter and trader of Rainforest Alliance (RA) Standard coffee, is dedicated to extending the benefits of RA practices to as many farmers as possible. Their goal is to expand RA-certified coffee cultivation from around 3,620 hectares in 2023 to nearly double that by 2028. Through the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD) Origination Facility, SNV intends to support this ambitious initiative.

To facilitate this initiative, the DFCD Origination Facility’s investment committee has approved an origination project proposal titled “Scaling climate-smart coffee practices among vulnerable communities in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, by Phuc Sinh.”. This proposal will assist Phuc Sinh in preparing an investment plan to scale its deforestation-free coffee business by extending RA-certified practices to a broader base of farmers.

This investment plan will enable Phuc Sinh to help farmers adopt sustainable and climate-smart farming practices required by the RA standard, that will enhance their coffee farming to become more resilient to the impacts caused by climate change. To better understand the impact of RA-certified production practices on the resilience of coffee farmers that supply to Phuc Sinh in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, this request is prepared.

Objectives of the assignment

The objective is to understand to what extent the Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified coffee production practices increase the well-being and resilience of coffee farmers that supply to Phuc Sinh in Vietnam’s Central Highlands (Đắk Lắk and Đắk Nông province), compared to a baseline of conventional coffee production. The questions we seek to answer:

1. What is the well-being of the conventional coffee farmer in the Central Highlands of Vietnam (Đắk Lắk and Đắk Nông province)? This presents the baseline for the newly trained and certified farmers in Phuc Sinh’s value chain.
2. What is the well-being of the RA Standard certified coffee farmer supplying to Phuc Sinh in the Central Highlands of Vietnam (Đắk Lắk and Đắk Nông province)?
3. Is there a significant difference in well-being and resilience between these two groups of coffee farmers? 

Methodology

The proposed methodology is the Farmer Thriving Index developed by 60 Decibels, see here for more details. It is a standardised survey instrument that measures the well-being of farmers across four key themes: living standards, food security, resilience, and a farmers’ own outlook on the future of coffee as a livelihood. This survey can be delivered cost effectively remotely by phone, or more specifically by Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI) and conducted by local research assistants recruited and trained in Vietnam, speaking the local language from the districts targeted.

Sample size: A confidence level of 90% and a margin of error of 5% is deemed acceptable for this survey. The corresponding sample size can be calculated here using (i) the number of certified farmers that Phuc Sinh is sourcing from, and the conventional farmer population.

Sampling: We propose to use stratified sampling by gender. Where possible, we advise to randomly sample equally from a list of male and female coffee farmers with the aim for 50% of sample size to be female and 50% to be male. This will mainly depend on the farmer details obtained from the list of certified farmers that Phuc Sinh sourced from during the last harvest. Where gender information is not available, we propose to randomly select whom to interview. If there is a sufficient sample size by gender segment, we welcome a segmented analysis.

Survey: The design of the survey tool for coffee farmers should be aligned with the 60 Decibels ‘Coffee Farmer Thriving Index’ applied in Uganda and Rwanda, covering living standards, resilience, coffee farming outlook, and food security. The survey will have a mix of quantitative, multiple-choice and qualitative (open-ended) questions and will be designed to ensure it does not exceed 20 minutes.

The Consultant should note that this methodology must be applied using a remote survey technique to minimise data collection costs.

Expected activities

The Consultant will be expected to carry out the following activities under the guidance and supervision of SNV’s Business Origination Advisor and Phuc Sinh Group’s Sustainability Team.

• Kick-off call within 48 hours of contract signature. Consultant will be invited for a kick-off call where the SNV and Phuc Sinh team will introduce the assignment and discuss the questionnaire. A list of phone numbers of potential respondents will be supplied to the Consultant by the SNV team.
• Approval of data collection instrument by the SNV team, including research mode and sample sizes, before the survey is sent into production.
• Remote survey for data collection. Conduct Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI) using the ‘Coffee Farmer Thriving Index’ survey instrument.
• Monitoring of the survey. Delivery of interim data agreed upon between SNV and the Consultant.
• Quality control. Quality checks and data cleaning of raw survey data.
• Submission of raw survey data in Excel format. The SNV team gets the chance to ask for clarifications of the raw data provided in Excel format before the impact report is drafted.
• Submission of a draft report in PowerPoint format. The SNV and Phuc Sinh team get the chance to provide comments before a final version is delivered.
• Submission of a final report in PowerPoint format.

 Submission Requirements:

Interested consultants/ firms should submit the EOIs with following information/ documents via instructions in this site.

1. Letter of Interest
2. The applicant’s professional qualifications and CVs or profile which requires:

• Proven experience with a track record of at least 5 years in conducting remote surveys and conducting impact measurement in the international development setting, with experience of this work in the agriculture sector. Experience in the coffee sector will be positively evaluated.
• Strong track record in conducting remote surveys. A minimum of 5 years’ experience.
• Demonstrated experience working across Vietnam. Experience in Central Highlands will be positively evaluated.
• On the ground presence in Vietnam or an established network of a local partner. Consultants may work together to form an association or a sub-consultancy agreement to complement their respective areas of expertise.
• Experience working with for-profit businesses.
• Fluency in written and oral English.

1. Due Diligence Declaration Form https://c.smartrecruiters.com/sr-company-attachments-prod-aws-dc5/58919688e4b0672cc03331a9/f0b32ef9-521d-4543-b215-ccfab380dc0f?r=s3-eu-central-1
2. Business license of the firms (if any)

Deadline for EOI Submissions:

EOIs are due 17:00 on April 15th, 2025.

Selection Process

SNV will review all Expressions of Interest (EOIs) received in accordance with the guidelines and criteria in this solicitation. SNV reserves the right to exclude any EOIs that do not meet the guidelines. Please note that SNV is unable to provide detailed feedback to those EOIs that are not selected.

Step 1: SNV will shortlist selected EOIs, and unsuccessful respondents will be notified. Successful applicants will be contacted by SNV.

Step 2: SNV will release Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for the specific activities and contract with the selected organizations/ consultants.

Protection of Information

We request that Expressions of Interest responses be free of any intellectual property that the applicant wishes to protect. Should offerors wish to include proprietary intellectual property that they believe would be helpful for SNV, please note the proprietary nature of such information. Costing information will be kept confidential and will not be shared beyond SNV.

Issuance of this EOI does not constitute a commitment, award, or engagement on the part of SNV nor does it commit SNV to any future commitment or engagement. 

Note: SNV reserves the right to change or cancel this requirement in the EOI/or solicitation process at any time