ACCESS TO FINANCE RWANDA

Request for Proposals

For

RECRUITING A CONSULTING FIRM TO UNDERTAKE AN ASSESSMENT AND DEVELOP ACTIONABLE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR STRENGTHENING AND SCALING UP THE NATIONAL AGRICULTURE INSURANCE SCHEME (NAIS) IN RWANDA.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

PROCUREMENT REFERENCE NUMBER: AFR/RFP-STRENGTHENING NAIS/OCT/2026.

1. Background and Rationale

The Government of Rwanda launched the National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) in 2019 as a flagship agricultural risk-financing instrument to protect farmers against insured crop and livestock losses, strengthen resilience, and facilitate access to agricultural finance. The Scheme is implemented through a public-private partnership bringing together Government institutions, insurers, reinsurers, financial institutions, farmer organizations, veterinarians, loss assessors, development partners, and other relevant stakeholders.

NAIS has now transitioned from its establishment phase into a consolidation and scale-up phase, marked by expanded coverage across crop and livestock value chains, growing awareness and uptake of agricultural insurance, increased claims support to affected farmers, and strengthened collaboration among sector stakeholders. However, important challenges remain around insurance literacy and uptake, product relevance and affordability, claims experience, data quality and availability, digitalization, integration with agricultural finance, actuarial and reinsurance arrangements, subsidy sustainability, and effective monitoring and evaluation. Against this backdrop, MINECOFIN, MINAGRI, and AFR intend to undertake an independent assessment to evaluate progress made to date, identify key achievements, lessons learned, and persistent gaps, and generate practical, evidence-based recommendations to inform the strengthening and revamping of the next phase of the NAIS. The assessment will be aligned with NST2, PSTA5, Vision 2050, the Financial Sector Development Programme, the National Insurance Strategy, Rwanda’s Disaster Risk Financing priorities, and relevant international good practices, ensuring that the future design and implementation of NAIS is responsive to Rwanda’s evolving agricultural risk landscape and broader financial resilience objectives.

2. Objective of the assessment

The overall objective of the assessment is to generate a robust evidence base and practical, prioritized, and actionable recommendations to guide Rwanda in strengthening and transitioning the National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) into a modern, sustainable, inclusive, market-oriented, and climate-smart agricultural risk-financing instrument. The assessment will evaluate the Scheme’s performance, achievements, and contribution during the InsuResilience Solutions Fund (ISF) and Commercialization and De-Risking for Agricultural Transformation (CDAT) implementation period; assess its value for money, financial and fiscal sustainability, market-development effects, and broader economic additionality; and identify the operational, financial, institutional, regulatory, and policy reforms required for the next phase. It will inform measures to improve farmers’ protection against agricultural risks; crowd in private capital and capabilities; deepen the agricultural insurance market and generate positive spillovers for the wider insurance sector; expand access to credit and other financial services; stimulate productive investment, enterprise growth, and commercialization; strengthen climate resilience and inclusion; and contribute to food security, improved rural livelihoods, and sustainable agricultural transformation.

2.1 Specific Objectives

The assessment will pursue the following specific objectives:

• Assess NAIS performance, resilience, and development outcomes: Evaluate progress against the Scheme’s strategic objectives; assess its contribution to farmers’ risk resilience, recovery, livelihoods, and broader agricultural development outcomes; identify achievements, lessons, implementation challenges, and persistent gaps; and assess the effectiveness of operational, institutional, policy and governance arrangements.
• Assess the relevance, effectiveness, quality and inclusiveness of products and delivery: Evaluate product suitability, affordability, coverage, basis risk and performance in addressing farmers’ evolving risks; assess awareness, uptake, renewal, retention and satisfaction; and review the efficiency, timeliness, transparency and accessibility of enrolment, underwriting, loss assessment, claims settlement and digital delivery, with results disaggregated where feasible by sex, age, farm size, geography, value chain and vulnerability.
• Assess value for money, financial sustainability, and fiscal affordability: Evaluate public expenditure on premium subsidies and scheme administration against economy, efficiency, effectiveness, equity, additionality, and sustainability; analyse subsidy incidence, leverage of farmer premiums and private capital, unit costs and benefits, fiscal risks, and alternative scale-up scenarios; and assess pricing, claims, reinsurance, and risk-sharing arrangements. Where monetization is feasible, estimate indicative benefit-cost or social-return measures; otherwise, apply a transparent value-for-money scorecard.
• Assess agricultural insurance and wider insurance-market development: Determine NAIS’s contribution to market depth, competition, product and distribution innovation, insurer and reinsurer participation, professional and data capabilities, geographic and value-chain reach, farmer retention, and unsubsidized uptake. Examine whether public support crowds in or crowds out commercial products and investment, the potential pathway toward reduced dependence on subsidies, and evidenced spillovers to the broader insurance market, including rural distribution, digital infrastructure, insurance awareness, consumer trust, and uptake of other suitable insurance products.
• Assess private-sector growth, access to finance and economic additionality: Examine whether NAIS facilitates entry, investment and continued participation by insurers, reinsurers, financial institutions, intermediaries, aggregators and technology providers; assess its contribution to farmers’ and agribusinesses’ access to credit and other financial services, productive investment, adoption of improved and climate-smart technologies, enterprise growth and value-chain development; and clearly distinguish observed associations and plausible contribution pathways from causal attribution.
• Benchmark NAIS and identify strategic reform and innovation opportunities: Benchmark NAIS against relevant regional and international good practices; identify transferable lessons and practical opportunities for institutional, regulatory, product, delivery, digital, financial, and climate-risk-management reform; and define priority actions aligned with NST2, PSTA5, Vision 2050, the Financial Sector Development Programme, the National Insurance Strategy and Rwanda’s disaster risk-financing priorities.
• Develop a practical reform and implementation framework for the next phase of NAIS: Translate findings into a prioritized and sequenced implementation roadmap with clear responsibilities, indicative timelines, resource requirements where feasible, implementation risks, and a results-based Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning framework covering operational, financial, market-development, economic, inclusion, resilience, and broader development outcomes.

Interested bidders must confirm their intention to submit a bid by Wednesday October 21, 2026, at 17h00 HRS CAT

Any requests for clarifications to the RFP may be submitted by Monday, October 26, 2026, 17h00 HRS CAT.

Bidders should submit their proposals no later than Thursday November 5, 2026, 17:00 HRS CAT

Responding bidders are advised that this solicitation does not in any way obligate AFR to make a contract award or compensate the responding firms for any costs associated with the preparation and submission of their proposals. Additionally, AFR may award a contract without conducting negotiations; all proposals should be submitted initially using your most favorable terms. AFR reserves the right to award any resultant contract to other than the offeror submitting the lowest price proposal based on technical excellence, schedule superiority or client request.

All communications regarding this RFP should be addressed via email: procurement02@afr.rw