ASPIRE is a 7-year programme of the Royal Government of Cambodia.  The Programme became effective with the signing of the Financing Agreement between the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) and International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) on 5th March 2015. The Programme Implementation Date is June 2015 and was officially launched on 8-9 October 2015. The Programme Completion Date is 31 March 2022 and the Financial Closing Date is 31 September 2022. The overall development goal of the ASPIRE Programme is to reduce poverty and to increase resilience of 144,000 poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers in Cambodia by increasing an average household agricultural production value by 20% and value of household assets by 25%.  The development objective is to establish an “enhanced Cambodia model of agriculture services which is demonstrated as effective for assisting a diversity of smallholder farmers to contribute to broad-based economic growth through profitable and resilience farm businesses and is adopted as policy by 2021”. The ASPIRE programme is implemented in 24 provinces of the country through the Provincial Sub-programme. To date ASPIRE has facilitated the development of more than 1,920 business clusters with almost 70,000 householder members. The programme also has been supporting more than 250 farmer organizations (FO) across the country and some of these business clusters are formed within FOs, based on specific crop/product or commodity.

In 2018, when PADEE, another RGC project funded by IFAD concluded after 4 years of implementation, the Improved Groups for Revolving Funds (IGRFs) formed under the PADEE were merged into ASPIRE as stated in the PADEE completion report where “a roadmap for the integration of PADEE activities (IGRFs) into the new IFAD programme ASPIRE was developed for the continuity of results”. In the ASPIRE midterm review, “support to existing (IGRFs)” was articulated.

Agriculture productivity linking to markets is a key point to add value to farmer revenue; for supporting this case, agriculture extension services play a key role to disseminate technology of agriculture sciences, good agriculture practices including climate resilience and sustainable resource management and linkage to market. Extension services are diverse and include services funded by central government (using budget revenues and assistance from development partners) but may also be funded by non-profit organisations, by the private sector or by farmers themselves. The amount and type of funding for extension services is linked to policy objectives which include improving the livelihoods of poor, near-poor and vulnerable smallholder farmers. MAFF (DPS/DAF) intend to conduct a study of the future funding of extension services from all sources, and to develop recommendations to maximise the effectiveness of extension services in relation to RGC’s broad policy objectives for the agriculture sector.

The study will be carried out through wide-ranging consultation with all relevant stakeholders. As defined in the PAEC, these stakeholders include MAFF and PDAFFs, other Government agencies and sub-national governments, development partners, NGOs, research and educational institutions, input suppliers, private companies, community-based organisations (CBOs), farmers, farmer promoters, farmer cooperatives, consultant’s/agriculture agents and possibly religious institutions.

As concerned, MAFF/ASPIRE program had conducted the Review of Agriculture Extension Policy in Cambodia last year (2020) found several challenges on limited budget to provide extension services for smallholder farmers in Cambodia. The review also identified some general recommendations to address the issues of limited resources due to increasing extension services for livestock, forestry, and fisheries sub-sectors. Add to this, poor linkage financial management reports between budget entities and financial managing entity in term of implementing the program budget in the MAFF.

DAF, which oversees the management of public financial flow for MAFF, endeavors to ensure compliance of the agriculture fund flow and management. It is currently intending to develop an outline of MAFF financial management manual for internal use, especially in support of future funding for agriculture extension services in Cambodia.

The study term of reference (ToR) is prepared to contract the services of a consulting firm to conduct the study of future funding of agriculture extension services and prepare the report including policy recommendations for RGC, development partners and other stakeholders; and to conduct desk assessment of MAFF’s public financial management to notify fund flow on agriculture extension services in subsectors expenditure; such as crop, livestock, aquaculture and agriculture education subsectors and then prepare an outline for input to public financial management manual for MAFF (PFMM/MAFF) internal use.

The consulting firm’s main activities also will include the collection of information on current funding modalities which will provide a guidance policy direction for better future funding of extension services in Cambodia agriculture sector.

This study is intended to achieve 3 key objectives:

1. 1. Review current funding of agriculture extension services from all sources (including RGC budget, private sector, development partners, civil society organizations and farmers). Estimate the amount of funding of each type and how well the funding contributes to the achievement of RGC’s policy objectives;
   2. Estimate expected future trends in each type of extension funding;
   3. Present policy recommendations to maximize the effectiveness of extension funding from all funding types.

The consulting firm will work under the supervision of the ASPIRE Programme Budget task force Manager and DPS Director. The consulting firm will work in close collaboration with the ASPIRE Programme Budget Coordinator. The consulting firm will cooperate and consult with a wide range of stakeholders and experts to gather information and prepare the draft and final reports for ASPIRE PB task force management.

The report will be prepared by showing evidence-based information and data collection through field works, meetings, discussions and consultations with all related stakeholders including government institutions, development partners, and private sectors and farmers.

Expected deliverables from the IGRF feasibility study are:

• Inception report demonstrating satisfactory completion of tasks
• Research findings presented to MAFF in summary form on completion of task
• Draft report including recommendations presented to MAFF on completion of tasks)

Final report integrating the findings of stakeholder consultations on the draft