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”.

Through these Provincial Sub-Programmes, to date ASPIRE has facilitated the development of more than 1,920 Business Clusters with almost 70,000 smallholder farmer 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 6 years of implementation, support to Improved Group Revolving Funds (IGRFs) formed under PADEE was taken over by ASPIRE. A total of 984 IGRFs were formed across 5 provinces, namely Kandal, Takeo, Kampot, Prey Veng and Svay Rieng. Today most of these IGRFs are still operational, providing credit to members for farming business and other needs with over 30,000 borrowers. The portfolio at risk for the whole is less than 8%, maintaining a healthy and profitable portfolio.

Other group of farmers were established by TSSD called “Livelihood Improvement group” and AIMS called “Producer Group”.

The core beneficiaries of ASPIRE are smallholders. It is estimated that 75% of Cambodia live in rural Cambodia and are farmers. To date, the Department of Farmer Cooperative Promotion of MAFF has facilitated the development of over 1,200 farmer organizations (FO) across the country. Some of these cooperatives are operational and successful, while other are still progressing slowly and in need of development support. It is important to note that most members, if not all, are smallholders.

The past several years also saw many other donors and non-government organizations providing support to these Farmer Organizations. Often this support is not strategically harmonized nor coordinated to optimize effective impact of this assistance. To help streamline this strategic approach, a more cohesive and harmonized approach should be devised to target specific support to individual cooperative with precise needs. Accordingly, ASPIRE is embarking on an undertaking to map out FOs across the country, including ASPIRE supported Business Clusters and IGRFs. It is envisaged that the mapping of these farmer organizations will provide strategic information and details on the management and operations of these entities, including specific production/commodity data and capacity. This information will be beneficial to development partners, private sectors and public institutions to integrate into their development planning and interventions, business connections and relationship building and innovative extension technology support.

The objectives of the proposed mapping of Farmer Organizations are 1) to develop a comprehensive data-set and profiles in the country and 2) to ascertain production capacity of these entities in specific product/commodity or value chain. The mapping exercise is anticipated to provide important and useful information for:

• Development partners for consideration in their strategic intervention planning,
• Building and promotion of business connections and networking relationships between investment firms/agribusiness and cooperatives and other relevant actors in the value chain,
• Fostering business practices and knowledge sharing between and among cooperatives and groups, and
• Streamlining and harmonization of technical and market and technical intervention support to agriculture cooperatives and clusters.

Working definition of an FO: For the purposes of this assignment, a Farmer Organization (FO) means any grassroots group consisting wholly or mainly of smallholder farmers, based in one local area and formed for the purpose of long-term cooperation on activities related to production and marketing of agriculture produce. It is not limited to only formally registered Farmer Cooperatives. However, FO are expected to have an identifiable group leader and to have no set time-limit to their activities, i.e. it does not include groups that are expected to dissolve once an activity has been completed. It includes a formal and informal (registered or unregistered) membership-based collective action groups. The different types of the farmer organization in Cambodia includes: Producer Group, Cooperative, Business Cluster, Farmer Association, Farmer Network, Livelihood Improvement Group, Saving Group (for agriculture activity), Self-help Group (for agriculture activity), Farmer Water User Committee etc.

Expected deliverables from the Farmer Organization mapping exercise will be:

• Comprehensive profile directory of all farmer organizations in Cambodia, matching the definition abo and the profile information should contain details at least the contact address, list of the management, geo-location (so the map can be generated afterward), number of the member, the total size of their productive land, current production capacity, type of services provided to members, value chains activities, business connections, assets, certification if any, and trading/market clients and supported received from public institutions, development donors and NGOs. 
• Creation of the application and map that enable the FO to update their information on the real time basis.
• Completion report in Khmer and English submitted to and approved by ASPIRE Secretariat Management.

The Completion Report is to include recommendations for practical and coordinated strategies to provide targeted support to Farmer Organizations. The contracted consulting firm is expected to perform the following tasks:

1. Develop Inception Plan detailing timeframe, methodology, field work and activities undertaken to conduct the assignment. This is to be submitted to and approved by the ASPRIE Secretariat management prior to the actual mapping exercise.
2. Conduct desk review of and compile existing data on farmer organizations/cooperatives.
3. Coordinate and consult with the Department of Cooperative Promotion of MAFF to arrange relevant field activities, meetings with selected cooperative leaders and to conduct field data collection.
4. Hold consultation meetings with relevant donors and NGOs to compile information on their intervention support to farmer organizations and groups. This include type of intervention, funding support and specific technical assistance. This should provide a good table matrix of what type of funding and technical have been provided to FO in the past years.
5. Compile all contact details of FO leaders to develop profiles of each one.
6. In consultation with ASPIRE Management, select a representative sample of Farmer Organizations from the dataset for further study. The findings of the field studies will be used to develop a method to estimate production capacity, marketing potential, support needs etc, for the FO in the dataset. For the selected sample, the consulting firm will:
   1. Assess the production capacity of the FO in the sample, categorize and classify the FO by product and commodities.
   2. Conduct analysis of marketing arrangements of the FO. Based on this analysis provide recommendations to be considered to promote business connection and market network.
   3. Conduct representative or indicative SWOT analysis of FOs and draft strategies required for the development roadmap to support potential FOs to be commercially sustainable.
7. Conduct consultation workshop with ASPIRE management, selected donors and other relevant stakeholders to share overall results of the mapping exercise and seek their inputs.
8. Draft a comprehensive profile directory of FOs/Business Clusters/IGRFs in Khmer and English
9. Produce a comprehensive mapping report with practical intervention recommendations to assist FOs

Specific method and approaches:

• The mapping is a mix study method conducting 72 Focus Group Discussion, 72 Key Informant Interview; the quantitative Survey is to conduct 950 Farmer organization members, 42 Key Informant for PDAFF/NGOs staff.