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F.6 Number of contracts/commercial agreements facilitated

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F.6 Number of contracts/commercial agreements facilitated

VERSION

V6.0 - 2026.03 — Existing with revisions

INDICATOR CODE

F.6

TECHNICAL OWNER

PRG-R

INDICATOR TYPE

Country Level Output Indicator

INDICATOR CLASSIFICATION

Complementary

INDICATOR SCOPE

Programme specific

APPLICABILITY

This indicator applies to WFP value chain development work (aka Smallholder Agricultural Market Support – SAMS), combining procurement and programmatic activities along the value chain to promote improved access to stable and remunerative markets for targeted smallholder farmers. Interventions include but are not limited to: support to smallholder capacity to access productive input and equipment; support to post-harvest loss reduction and processing; capacity strengthening of smallholder aggregation systems; promotion of market access; capacity strengthening of value chain actors, including access to finance and digitalization.

The selection of this indicator is recommended against the following sub-activities in CSPs logframes. Selection of the below sub-activities will NOT trigger the mandatory selection of this indicator:

  1. Smallholder agricultural market support (SMS)

UNIT OF MEASUREMENT & ANALYSIS

Number

DEFINITION

This indicator measures the number of contracts or commercial agreements signed or established between aggregation systems and buyers, thanks to the market access support provided by WFP and cooperating partners.

Below are some key terminologies for this indicator:

Contracts/ commercial agreements: any formal or informal agreements signed or established between smallholder aggregation systems and buyers aimed at the purchase or sale of food commodities and facilitated by WFP and partners.

The indicator captures two main type of agreements:

Contracts: intended as formal, written and legally binding agreements.

Commercial agreements: intended as informal, most likely oral and not legally binding agreements.

Smallholder farmer aggregation systems or aggregators1: any organization that aggregates, or has the potential to aggregate, smallholder farmers’ commodities in order to facilitate their sale to formal buyers at favourable conditions.

Aggregation systems encompass a variety of organizations to which smallholder farmers have access at local, district, and national levels. These organizations are either formal (i.e. legally registered) or informal, and membership should be voluntary. Providing market access to smallholder farmers at favourable conditions should be one of the main objectives of these organizations. In addition, they are likely to provide a range of services to their members, such as facilitating access to inputs, access to credit, improved post-harvest handling, etc.

Buyers: actors who buy from smallholder farmers and aggregation systems.

WFP Smallholder Agricultural Market Support programmes usually cluster buyers in three main groups:

  • WFP

  • Private buyers, operating at local, national or international level. They can span from local small-scale retailers to large enterprises operating on the national market, to multinational companies.

  • Institutional buyers, public sector entities with presence in the domestic market that purchases large quantities/volumes of produce. Usually, an institutional buyer refers to public institutions such as food reserve authorities, the military, prisons, hospitals, food aid organizations and relief development agencies. Typically, these buyers do not have a profit motivation and are usually driven by the need to acquire food products for consumption within their own institutions or as food donations.

RATIONALE

Facilitating access to markets is the ultimate objective of WFP value chain development and smallholder market support programmes. Capacity building of aggregators as well as of pro-smallholder buyers in negotiation skills and contracting is an important component of such programmes. Therefore, measuring the number of contracts or commercial agreements signed or established gives indication of the performance of the programme in strengthening the negotiation and contracting skills of the actors supported.

DATA SOURCE

Data on this indicator can be extracted from records of sales provided by the targeted aggregation systems (such as aggregator records) and/ or by the buyers.

Aggregators may maintain records of their sales in different forms, from paper records to more sophisticated digital systems or may even not have a record keeping system in place. In this case, WFP and partners should strengthen the aggregators’ record keeping capacity, as part of the capacity strengthening efforts.

Module 4: Sales info of the Aggregator Records database can be used to collect and analyse the data for this indicator.

INDICATOR CALCULATION FOR REPORTING

The indicator is calculated through a simple count of the number of contracts and commercial agreements facilitated. two detailed indicators composing this indicator.

The indicator values are reported for contracts and commercial agreements separately. The values (planned and actuals) are aggregated for reporting in the annual country report.

DATA ENTRY AND DISAGGREGATION IN CORPORATE SYSTEMS

Each reporting year, data is entered into COMET Other output plan (Planned) and Completion Reports (Actuals)

Planned and Actual values are reported by

  • Sub-activity

  • Location

The indicator is disaggregated by type of agreement:

  1. Number of contracts facilitated (formal)

  2. Number of commercial agreements facilitated (informal)

It is mandatory to report a value for at least one if the indicator was selected in the Logframe.

PLANNED FIGURES

Planned figures should be based on realistic sales estimations by aggregators. Historical sales from existing aggregator records can be used to establish the annual planned figures. Annual purchase projections from WFP and other buyers who are in the network of the aggregators supported by WFP, can also represent a valuable data source.

In case of WFP procurement, the planned figures should be calculated in collaboration between programme and procurement functions.

Planned figures are estimated in the first quarter of the first year of CSP/ICSP implementation for the duration of the CSP and inserted in the COMET Other Output Plan (OOP). For each subsequent year, the planned figures can be revisited in the first quarter of the current reporting year.

FREQUENCY OF DATA COLLECTION

The frequency of data collection (monthly, quarterly, bi-annually or annually) depends on the CO programme approach).

Each CO can decide on how to collect data for this indicator; this may be directly or with the support of a cooperating partner (CP). If through a cooperating partner, the CO will agree with the CP on frequency of data collection and submission to WFP.

At minimum, the data should be collected annually for corporate reporting.

INTERPRETATION

Measuring the number of contracts or commercial agreements signed or established gives indication of the performance of the programme in strengthening the negotiation and contracting skills of the actors supported.

REPORTING EXAMPLE(S)

“In 2026 WFP organized 14 meetings (F.5) to promote market linkages between 20 supported farmers organizations (F.3) and 7 potential buyers selected in the country. These meetings resulted in the establishment of 5 contracts (F.6) between the farmers’ organizations and 3 private sector off-takers (F.7), amounting to a total of 1,669 mt of food commodities sold, valued at USD 537,000 (95.). Such sales benefitted the 75% of the FOs’ members who contributed to collective sales (29)”.

INDICATORS COLLECTED & ANALYSED AT THE SAME TIME

The following output and outcome indicators must be reported along with this indicator:

In addition, as applicable, the following output indicators may be reported along with this indicator:

To assess the medium and long-term effect of the above output results, as applicable, it is recommended to report on the following outcome indicators:

VISUALIZATION

N/A

LIMITATIONS

The indicator only reports the number of contracts/commercial agreement facilitated but does measure the value and volume of sales, nor the extent to which smallholder farmers benefit from the market transactions. Outcome indicators mentioned above may complement this information.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Implement Aggregator Records for SAMS activities

GN on implementing aggregator records for SAMS activities Aggregator Records database

SAMS Programme Guidance Manual (PGM)

For any further information, please contact HQ.SAMS@wfp.org.