Individual Consultant: Collect and Analyze Data for the Development of a Ghana Rice Sector Data Repository

Job Description

Background

The ECOWAS Rice Observatory (ERO) is a multi-stakeholder platform, conceptualized and established by ECOWAS, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Competitive Africa Rice Initiative (CARI) to foster sustainable development and investment in the rice value chain across ECOWAS countries. Supported by a diverse group of partners, including the ECOWAS Commission, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, JICA, FCDO, AGRA, and various development banks such as The World Bank, IsDB, AfricaRice, and GiZ. The ERO’s primary objective is to assist key stakeholders in the West African rice sector in better coordinating policy, value chain development, financing, and R&D to work synergistically, reduce dependence on imported rice, create employment opportunities, and increase income for smallholder farmers.

The ERO national chapters, known in Ghana as Competitive African Rice Platforms (CARPs), are being formed in participating countries as part of the ERO’s governance structure. These national chapters act as policy coalitions, addressing local needs and priorities while collaborating with the private and public sectors to develop mutually beneficial solutions.

The Ghana Chapter of the Competitive African Rice Platform (CARP) has been established, receiving financial support from the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) and technical and administrative support from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and AGRA. The Ghana CARP aims to enhance sustainability and competitiveness in the rice sector within Ghana and beyond. This has necessitated the need to build the capacity of rice processors in postharvest management and best parboiling practices to improve rice quality and market competitiveness.

Rationale for the Assignment

Despite the strategic importance of the rice sector to Ghana’s food security, employment, and economic development, the sector continues to face significant challenges stemming from the lack of accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data across the rice value chain. Decision-making by policymakers, investors, development partners, and value chain actors is often hindered by the availability of fragmented, outdated, or inaccessible information. This limits the effective planning, coordination, and targeting of interventions needed to enhance domestic rice production and reduce dependency on imports.

Currently, data on rice production capacities, milling recovery rates, input usage, consumption patterns, per capita consumption, infrastructure availability, and import volumes are scattered across institutions or unavailable. This absence of a centralized, reliable data repository has contributed to duplication of efforts, inefficient investments, weak private sector participation, and a lack of evidence-based advocacy.

As the national platform for coordinating rice sector development in Ghana, CARP Ghana seeks to address this critical gap by initiating the development of a Ghana Rice Sector Data Repository. This repository will serve as a central knowledge base for real-time data collection, analysis, and dissemination to support policy formulation, value chain development, and investment promotion. To establish this system, CARP Ghana is commissioning a consultancy to collect and analyze key datasets that form the foundational blocks of the repository. This consultancy will provide empirical insights and a comprehensive database that will:

• Guide strategic interventions across the rice value chain;
• Facilitate coordination among stakeholders and development partners;
• Enhance evidence-based advocacy and engagement with government; and
• Attract private sector investments through improved data transparency and accessibility. The assignment is therefore critical to enabling CARP Ghana’s role as a coordinating and knowledgedriven platform and to achieving national rice self-sufficiency targets in line with Ghana’s NRDS II and food systems transformation agenda. 2.

Objectives

Main Objective

The main objective is to collect, compile, validate, and analyze key rice sector data to build a robust national rice-sector data repository.

Specific Objectives

• Collect data on production capacities (by region, by actor – smallholder, commercial, etc.).
• Analyze availability and use of rice production inputs (seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, mechanization).
• Document milling capacity and recovery rates (parboiled and raw). • Gather accurate data on rice imports (volume, source, trends).
• Estimate domestic consumption and per capita annual rice consumption.
• Map available infrastructure across the value chain (warehousing, irrigation schemes, roads, mills, drying platforms, etc.).

Scope of Work

The consultant will be responsible for:

• Designing appropriate data collection tools and protocols.
• Conducting literature and document reviews of secondary data to map and integrate existing data efforts (MoFA, AfricaRice, NRDS II, JICA, GIZ, etc.) to avoid duplication and ensure completeness.
• Collecting primary data from rice sector actors (producers, millers, aggregators, input suppliers, regulatory institutions).
• Verifying and validating data with relevant stakeholders and institutions (e.g., MoFA, GRA, Ghana Standards Authority, Customs Division, major importers).
• Analyzing and disaggregating data by region, sex, and actor category, where relevant.
• Producing a comprehensive data report and data sets to populate CARP Ghana’s rice sector repository.

Duration

The expected duration for the training is three (3) months.

Qualifications and Experience

Minimum Qualification and Experience

The Individual Consultant is expected to meet the following minimum requirements:

• A minimum of a master’s degree in Agriculture, Agribusiness, Agricultural Engineering, Environment, or a related field. agricultural economics, data science, and statistical analysis skills, with proven experience in field surveys, KIIs, use of tools such as ODK/KoboToolbox, and analysis in STATA/SPSS/Excel.
• A good qualification in quality assurance will be an added advantage.
• At least 10 years of experience in data collection on: milling capacity, milling recovery, post-harvest management loss, rice, mill distribution, the distribution of rice valleys, and milling capacities.
• Proven experience in conducting Agricultural data collection, database development programs, particularly in the rice sector of Ghana and by extension the ECOWAS region.
• Strong knowledge in data quality assurance.
• Excellent communication and research skills.
• Experience working in Ghana or West Africa will be an added advantage.

About the Organization

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