Key Expert 3: Governance and Agriculture Policy Expert

EUROPEAN PROFILES S.A. (GR) is looking for experts for the implementation of the following EuropeAid Contract: Agricultural, forestry, horticultural, aquacultural and apicultural services. Second phase of the EU assistance for Uzbekistan AgriFood Development Strategy 2020-2030

 

Services Location: Uzbekistan

Start date: 1 October 2026

Duration: 48 months

Sector: Agriculture & Rural Development

 

Overall objective

The Overall Objective (Impact) of this action is to contribute to the development of a sustainable market-oriented and inclusive agri-food system that will increase farm income, expand livelihood opportunities and enhance food security for smallholder farmers, women and the most vulnerable groups in Uzbekistan.

 

Specific objective(s)

The Outcomes of this contract are as follows:

• Improved implementation framework of the agri-food development strategy enabling inclusive development of a fair, healthy and climate smart agri-food system:
• Improved sustainable livelihood opportunities, decent jobs and access to markets for the most vulnerable (smallholders, MSMEs, youth, women, disabled, migrants)

Key experts

Key experts have a crucial role in implementing the contract. These terms of reference contain the minimum requirements for the key experts.

Although minimum requirements for the experts are not selection criteria but award criteria meant to evaluate the technical quality of the offer, the compliance with these requirements is assessed on a YES/NO basis. If an expert does not meet the minimum requirements, the expert must be rejected on the basis of non-compliance. This means that the entire tender is rejected and shall not be evaluated further.

During the evaluation, higher scores will be awarded to the Expert's Profile that demonstrates, in addition to the minimum requirements, strengths in relation to the objectives, expected outputs, and scope of work. The award criteria may include additional desirable qualifications, skills and professional experience. These additional desirable criteria, will provide guidance on the elements that will be considered a strength and will receive higher scores.

The Key Expert's profile (Annex IV) shall be submitted by the tenderer for the following key experts:

 

Key Expert 3: Governance and Agriculture Policy Expert

Key Expert 3 will provide high-level expertise at the intersection of agricultural economics, public policy, and governance. Working closely with the Team Leader, the expert will be responsible for ensuring that all assignments under this contract are underpinned by a strong understanding of agri-food sector economics, while also reflecting sound governance principles and institutional feasibility.

The expert will contribute to the design and delivery of policy advice that is both economically grounded and practically implementable within government systems. This includes assessing how agricultural policies such as subsidies, market regulations, value chain interventions, and rural development programmes impact sector performance, incentives, and resource allocation, and ensuring that these policies are supported by coherent regulatory and institutional frameworks.

Key Expert 3 will play a central role in analysing and addressing governance constraints affecting the agricultural sector, including regulatory inefficiencies, institutional fragmentation, and policy coordination challenges. He/she will ensure that proposed reforms are informed by robust economic analysis and tailored to the administrative and political realities of Uzbekistan.

Working closely with the Team Leader and other experts, Key Expert 3 will contribute to the preparation of policy studies, regulatory reviews, and reform recommendations that are analytically rigorous, economically sound, and actionable for government stakeholders. The expert will also support the development of terms of reference, participate in the selection and guidance of non-key experts, and contribute to the structured review of deliverables, with particular attention to the economic rationale and policy coherence of proposed interventions.

In addition, the expert will engage with government counterparts to ensure that policy advice reflects sector priorities and supports effective decision-making, particularly in areas related to market development, competitiveness, and efficient use of public resources in agriculture.

The indicative time input is 120 working days per year (480 days over the full 48-month implementation period). Up to 10% of the expert's time may be delivered remotely (home-based), provided that the quality assurance function which requires direct engagement with government counterparts is not compromised. The large majority of working time must be spent in Uzbekistan to ensure close engagement with national authorities and stakeholders.

 

Qualifications and skills

Minimum requirements:

• Education: Master's degree in agricultural economics, economics, public policy, public administration, or a directly related discipline; or a Bachelor's degree plus four years of additional relevant professional experience.
• Language: Proficient knowledge of English (written and oral), minimum C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference..

Additional desirable qualifications:

• Language: Working knowledge of Russian.

General professional experience

Minimum requirements:

• At least 5 years of professional experience in agricultural economics, public policy, or agri-food sector development, including work on policy design, analysis, or implementation.

Specific professional experience

Minimum requirements:

• Strong experience in agricultural policy analysis, including assessment of policy instruments such as subsidies, price policies, trade measures, and rural development programmes.
• Demonstrated capacity to produce high-quality analytical outputs combining economic analysis with policy and governance considerations, and to formulate actionable recommendations for government institutions

Additional desirable qualifications:

• Experience working in or with developing economies, particularly in Central Asia or post-Soviet countries, with a strong understanding of structural and institutional reform processes.
• Experience advising government institutions on agricultural policy, sector reform, or public expenditure in agriculture.

Guidance on expert time inputs:

• Working days: performance of the contract (and therefore payment) is based solely on working days. The contractor will only be paid for days actually worked on the basis of the daily fee rate contained in the budget breakdown (Annex V). The time input for experts must be expressed in Full Time Equivalent (FTE). Tenderers must annex the Estimated number of working days worksheet contained in the spread sheet for Annex V to their organisation and methodology (Annex III) to demonstrate the correspondence between the proposed methodology and the expert inputs.
• The annual leave entitlement of the experts employed by a contractor is determined by their employment contract with the contractor and not by the service contract between the contracting authority and the contractor. However, the annual leave entitlement of experts must not exceed 60 calendar days per year. Moreover, the contracting authority can decide when experts take their annual leave since this is subject to approval by the project manager, who will assess any such request according to the needs of the project while the contract is in progress. A day of annual leave is not considered to be a working day. See Articles 21 and 22 of the general conditions.
• The fee rates for all experts must include: the remuneration paid to the experts, all the administrative costs of employing the relevant experts, such as equipment, relocation and repatriation expenses (including flights to and from the place of performance upon mobilisation and demobilisation as well as leave), accommodation, expatriation allowances, leave, medical insurance and other employment benefits given to the experts by the contractor. It shall also include any security arrangement except when this is exceptionally included under the incidental expenditure. Furthermore, the fees shall also include the margin, overheads, profit and support facilities.
• The delivery mode of the expert's assignment is either on the place of performance or home based (see PRAG 2.5.5). The delivery mode, and the locations where the expert will undertake missions and the working days needed for each mission are indicated in section 5.1 of the terms of reference.

Please fill in accordingly the Europeaid CV form according to your experience and the project’s specific requirements

Application deadline: Tuesday, June 30, 2026