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TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR A NATIONAL CONSULTANT FOR FOOD BALANCE SHEETS COMPILATION IN MALAWI
1. Context and Justification
Food Balance Sheets (FBS) statistics are key for assessing a country’s food security situation and its entire food and agriculture sector. One of the major outputs of FBS statistics is the estimation of Dietary Energy Supply (DES), measured by the number of kilocalories per person and per day. The DES is an essential indicator to analyze the food security situation in a country.
In addition to the DES, the data from FBS can also be used to generate other nutritional indicators, such as the quantities of fats or proteins per person and per day, in order to assess the quality of the nutrition in a country, as well as the changes in diets over time. They are also instrumental in the derivation of the Food Loss Index (FLI), which is another important SDG indicator (SDG Target 12.3), which seeks to halve global food waste at retail and consumer levels and to reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.
Furthermore, the availability of complete and up-to-date FBS statistics allows the measurement of self-sufficiency ratios with respect to food production (ratio of domestic production to domestic demand), and a country’s dependency on imports (ratio of imports to domestic demand). These metrics, produced by commodity or at the aggregate level, constitute very useful pieces of information for decision-makers in the agricultural sector to assess the gaps in terms of food supply, as well as to better orient public and private investments.
In order to improve the existing Cereals Balance Sheets (CBS) compilation system of Malawi and upgrade it to a comprehensive FBS compilation system, the Central Statistics Office and the Ministry of Agriculture of Malawi are receiving technical assistance from COMESA through the Pan African Statistics Programme (PAS II) project funded by the European Union
To contribute to a successful implementation of required activities for the improvement and upgrade of the FBS compilation system, PAS II and COMESA would therefore like to recruit a national consultant in Statistics and Food Security to assist national stakeholders compile the FBS.
2. Objective of the consultancy
The overall objective of this consultancy is to assist Malawi FBS Team in Food Balance Sheets compilation, aiming at improving and upgrading the existing CBS to a comprehensive FBS compilation system and producing a comprehensive report on the first FBS results based on the current data.
3. Tasks of the Consultant
Under the overall supervision of the Director of Agriculture and Economics Statistics and direct supervision of the Director of Agricultural Planning Services in the Ministry of Agriculture of Malawi, the consultant will contribute to the implementation of the activities required to improve and upgrade the existing CBS to a comprehensive FBS compilation system, and produce a report on the first FBS results, through the following tasks:
- Assist Malawi FBS Team and other stakeholders in collecting, compiling and analysing statistical information related to Supply and Utilization Accounts (SUAs) and FBS basic data;
- Actively participate in the preparation of the meetings of the Technical Working Group on Food Balance Sheet Statistics (TWG_FBS) as well as other related national workshops;
- With support of the international consultant, assist Malawi FBS Team to compile and validate SUA/FBS basic data and produce FBS preliminary results for 2019-2023 reference years, including the two SDG indicators (Food Loss Index and Prevalence of Undernourishment);
- Support the international provide training and technical support to the Malawi FBS Team on FBS compilation, analysis, and reporting.
- Support the international consultant develop training materials and guidelines to ensure sustainability of the FBS system in future cycles.
- Assist Malawi FBS Team to review the preliminary results in order to identify the inconsistencies and address them;
- Contribute to the preparation and organization of the national workshop for the technical validation of FBS results, and related indicators;
- Compile data on key food commodities, including production, imports, exports, stocks, and utilization.
- Contribute to the preparation of a comprehensive analysis report (including the two SDG indicators), highlighting the methodology used.
- Contribute to the professional editing and proof-reading process of the publishable version of the FBS report;
- Contribute to the publication and dissemination of the FBS report; (xii) Assist Malawi FBS Team in preparing reports, presentations, and technical documents; and
- Any other related task as may be required.
4. Deliverables
- Inception report outlining methodology, work plan and proposed improvements to the CBS system.
- Annual FBS results for years under consideration as well as resulting indicators (Dietary Energy Supply, Self-Sufficiency Ratio, Import Dependency Ratio, and the 2 related SDG indicators, etc.);
- Final report, with analysis of the FBS results;
- Professional edited and proof-read (after the graphic design) version of the publishable version of the FBS report; and
- Presentation summarizing key findings, recommendations and other communication materials.
The deliverables shall be submitted in English to the Ministry of Agriculture and CSO, with copy to PAS Il and COMESA, according to an agreed-upon timeline and format.
5. Length of the Consultancy
The services of the consultant are required for a duration of about 20 man-days. The work shall start as soon as possible, and the tasks will be spread over the duration of the implementation period of the FBS roadmap.
6. Experience and Qualification
The national consultant in statistics and food security analysis must have a university degree in statistics or in a quantitative discipline and possess the following skills or experience:
- He/She must possess at least a master’s degree, preferably in statistics, Economics, and/or Quantitative or Scientific Disciplines (e.g. Mathematics, etc.), with a focus on food security;
- He/She must have a good knowledge of the national system of agricultural statistics in Malawi;
- He/She must have at least five years of professional experience in the field of statistics, ideally in relation with agriculture and/ or food security;
- Proven experience in Food Balance Sheets or similar data compilation systems, particularly within a national context.
- He/She must be experienced in processing and analysing large amounts of data related to food and agriculture;
- He/She must be proficient in Excel, Word and Power Point, SPSS, Stata, R;
- He/She must possess excellent written and verbal communication skills in English, which is required to prepare high quality reports in a clear and concise way.
How to apply:
Interested candidates should submit:
1. CV (max. 3 pages)
2. Cover letter (max. 1 page)
Applications should be sent via email to nbanda@comesa.int with a copy to lsimonga@comesa.int
The deadline for Applications is 22nd November 2024.
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