UN AGENCY TO UN AGENCY CONTRIBUTION AGREEMENT
A. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES
Title: Establishment of a monitoring system for food market prices in Cameroon, Kenya and Gambia
Start/End Dates: Activities start date: 01 February 2015
Activities end date: 31 May 2015
Location: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) Rome, ITALY
Contribution Amount: $260,000 (United States Dollars Two hundred sixty thousand) (the “Contribution”)
(Budget line: 2015-ROA-8592-2920-6875-3908)
Contributing Agency: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
(ECA)
Recipient Agency: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO)
Purpose: ECA, with the support of FAO, will assist the governments of Cameroon, Kenya and Gambia to establish a surveillance network using mobile devices to collect food market prices and other commodities at marketplaces as a mean to support accessibility analyses to these key commodities and to exploit the potentials of mobile devices to monitor key markets on regular basis.
The data collected will be uploaded to and disseminated from ECA’s database.
The overall objective is to collect up-to-date and detailed data to inform decision-makers on price volatility and trends having potential negative impacts on food security and human welfare.
Annexes : In the event that the terms contained in Annex I are incompatible with those contained in this Agreement, the provisions in the Agreement shall prevail.
[Annex I: Concept Note on the Establishment of a monitoring system for food market prices in Cameroon,
Kenya and Gambia]
Expected outcomes: 1) up-to-date data on current prices of food and other commodities on ECA’s database;

2) Guidelines and best practices to replicate the results in other markets and countries.
The Recipient Agency will be fully responsible for administering the Contribution in accordance with its financial regulations, rules, policies and procedures, and administrative instructions, and carrying out the Activities efficiently and effectively.
B. BUDGET
The total budget for the Activities listed below is US$260,000 (United States Dollars two hundred sixty thousand). The details of the budget are reported in Annex III.
Summary of activities
1. Customization and testing of the mobile application for gathering data
2. Development or fine tuning of the database, standards and links with other relevant databases to capture collected data from pilot countries
3. Development of the application to visualize, clean and process data and fine tuning of the application on the basis of the user’s feedback
4. Development of documentation and training material
5. Training of enumerator staff and other relevant stakeholders
6. Undertaking of data collection in the countries
7. Data processing, analysis and report production
8.Developmeny of a communication strategy to raise awareness of the system and to involve necessary partners
9.Results dissemination through workshops
The Contributing Agency will not be responsible for any financial commitment or expenditure made by the Recipient Agency that exceeds the budget for the Activities. The Recipient Agency will promptly advise the Contributing Agency as soon as the Recipient Agency becomes aware that the budget to carry out these Activities is insufficient to fully implement the Activities in the manner set out in the present Agreement, including its Annex(es). The Contributing Agency will have no obligation to provide the Recipient Agency with any funds or to make any reimbursement for expenses incurred in excess of the total budget as set forth herein.
C. COSTS RECOVERY
The Recipient Agency’s support costs, determined in accordance with its cost recovery policy, will be paid from the Contribution, in accordance with the budget.
D. REPORTING
Narrative reporting:
The Recipient Agency will provide the Contributing Agency with a narrative report upon completion of data collection in the three pilot countries. The report will include the process of

establishing a monitoring system in the three pilot countries, the problems encountered and the results obtained as well as all activities of the project up to its completion. The reports shall be prepared at the end of the 6 months and in accordance with the standard format of the
Contributing Organization (Annex II).
The Recipient Agency will provide the Contributing Agency with a certified financial statement three months after the completion of the project activities, prepared in accordance with the
Recipient Agency’s financial regulations, rules, policies, procedures, and administrative instructions.
E. CONTRIBUTIONS
The total amounts paid by the Contributing Agency shall match the total budget amount.
The following payment arrangement will apply: 100% of the contribution, equivalent to
US$260,000 (United States Dollars Two Hundred and Sixty Thousand) will be deposited by
ECA to FAO, upon reception of a signed copy of this letter and prior to commencement of the activities.
The project is created using the “UN agency to UN agency agreement”, which foresees contribution in installments only when the project exceeds the period of 1 year. Therefore, for a project of 6 months it would be impossible to split the transfer of the budget in 2 installments, unless we request a modification of the format, which may involve approval of the FAO administration, technical and legal offices. This process might take very long time with no guarantee of success.
In addition, the project implementation period is very short, and the availability of the full budget from the start will allow allocating the resources in a much more efficient way (e.g. recruitment of consultants or purchase of equipment).
The amounts payable will be transferred to the following FAO account:
Account Name: FAO General Fund (USD)
Bank Name: HSBC New York
Bank Address: New York, NY 10018, USA 452 Fifth Avenue
Swift/BIC: MRMDUS33
Account Number: 000156434
ABA/Bank code: 021001088
The Contributing Agency acknowledges that the Recipient Agency will not pre-finance
Activities. If the Contribution, or any part of it, is not received in a timely manner, the Activities may be reduced or suspended by the Recipient Agency with immediate effect.
When making such transfers the Contributing Agency will notify the Director of the FAO
Statistics Division by e-mail (ESS-Director@fao.org) of the following: (a) the amount

transferred; (b) the value date of the transfer; (c) that the transfer is from the Contributing
Agency pursuant to this Agreement.
F. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
With effect from the date of signature of this Letter of Agreement, the delineation of responsibilities between ECA and FAO, with respect to the activities mentioned in Section A above, shall be as follow:
ECA
ECA shall collaborate with FAO in the identification of markets and the list of commodities to be monitored by each country, in the development of documentation and training material;
ECA shall assist FAO in linking with pilot countries, identifying partnering institutions, training relevant stakeholders, developing a communication strategy, organizing results dissemination workshops and drafting the final report.
FAO:
FAO shall be responsible for the development and fine tuning of the database, with
ECA’s input and collaboration;
In collaboration with ECA, FAO shall lead the overall establishment of the monitoring system ;
FAO shall lead the development team, engaging human, financial and intellectual resources as required for implementation;
FAO shall be responsible for the project management, quality assurance and coordination.
G. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
FAO shall take necessary action to ensure that ECA will enjoy appropriate use of products, processes, inventions, ideas, know-how or documents and other materials integral to services, goods and works deriving from the implementation of this LOA. Notably:
New products, processes, inventions, ideas, know-how, documents and other materials
(hereinafter the "Materials") produced, prepared or collected specifically to fulfill the obligations deriving from this LOA, shall be considered joint property of ECA and
FAO.
To the extent that any such Materials consist of any processes, inventions, ideas, know-how, documents or other materials for which FAO is the rightful owner, developed or acquired independently of the performance of its obligations under this agreement, shall remain the exclusive property of FAO. ECA does not and shall not claim any ownership interest thereto, and the FAO grants to ECA a perpetual, royaltyfree non-exclusive license to use such products, processes, inventions, ideas, knowhow, documents or other materials as required to achieve the objectives of this LOA.
To the extent that activities, products or services carried out by FAO in fulfillment of its obligations under this agreement require the integration of processes, inventions, ideas, know-how, documents or other materials property of a third-party and subject to

limitations in relation to their use and distribution, FAO shall take action to ensure that the necessary permissions have been obtained and ECA is granted sufficient rights to enable use of the Materials for the purposes, duration and scope of the obligations deriving from this LOA. ECA shall make every effort to prevent infringement of copyright in such cases.
FAO represents and warrants that it has full power and authority to grant rights under this
Agreement to ECA as required in each specific case with respect to the Materials, and that the
Materials do not infringe on any third-party's rights, including intellectual property rights.
H. CORRESPONDENCE
All correspondence regarding the implementation of this Agreement will be addressed to the officials mentioned below or their authorized nominees:
For the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa (ECA)
Ms. Josephine Marealle-Ulimwengu
Officer in Charge
Office of Partnerships
P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel.: +251 114 433 803
Fax: +251 115 513 798
Email: jmulimwengu@uneca.org
United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO)
Mr. Pietro Gennari
Director and Chief Statistician
Statistics Division (ESS)
Tel.
+
390657053599
Fax: +39-0657054495
Email: ESS-Director@fao.org
Mr. Alex Jones
Chief, Donor Liaison and Resource
Mobilization Team
Relation and Resource Mobilization
Team (TCSR)
Tel. +390657052331
Email: ESS-Director@fao.org
UNECA and FAO shall maintain regular contacts throughout the different stages of the project to gather input and coordinate actions as required. For the purpose of facilitating the implementation of the working arrangements to be established by the parties in the framework of this Agreement, all correspondences shall be addressed to the following authorised representative:
For the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa (ECA)
Mr Chukwudozie Ezigbalike
Officer-in-Charge
United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization
Mr. Fabio Grita
Coordinator "FENIX IT platform"

African Centre for Statistics (ACS)
P.O. Box 3001
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel.: +251 114
Fax: +251 115
E-mail: ezigbalike.ECA@un.org
Statistics Division, (ESS)
Tel. + 390657054262
Fax: +39-0657054495
Email: fabio.grita@fao.org
I. AMENDMENTS
The present Agreement, including its Annexes, may be modified or amended only by written agreement between the two Agencies.
J. COMPLETION OF THE ACTIVITIES
The Recipient Agency will notify the Contributing Agency when all Activities have been completed.
The Recipient Agency will continue to hold any part of the Contribution that is unutilized at completion of the Activities until all commitments and liabilities incurred in the carrying out of the Activities have been satisfied and all arrangements associated with the Activities have been brought to an orderly conclusion.
K. TERMINATION OF THIS AGREEMENT
This Agreement will terminate upon satisfaction of all commitments and liabilities incurred in carrying out the Activities and the orderly conclusion of all arrangements associated with the Activities.
This Agreement may be terminated by either Agency at any time by written notice to the other. Termination will be effective thirty (30) days after receipt of the notice. In the event of termination under this paragraph, the two Agencies will cooperate to ensure completion of the Activities, satisfaction of all commitments and liabilities, and the orderly conclusion of all arrangements associated with the Activities.
L. REFUNDS OF UNSPENT BALANCES
Upon termination of this Agreement and following the submission of the final financial report, any unspent balance of the Contribution (where the unspent funds exceed US$1,000) will be returned to the
Contributing Agency, unless otherwise agreed in writing by the two Agencies.
M. SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES
The two Agencies will use their best efforts to promptly settle through direct negotiations any dispute, controversy or claim arising out of or in connection with this Agreement or any breach thereof. Any such dispute, controversy or claim which is not settled within sixty (60) days from the date either party has notified the other party of the nature of the dispute, controversy or claim and of the measures which should be taken to rectify it, will be resolved through consultation between the Executive Heads of each of the Agencies.
N. ENTRY INTO FORCE AND VALIDITY

This Agreement will enter into force upon its signature by the authorized representatives of the
Parties and remain in force until terminated in accordance with section J above.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the undersigned, being duly authorized thereto, have signed the present Agreement in duplicate.
On behalf of the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa (ECA)
Mr.CollenV. Kelapile,
Officer-in-Charge
Division of Administration
On behalf of the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization
Laurent Thomas
Assistant Director-General (TCDD)
Technical Cooperation Department
Date:_____________________________
Signature: _________________________
Date: ________________________________
Signature: ____________________________

Establishment of a monitoring system for food market prices in Cameroon, Kenya and
Gambia
Implementation proposal
Background:
ECA is implementing a development account project on “Strengthening the capacity of African countries to use mobile technologies to collect data for effective policy and decision making.”
Five pilot countries funded by the DA project are experimenting with using mobile technologies to enable ordinary citizens, untrained in statistics, to collect data in fields of economic and social life and submit to statistical offices. A sixth pilot country is funded by the Government of the
Republic of Ireland as a multiplier effect from the DA project. One of the domains of critical data shortage in Africa is agricultural statistics. Only Ethiopia has chosen to work on food commodity prices. Given the importance of agriculture in the economies of African countries, and the need for food security, additional pilots are being implemented to establish a surveillance network for monitoring food and other commodity prices. Such price statistics provide the most reliable evidence of the economy of the country and would allow government to promptly intervene and prevent uncontrolled price spikes.
Purpose:
This component of the DA project will establish a surveillance network for monitoring prices of food and other commodities at marketplaces in the three of the pilot countries, namely,
Cameroon, Kenya and Gambia. The data will serve as a mean to support accessibility analyses to these key commodities.
Objective:
The overall objective is to collect up-to-date and detailed data to inform decision-makers on price volatility and trends having potential negative impacts on food security and human welfare. Being a component of the DA project on mobile data collection, it will exploit the potentials of mobile devices to monitor key markets on regular basis and promptly highlight excessive price volatility that might cause serious economic losses. Price data collection is usually carried out using paper-based methods, which are generally quite inefficient when data is to be transmitted from the field to HQs. Data needs to be entered and checked a number of times causing significant delays in data publication and augmenting the probability of errors.
Methodology:
The use of mobile technology is expected to significantly streamline data collection system, with the following advantages:
1.
Increase efficiency to make collected data available by eliminating transporting or converting intermediate physical (e.g. on paper) or digital (e.g. Excel) forms;

2.
Reduce the probability of errors while inputting data and limit data cleaning and management work;
3.
Increase data security and confidentiality;
4.
Increase flexibility to create survey templates and forms;
5.
Enabling real-time monitoring of key field information, also in not-easily accessible areas
The assumption is that government officers as well as other stakeholder (e.g. NGOs,
International organizations, universities, etc.) may contribute to collect data and, at the same time, may have access to up-to-date information and reports. This information service will enable improved targeting of price volatility mitigation measures to increase productivity and local trading opportunities, as well as reduce potential risks on the local economies.
Technologies:
The overall system is based on a software platform called FENIX developed by FAO using open-source technologies. This platform exposes services and functionalities that could be customized according to the user-specific needs. The mobile application is currently based on
Android operating system, but it is possible to implement it for iPhone and Windows Phone.
The mobile app is linked to the FENIX platform, which is based on a service-oriented architecture. FENIX functionalities consist of a number of web-applications that communicate through web services. The system is very flexible and allows for easy customization of client applications in order to respond to the specific business logics.
Using this technology, data entry templates for smartphones will be designed to provide the users with simple and intuitive user interfaces for entering textual data, numeric data, dates, single choice options and dropdown down lists. Once data is sent, the values entered in the template are accepted and managed at real-time by FENIX and stored in central database.
Data collected in the field using the system described above are stored in a temporary database, where data is checked and validated before it is sent to the production database for publication.
Some of the characteristics of this system are:

Multiple devices can be used to conduct a survey. There are no restrictions on the number of devices used to gather data.

No Internet connection is required while conducting surveys as results may be temporarily stored on the device and uploaded to the database when an internet connection is available.

Raw survey data can be downloaded in the widely used CSV (comma separated value) file format. CSV files are most commonly viewed using Microsoft Excel.

The mobile app uses the GPS facilities of the smartphones to record the accurate location at the time the questionnaire is filled. Longitude and latitude coordinates are included in survey results when downloaded in CSV file format or locations can be mapped using any mapping applications.
The use of smartphones for data collection gives the opportunity to develop more responsive and extensive surveillance networks. In addition, the system can be used to promptly broadcast price data to traders and government bodies when critical conditions are detected.
Implementation:
The proposed system is a combination of a well-established and rigorous monitoring system
(based on regular and official surveys) and data collected through crowdsourcing. The two methods are complementary and can potentially be integrated.

Surveys monitor prices on daily basis and data is used to generate periodic reports. Markets to be monitored and the list of the commodities in each country have to be decided before starting the field work. The major objectives of the survey will be to:
1.
provide timely information to support price volatility analyses
2.
early detection of dangerous trends and risky price spikes
3.
delimit the full extent of market anomalies at sub-national level
4.
build price time-series to be shared with a wide number of users.
Traders, universities, NGOs, etc. may voluntarily contribute to reporting information on prices through the same (or modified) system used for the surveys.
Both data collection methods will rely on baseline information that comprises:
1.
Geocoding of the locations, which could be either manually selected or automatically identified by the GPS
2.
A database prices and markets, including their area-specific characteristics
3.
A database of commodities and varieties for each surveyed area.
The system will connect or make use of a number of international and regional resources and databases that already provide good quality prices information. The availability of these databases will help complementing data collected through the mobile app to enable more reliable data aggregations.

Timeline for implementation
No .
Activities
1.
1. Customization and testing of the mobile application for gathering data
2.
2.Identification of markets and the list of commodities to be monitored by each country
3.
3. Development or fine tuning of the database, standards and links with other relevant databases to capture collected data from pilot countries
4.
4. Development of the application to visualize, clean and process data. Fine tune the application on the basis of the users’feedback
5.
5. Development of documentation and training material
6.
6. Identification of partnering institutions (e.g. NSO to undertake data collection)
7.
7. Training of enumerator staff and other relevant stakeholders
Implementing partners
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
FAO, ECA
FAO, ECA
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
Lead Timeframe
(m/ yy )
FAO February 2015
FAO February 2015
FAO March 2015
FAO February 2015
FAO April 2015
FAO April 2015
ECA February-March
2015
Remarks
8.
8. Undertaking of data collection in the countries
9.
9. Data processing, analysis and report production of results.
10.
10. Development of an adequate communication strategy to raise awareness of the system and to involve the necessary partners
11.
11. Organizing results dissemination workshop, Ensure participation of the national and international stakeholders through training, workshops, missions, etc.
FAO,ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
ECA February- May
2015
FAO
March-June 2015
FAO February 2015
FAO, ECA, Kenya,
Gambia, Cameroun
FAO May-June 2015

Annex II
Sample format of the Final Report
BENEFICIARY LOGO
PROJECT TITLE:
PROJECT NUMBER:
DURATION:
STARTING DATE:
ENDING DATE:
REPORTING PERIOD COVERED:
TOTAL BUDGET:
FUND UTILIZATION RATE: (percentage of expenditure over total budget)
PROJECT FUNDED WITH THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF the UNECA
Summary of impact (1-2 pages)
A brief summary of the report highlighting:

Project Objectives

Keys Results Achieved

Lessons Learnt

Follow-up activities and recommendations

The Way Forward

BUDGET IN USD
P ro je c t t o t a l
E xpe ndit ure s
5011 Salaries P ro fessio nal (P arent)
5012 Salaries General Service (P arent)
5013 Co nsultants (P arent)
5014 Co ntracts (P arent)
5021 Travel (P arent)
5023 Training (P arent)
5024 Expendable P ro curement (P arent)
5025 No n Expendable P ro curement (P arent)
5027 Technical Suppo rt Services (P arent)
5028 General Operating Expenses (P arent)
5029 Suppo rt Co sts (P arent)
5040 General Operating Expenses - external co mmo n services (P arent)
5050 General Operating Expenses - internal co mmo n services (P arent)
T o t a l E xpe ndit ure
2 6 0 0 0 0
0
10,000
2,000
18000
22000
3,000
18,200
1,500
0
2 6 0 ,0 0 0
0
130,300
0
55,000
Annex III