Procedure Guide for making Public Purchases from Family Farming by the School Feeding Program At Save the Children

Consultancy

Procedure Guide for making Public Purchases from Family Farming by the School Feeding Program

Consulting Context

In October 2017, Guatemala approved the School Food Law through Government Decree 16-2017. The objective of the law is to guarantee school food, promote health and encourage healthy eating for the child and adolescent population attending public and private schools, in order to optimize their teaching and learning process.

The Law establishes that the rector of the School Feeding Program is the Ministry of Education and must coordinate the actions of specific competences with the Ministries of Public Health and Agriculture, Livestock and Food.

Likewise, in its article 15, defined as Purchases from family farming, it establishes that Parents’ Organizations -OPF- (which manage public funds for school meals in a decentralized manner) must allocate 70% of the resources assigned to local purchases from family farming.

For the year 2024, the allocation that the Government of the Republic transferred to the OPF for school meals was Q.3,260.7 million quetzales, which represents that at least 210 million quetzales should have been allocated to purchases from family agriculture producers.

This is a great opportunity to boost the rural economy through local purchases of agricultural products produced by farmers classified as Family Farming. In addition, there will be better traceability of the food purchased, the products will be fresher and more nutritious, among other advantages.

However, currently in order to comply with article 15 of the School Food Law (purchases from Family Farming), the responsible institutions (MAGA, MINEDUC) and local actors (OPF, family farmers) must have the necessary mechanisms and instruments that facilitate the processes established by law.

This type of purchasing requires the schools to approach the family agriculture producers present in the area, through the parents’ organization OPF, through legal registration with the Superintendency of Tax Administration (SAT). This last aspect is new for many producers in the country.

The uncertainty of government institutions is due to the fact that producers classified as Family Agriculture have not had experience in being suppliers of public programs, therefore, farmers have limited knowledge, skills and availability of supply, to be PAE suppliers, because they have limited land extension and therefore individual production is reduced. Individually, they are not farmers formalized before the SAT, which does not allow them to have documents such as invoices, to support sales to Parents’ Organizations and also individually they have little capacity for commercial negotiation.

This requires the promotion of organizations that allow for a larger scale of supply, formalization before the SAT and improvement of commercial negotiations before the OPFs.

This situation makes evident the need to strengthen all actors (governmental, OPFs, family agriculture producers) in the use of instruments that will improve the capacities of these actors to make the implementation of the provisions of article 15 mentioned in the previous paragraphs more efficient. These instruments will be: i) strengthening of the inter-institutional commissions of School Feeding in the territories, ii) manual of purchases from AF, iii) processes for the application of the law. This will allow defining the mechanisms consistent with the law and the regulations and in this way, both suppliers and demanders, as well as government institutions, carry out their operations with certainty, transparency, in an orderly and systematic manner. This may include general information about the country, the economic environment, the institutional environment, the security environment, news about emergency situations, specific information about projects/activities, etc.

Scope of the contract

Professional services to prepare an internal proposal for a Guide to Procedures for making Public Purchases from Family Agriculture by the School Feeding Program

Aim

Develop technical support actions to implement the proposed Guide to Procedures for Public Purchases from Family Farming by the School Feeding Program.

Services provided by the supplier

a) Develop the work plan containing the compliance schedule.

b) Conduct a bibliographic review of what is currently done in Family Farming Purchases by the School Feeding Program.

c) Conduct field visits to 3 selected departments (departmental capitals of San Marcos, Chiquimula and El Quiché), where the program is implemented, according to the schedule approved by the Vice Office of Food and Nutritional Security, of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food.

d) Participate in working meetings with the relevant departments considered by the Vice-Office of Food and Nutritional Security of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food.

e) Prepare a proposal for a Procedure Guide for making Public Purchases from Family Farming by the School Feeding Program.

Location and corresponding official trips

The supplier will have to travel to the departmental capitals of San Marcos, Chiquimula and El Quiché where the Food Program intervenes.

Any necessary travel will need to be approved in advance by SCI,

Required experience and skills

This consultancy will be carried out by a professional or consulting team that has previously demonstrated experience and training, as well as their commitment to Save the Children.

Academic degree:

• Consulting firm or independent professional in the Social Sciences at the bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral level.
• Experience related to food education with knowledge related to the School Feeding Program and Purchases from Family Farms.
• Experience in community work, direction or coordination of social, educational, childhood, youth and adolescent programs.
• Experience in preparing instruments and records of support and monitoring processes.

Skills:

• Coordinate and support work with other bodies.
• Oral and written communication.
• Knowledge of the Office package program.
• Ability to work in a team.
• With very good communication and interpersonal relationships.