Women Economic Empowerment Rural Development Program (WEE-RDP)

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (REoI)

(CONSULTING SERVICES)

Country: Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Name of Project: Women Economic Empowerment Rural Development Program (WEE-RDP)

Grant No.: IDA-DE840

Assignment Title: Rapid Market Assessment (RMA)

Duration of Assignment: 12 weeks

Implementing Agency: Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD)

Province: 7 Region of Afghanistan (Herat, Kandahar, Balkh, Khost, Kabul, Kunduz and Nangarhar)

Reference No: AF-MRRD/WEE-RDP-76449-CS-QCBS

Issue date: September 7, 2020

1. Introduction to WEE-RDP

The Afghanistan Women Economic Empowerment Rural Development Program (WEE-RDP) is funded by the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group, Afghanistan Reconstruction Fund, and other funds contributed by bilateral donors and the Government of Afghanistan. As a follow-on project of the Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Project (AREDP), WEE-RDP aims to increase social and economic empowerment of poor rural women in selected communities. The program will cover 76 district and 5,000 villages in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan and will work in close collaboration with the Citizens’ Charter program and the National Horticulture and Livestock Program, Access to Finance Project and microfinance institutions. The project was launched on October 2018 in 76districtsof all 34 provinces. Out of 76 districts 37 are directly implemented by WEE-RDP in 11 provinces and 39 districts in 23 provinces are covered through Facilitating Partners.

The key elements of the program include empowering rural women socially as well economically, which is possible only when women have access to finance and are able to participate in revenue generating activities. To achieve this, the program aims to form women enterprise groups (EGs) and producer associations (PAs) at the community level. These institutions will have access to finance through the village savings and loan associations (VSAL) that have also been formed under another component of WEE-RDP, and members of EGs are part of the self-help groups (SHG) who contribute to the VSLAs’ formation and funds. With having access to finance, the program aims to ensure women entrepreneurs have resources to invest in capital assets and launch their enterprises. In addition to capital, the program anticipates need to educate women entrepreneurs on enterprise development and business operating skills as well as on technical know-how in sectors of their interest which the program plans to provide through third-party/AREDP SMEs involvement.

Therefore, WEE-RDP is seeking qualified individual Consultants/firms that can work with EGs, PAs and other related stakeholders to study and identify bottlenecks and hurdles present in the forward and backward linkages in various value chains for having a sustainable production and marketing of their products.

2. Scope of Work

The selected consultant/firm will be required to conduct RMA in seven (7) regions after the identification of key products and potential regions which have been covered under WEE-RDP (Herat, Kandahar, Balkh, Khost, Kabul, Kunduz and Nangarhar) covered under WEE-RDP, additionally, a RMA would also be conducted in Ghazni and Parwan. In the above 7 regions, in addition to covering the provincial capital cities, the RMA would also cover the neighbouring provinces as a part of the broader region... The main tasks under this scope of work include, but are not limited to, the points described below: 

3. The short listing criteria:

1. The firm should be registered legal entity and the firm should have at least 5 years of experience conducting research on socioeconomic issues including average annual income and expenditure or local market study, sub-sector analyses, feasibility study market related issues, business plan preparation/development, community business assessment and assessment of market, value chain analyses preferably in Afghanistan or similar country contexts (South Asian countries).
2. The consultant shall demonstrate having sound financial situation by submitting audited financial reports or any other credible financial documents in which the consultant annual turnover for any of the last three years (2017, 2018 and 2019) shall be AFN 11,530,000 (Eleven Million five Hundred thirty thousand Afghani).
3.  Evidence of past similar experience at least one contract with a minimum amount of AFN 9,870,000 (Nine Million Eight Hundred Seventy thousand Afghani) in one of the last five years.
4. Consultants may associate with other firms in the form of a joint venture or a sub-consultancy to enhance their qualifications. If consultants intend to associate with other firms, they are advised to clearly identify the lead partner and state the composition and nature of the association (JV/ sub-consultant) in their EOI.
5. In case the EOI is submitted in the form of a joint venture (JV), the lead partner should meet 60% of criterion for each (b) and (c) and the JV partner should meet 40% of each (b) and (c) shortlisting criteria. In the event that such an EOI is shortlisted for the Request-for-Proposal stage, no changes can be made in the JV composition of partners.
6. In case the EOI is submitted in the form of a sub-consultancy (SC), the overall merits will be considered for such partnership, but the actual short listing criteria will apply only to the primary and not the sub-consultants.

4. Method of Selection and submission deadline for EoI:

The Consultant will be selected in accordance with the Quality and Coast Based Selection (QCBS) method set out in the World Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers, July 2016, revised November 2017 and August 2018.
Regulations is available at this site www.worldbank.org/.

Expressions of interest must be delivered in a written form to the address below (in person, or by e-mail) by 27 Sep 2020 at 2:00 p.m. Kabul Local Time. (Kabul Local Time).

Further information in respect to this REOI and TOR can be obtained at the address below by email or in person during office hours 08:00-04:00 Hours.

Address of Focal Persons for Enquires and Submission of EoIs:

Attn: Ali Mohammad Joyan, Head of Consultancy Unit, Procurement Directorate, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), AfghanistanTashkilat Street, Darul Aman Road, Kabul, Afghanistan

E-mail to: Ali.joyan@mrrd.gov.af copied to Fahim.ahmadi@mrrd.gov.af; Noorullah.naderi@mrrd.gov.af

Annexure 1: Format for Expression of Interest

The expression of interest must be submitted as per the following format:

{Note: In case documents submitted are in any language other than English, the consultant should submit a self-certified copy of the translated document in English (along with originals).}

SECTION 1: Organization Details (In case the EoI is being submitted as a Joint Venture, the information has to be submitted for the Lead Partner as well as other members of the Joint Venture separately.

SECTION 2: Documents to be submitted

SECTION 3: Format for furnishing details of Credentials / Past Experiences for projects in undertaking related or similar assignment as at Sl. No. 3 of Section 2. The information need to be furnished as per the Format below for each credential.

The project citation should be a maximum of 2 pages per credential/project along with documents as mentioned under Sl. No. 3 of Section 2 (above). The citation need to be furnished for each credential.

For more information click on the below document:

اسناد مربوطه