The Development of Consultancy Forest Landscape Restoration Embedded District Development Plans for Ntcheu, Karonga, Mangochi, Balaka, And Dowa. At International Union for Conservation of Nature

Request for Proposals (RfP)

Terms Of Reference: The Development of Forest Landscape Restoration Embedded District Development Plans for Ntcheu, Karonga, Mangochi, Balaka, And Dowa.

IUCN-ESARO

Alliance for Restoration of Ecosytems in Africa (AREECA)

RfP Reference: IUCN-2024-07-P02954-02

Welcome to this Procurement by IUCN. You are hereby invited to submit a Proposal. Please read the information and instructions carefully because non-compliance with the instructions may result in disqualification of your Proposal from this Procurement.

REQUIREMENTS
1. A detailed description of the services and/or goods to be provided can be found in Attachment 1.
CONTACT DETAILS
1. During the course of this procurement, i.e. from the publication of this RfP to the award of a contract, you may not discuss this procurement with any IUCN employee or representative other than the following contact. You must address all correspondence and questions to the contact, including your Proposal.

IUCN Contact: tenders.rwanda@iucn.org

PROCUREMENT TIMETABLE
1. This timetable is indicative and may be changed by IUCN at any time. If IUCN decides that changes to any of the deadlines are necessary, we will publish this on our website and contact you directly if you have indicated your interest in this procurement (see Section 3.2).

DATE

ACTIVITY

18th July 2024

Publication of the Request for Proposals

25th July 2024

Deadline for submission of questions

26th July 2024

Planned publication of responses to questions

09th August 2024, 23:59 CAT

Deadline for submission of Proposals to IUCN (“Submission Deadline”)

23rd August 2024

Planned date for contract award

30th August 2024

Expected contract start date

Please email the IUCN contact to express your interest in submitting a Proposal by the deadline stated above. This will help IUCN to keep you updated regarding the procurement.
COMPLETING AND SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL
1. Your Proposal must consist of the following four separate documents:

Signed Declaration of Undertaking (see Attachment 2)
Pre-Qualification Information (see Section 4.3 below)
Technical Proposal (see Section 4.4 below)
Financial Proposal (see Section 4.5 below)
1. Your Proposal must be submitted by email to the IUCN Contact (see Section 2). The subject heading of the email shall be [IUCN-2024-07-P02954-02– bidder name]. The bidder name is the name of the company/organisation on whose behalf you are submitting the Proposal, or your own surname if you are bidding as a self-employed consultant. Your Proposal must be submitted in PDF format. You may submit multiple emails suitably annotated, e.g. Email 1 of 3, if attached files are too large to suit a single email transmission. You may not submit your Proposal by uploading it to a file-sharing tool.

Proposals must be prepared in English.

IMPORTANT: Submitted documents must be password-protected so that they cannot be opened and read before the submission deadline. Please use the same password for all submitted documents. After the deadline has passed and within 12 hours, please send the password to the IUCN Contact. This will ensure a secure bid submission and opening process. Please DO NOT email the password before the deadline for Proposal submission.

Pre-Qualification Criteria

IUCN will use the following Pre-Qualification Criteria to determine whether you have the capacity to provide the required goods and/or services to IUCN. Please provide the necessary information in a single, separate document.

Pre-Qualification Criteria

3 relevant references of clients similar to IUCN / similar work

Confirm that you have all the necessary legal registrations to perform the work

Technical Proposal

The Technical Proposal must address each of the criteria stated below explicitly and separately, quoting the relevant criteria reference number (left-hand column).

Proposals in any other format will significantly increase the time it takes to evaluate, and such Proposals may therefore be rejected at IUCN’s discretion.

Where CVs are requested, these must be of the individuals who will actually carry out the work specified. The individuals you put forward may only be substituted with IUCN’s approval.

IUCN will evaluate Technical Proposals with regards to each of the following criteria and their relative importance:

Description

Information to provide

Relative weight

Clarity and completeness of the Proposal

Clear understanding of the assignment objectives and operationalization of the approach and methodology to undertake the assignment (10)

Explanation of the relevance and effectiveness of the methodological approach (5)

The conceptual and methodological approach

Approaches/methodology suggested in the technical proposal are well-defined, relevant, and correspond to the assignment of the TORs (25)

Consultants Competencies

Relevant qualification and experience (10)

Expertise of the individual/firm, demonstrated by past work and training (5)

Approaches suggested in the technical proposal, including the work plan, are feasible and provide a clear path for successful, on-time, on-budget completion of the work.

Detailed workplan for delivery of outputs (20)

Work organisation, back-up services, quality control, logistics (10)

Evidence from previous related assignments in Malawi

Brief details of similar/relevant work done in Malawi (15)

TOTAL

100%

Financial Proposal
1. The Financial Proposal must be a fixed and firm price for the provision of the goods/services stated in the RfP in their entirety.
2. Prices include all costs

Submitted rates and prices are deemed to include all costs, insurances, taxes (except VAT, see below), fees, expenses, liabilities, obligations, risk and other things necessary for the performance of the Terms of Reference or Specification of Requirements. IUCN will not accept charges beyond those clearly stated in the Financial Proposal. This includes applicable withholding taxes and similar. It is your responsibility to determine whether such taxes apply to your organisation and to include them in your Financial Proposal.

Applicable Goods and Services Taxes

Proposal rates and prices shall be exclusive of Value Added Tax.

Currency of proposed rates and prices

All rates and prices submitted by Proposers shall be in USD.

Breakdown of rates and prices

For information only, the price needs to be broken down as follows:

Description

Quantity

Unit Price

Total Price

TOTAL

Additional information not requested by IUCN should not be included in your Proposal and will not be considered in the evaluation.
Your Proposal must remain valid and capable of acceptance by IUCN for a period of 90 calendar days following the submission deadline.
Withdrawals and Changes

You may freely withdraw or change your Proposal at any time prior to the submission deadline by written notice to the IUCN Contact. However, in order to reduce the risk of fraud, no changes or withdrawals will be accepted after the submission deadline.

EVALUATION of PROPOSALS
1. Completeness

IUCN will firstly check your Proposal for completeness. Incomplete Proposals will not be considered further.

Pre-Qualification Criteria

Only Proposals that meet all of the pre-qualification criteria will be evaluated.

Technical Evaluation
1. Scoring Method

Your Proposal will be assigned a score from 0 to 10 for each of the technical evaluation criteria, such that ‘0’ is low and ‘10’ is high.

Minimum Quality Thresholds

Proposals that receive a score of ‘0’ for any of the criteria will not be considered further.

Technical Score

Your score for each technical evaluation criterion will be multiplied with the respective relative weight (see Section 4.4) and these weighted scores added together to give your Proposal’s overall technical score.

Financial Evaluation and Financial Scores

The financial evaluation will be based upon the full total price you submit. Your Financial Proposal will receive a score calculated by dividing the lowest Financial Proposal that has passed the minimum quality thresholds (see Section 5.3.2) by the total price of your Financial Proposal.

Thus, for example, if your Financial Proposal is for a total of CHF 100 and the lowest Financial Proposal is CHF 80, you will receive a financial score of 80/100 = 80%

Total Score

Your Proposal’s total score will be calculated as the weighted sum of your technical score and your financial score.

The relative weights will be:

Technical: 70%

Financial: 30%

Thus, for example, if your technical score is 83% and your financial score is 77%, you will receive a total score of 83 * 70% + 77 * 30% = 58.1% + 23.1% = 81.2%.

Subject to the requirements in Sections 4 and 7, IUCN will award the contract to the bidder whose Proposal achieves the highest total score.

Explanation of procurement procedure
1. IUCN is using the Open Procedure for this procurement. This means that the contracting opportunity is published on IUCN’s website and open to all interested parties to take part, subject to the conditions in Section 7 below.
2. You are welcome to ask questions or seek clarification regarding this procurement. Please email the IUCN Contact (see Section 2), taking note of the deadline for submission of questions in Section 3.1.
3. All Proposals must be received by the submission deadline in Section 3.1 above. Late Proposals will not be considered. All Proposals received by the submission deadline will be evaluated by a team of three or more evaluators in accordance with the evaluation criteria stated in this RfP. No other criteria will be used to evaluate Proposals. The contract will be awarded to the bidder whose Proposal received the highest Total Score. IUCN does, however, reserve the right to cancel the procurement and not award a contract at all.
4. IUCN will contact the bidder with the highest-scoring Proposal to finalise the contract. We will contact unsuccessful bidders after the contract has been awarded and provide detailed feedback. The timetable in Section 3.1 gives an estimate of when we expect to have completed the contract award, but this date may change depending on how long the evaluation of Proposals takes.
Conditions for participation in this procurement
1. To participate in this procurement, you are required to submit a Proposal, which fully complies with the instructions in this RfP and the Attachments.
  1. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have submitted a complete and fully compliant Proposal.
  2. Any incomplete or incorrectly completed Proposal submission may be deemed non-compliant, and as a result you may be unable to proceed further in the procurement process.
  3. IUCN will query any obvious clerical errors in your Proposal and may, at IUCN’s sole discretion, allow you to correct these, but only if doing so could not be perceived as giving you an unfair advantage.
2. In order to participate in this procurement, you must meet the following conditions:

Free of conflicts of interest
Registered on the relevant professional or trade register of the country in which you are established (or resident, if self-employed)
In full compliance with your obligations relating to payment of social security contributions and of all applicable taxes
Not been convicted of failing to comply with environmental regulatory requirements or other legal requirements relating to sustainability and environmental protection
Not bankrupt or being wound up
Never been guilty of an offence concerning your professional conduct
Not involved in fraud, corruption, a criminal organisation, money laundering, terrorism, or any other illegal activity.
1. You must complete and sign the Declaration of Undertaking (see Attachment 2).
2. If you are participating in this procurement as a member of a joint venture, or are using sub-contractors, submit a separate Declaration of Undertaking for each member of the joint venture and sub-contractor, and be clear in your Proposal which parts of the goods/services are provided by each partner or sub-contractor.
3. Each bidder shall submit only one Proposal, either individually or as a partner in a joint venture. In case of joint venture, one company shall not be allowed to participate in two different joint ventures in the same procurement nor shall a company be allowed to submit a Proposal both on its behalf and as part of a joint venture for the same procurement. A bidder who submits or participates in more than one Proposal (other than as a subcontractor or in cases of alternatives that have been permitted or requested) shall cause all the Proposals with the bidder’s participation to be disqualified.
4. By taking part in this procurement, you accept the conditions set out in this RfP, including the following:
It is unacceptable to give or offer any gift or consideration to an employee or other representative of IUCN as a reward or inducement in relation to the awarding of a contract. Such action will give IUCN the right to exclude you from this and any future procurements, and to terminate any contract that may have been signed with you.
Any attempt to obtain information from an employee or other representative of IUCN concerning another bidder will result in disqualification.
Any price fixing or collusion with other bidders in relation to this procurement shall give IUCN the right to exclude you and any other involved bidder(s) from this and any future procurements and may constitute a criminal offence.

Confidentiality and data protection
1. IUCN follows the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The information you submit to IUCN as part of this procurement will be treated as confidential and shared only as required to evaluate your Proposal in line with the procedure explained in this RfP, and for the maintenance of a clear audit trail. For audit purposes, IUCN is required to retain your Proposal in its entirety for 10 years after then end of the resulting contract and make this available to internal and external auditors and donors as and when requested.
2. In the Declaration of Undertaking (Attachment 2) you need to give IUCN express permission to use the information you submit in this way, including personal data that forms part of your Proposal. Where you include personal data of your employees (e.g. CVs) in your Proposal, you need to have written permission from those individuals to share this information with IUCN, and for IUCN to use this information as indicated in 8.1. Without these permissions, IUCN will not be able to consider your Proposal.
Complaints procedure

If you have a complaint or concern regarding the propriety of how a competitive process is or has been executed, then please contact procurement@iucn.org. Such complaints or concerns will be treated as confidential and are not considered in breach of the above restrictions on communication (Section 2.1).

Contract

The contract will be based on IUCN’s template in Attachment 3, the terms of which are not negotiable. They may, however, be amended by IUCN to reflect particular requirements from the donor funding this particular procurement.

About IUCN

IUCN is a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.

Headquartered in Switzerland, IUCN Secretariat comprises around 1,000 staff with offices in more than 50 countries.

Created in 1948, IUCN is now the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of more than 1,300 Member organisations and some 10,000 experts. It is a leading provider of conservation data, assessments and analysis. Its broad membership enables IUCN to fill the role of incubator and trusted repository of best practices, tools and international standards.

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ATTACHMENTS

Attachment 1 Specification of Requirements / Terms of Reference

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION EMBEDED DISTRICT DEVELOPMENT PLANS FOR NTCHEU, KARONGA, MANGOCHI, BALAKA, AND DOWA.

Introduction

Lower agricultural productivity, limited energy sources, declined water quality and availability, revenue loss and impacts from land degradation and deforestation in Malawi, affect a large part of the population. In a country where food security and poverty alleviation are persistent issues, and where it is estimated that one of three households have inadequate food to maintain an active and healthy life[1], the government is adopting forest landscape restoration approach (FLR) to build resilient communities.

Malawi is a small, land-locked country in Sub-Saharan Africa that is home to over 18.6 million people[2]. With approximately 94, 000 square kilometers of land area, Malawi is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, with an average land holding of less than one hectare per household[3]. Malawi’s Human Development Index (HDI) value for 2019 is 0.483[4]. This puts the country in the low human development category positioning it at 174 out of 189 countries and territories. Malawi’s 2019 HDI of 0.483 is below the average of 0.513 for countries in the low human development group and below the average of 0.547 for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Agriculture remains the foundation of the Malawian economy. It accounts for approximately 30% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employs 65% of the Malawian workforce, and generates over 80% of national export earnings[5]. The economy is divided between smallholder and the estate sub-sectors, with more than 70 percent of agricultural GDP coming from smallholders[6]. Conversion of land from forest to agricultural use has been widely documented, particularly on customary lands. With a population growth rate of approximately 2.9%[7], increasing land pressure continues to drive land degradation, deforestation, and forest degradation in Malawi.

In addition to agriculture, Malawians rely heavily on forest resources for livelihoods and as a source of energy especially for cooking. A national study indicates that Malawians 80.5% use charcoal, firewood and biomass, 10% use liquid fuels, biofuels and LPG, 7.2% use electricity and 2.3% use Coal[8]. Agricultural expansion and use of fuel wood as part of agricultural processing for tobacco and tea are also driving deforestation, land degradation and forest degradation in Malawi.

As an agriculture-based economy, over the years Malawi has allocated considerable resources to increase the production and productivity of crops, livestock, and fisheries. Despite these efforts, production of the main crops, livestock, and fisheries has not increased significantly and is not growing sufficiently to match growing domestic demand and available export opportunities[9].

Each year, Malawi loses an estimated 29 metric tons of soil per hectare, which has high impact on productivity of croplands. Between 2001-2009, land degradation cost Malawi 6.8 percent of GDP (estimated $244 million)[10]. The Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunity Assessment for Malawi report also mentions that poor farming practices that caused cropland degradation resulted in a loss of $5.7 million per year.

Forest cover loss, combined with poor extensive agricultural practices are resulting in soil erosion and siltation, limiting hydroelectric power generation and increasing costs to consumers. Longer dry seasons and dried-up water supplies are affecting the water sector with the damages estimated to be at US$11.8 million[11]. All these challenges further are exacerbated by climate change induced disasters.

While poverty, population growth and density, and limited alternatives to fuel wood and charcoal use are all indirect drivers of land degradation, deforestation and degradation in Malawi, many of these are also directly or indirectly linked to the weaknesses in governance that have undermined the enabling environment for sustainable land and forest management. Specific governance issues include: weak institutional and technical capacity, lack of coordination among relevant sectors, overlapping and sometimes contradicting policies, low enforcement capacity, poor engagement of communities and the public in decision-making, lack of monitoring and integrated planning, unclear and insecure land and resource tenure systems, and broad issues of corruption and lack of transparency and accountability in the forest and other relevant sectors.

The Forest Landscape Restoration Opportunities Assessment report indicates that nearly 7.7 million hectares, which is 80 percent of the total land area of Malawi, has an opportunity for restoration and makes recommendation on restoration interventions, their specific objectives and targeted contributions to national sustainable development goals, and estimated opportunity area[12]. It is on this basis that the Government of Malawi (GoM) is expecting large-scale forest landscape restoration to create significant social, economic, and environmental benefits. Thus, FLR in Malawi is seen as a mechanism for promoting sustainable livelihoods, conservation of forests and biodiversity, and protecting and enhancing ecosystem services.

There is therefore a need to ensure that district development plans take into consideration the status of land and forests and coordinate the efforts from various sectors and partners to achieve targets for sustainable development. The Government of Malawi in its effort to promote participatory poverty reduction processes approved and is implementing a decentralized development planning system at the district level. The Local Government Act 1998 stipulates that all District Assemblies shall have District Development Plans. The process of producing a DDP succeeds the production of a Socio-Economic Profile and a District Development Planning Framework. The inputs into the DDP are the envisaged projects developed from the people’s needs through the District Development Planning System – DDPS. The DDPS is characterized by its four principles: bottom up, participatory, district focused, and people centered. It is within the same framework of the DDPS and its basic principles that the DDPs will be developed.

Objective of the Consultancy

The objectives of the assignment are to:

Review the current district development planning guidelines to incorporate natural resources management as a foundation for sustainable district development.
Support the review of District Development Plans for Ntcheu, Karonga, Mangochi, Balaka, and Dowa.

Scope of Work

The following will be the scope of the study to deliver on the above:

Assessment of the current district development planning guidelines to incorporate natural resources management as a foundation for sustainable local development.

The assessment of the existing guidelines could include but is not limited to:

Direction to sectors, NGOs and other relevant partners present in the district responsible for developing strategic sectoral plans that will encourage prioritization of project target areas for multiple benefits and multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Determination of how the land and forest degradation mapping results will be considered within the DDP development process.
Develop of a practical and replicable methodology for reviewing DDPs with due consideration to land and forest restoration opportunities in Malawi including identification of stakeholder roles and responsibilities in the development and implementation of the DDPs.
Identification of key performance indicators.

Support the review of District Development Plans for Ntcheu, Karonga, Mangochi, Balaka, and Dowa with reference to the following:

The Malawi Agenda 2063 and MIP 1 priorities
Up to date district socioeconomic profile.
Land use challenges, drivers of natural resources degradation, livelihoods and environmental sustainability.
Opportunities for land and forest restoration in the district.
Promoting gender and social inclusion.
Financing mechanisms for development proposed projects.
Participatory monitoring processes.

Deliverables

The main deliverable from the assignment will be a report detailing:

Task Description

Deliverable

Deadline

Assessment of the current district development planning guidelines to incorporate natural resources management as a foundation for sustainable local development in Malawi

Inception report with an overview of the guidelines, proposed methodology and workplan for the review of the 5 DDPs

5 days

Develop of a practical and replicable methodology for reviewing DDPs with due consideration to land and forest restoration opportunities in Malawi including identification of stakeholder roles and responsibilities in the development and implementation of the DDPs.

Review of the District Development Plans for Ntcheu, Karonga, Mangochi, Balaka, and Dowa

Draft DDPs

50 days

Validation of draft DDPs

Revised DDPs

5 days

Finalization of DDPs and approval of guidelines

5 DDPs and 1 DDP development guideline

5 days

Payment Schedule

The Timetable below summarises the chronological order of deliverables and indicates milestones at which IUCN will pay the Consultant.

Deliverable

Milestone payment

Inception report with an overview of the guidelines, proposed methodology and workplan for the review of the 5 District Development Plans

30%

Draft District Development Plans

40%

5 District Development Plans and 1 District Development Plans development guideline

30%

Assignment description

Consultation with stakeholders to promote ownership and utilization of plans developed; and,
Presentation and discussion of preliminary and final guidelines and plans to District stakeholders, Ministry of Local government, Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change, IUCN, their partners and other key stakeholders.

Duration of the Task

The duration for this work will be 65 working days commencing from the date of signature of the contract and the tasks will be completed by October 30th, 2024.

Reporting

The Consultant shall be supervised and report to the Director of Planning in the Ministry of Local Government, Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change through the Director of Forestry, and IUCN ESARO. The consultant is expected to collaborate with the Programme Officer in Malawi for additional guidance and management of the consultancy agreement.

Qualifications