Expression of interest and proposal to implement the Usafi wa Mazingira Tanzania (UMATA) programme in Dodoma Region

RFP_SG/TANZANIA/2013/1

Background

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) established the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) to provide grant support to scale up successful sanitation and hygiene approaches targeting poor people in areas of greatest need. The WSSCC Secretariat is hosted by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

In Tanzania the GFS’s Programme Coordinating Mechanism (PCM) is the National Sanitation and Hygiene Coordination Unit, which is mandated to oversee the efficient and effective operationalisation of the National Sanitation Policy. The WSSCC supported the GSF’s PCM in Tanzania to develop a GSF Country Programme Proposal (CPP) to achieve the objectives of increasing sanitation coverage and improving associated hygiene behaviours. The PCM developed a programme focused in Dodoma Region and entitled Usafi wa Mazingira Tanzania (UMATA).

Plan is an international non-governmental organization which is dedicated to the rights of children and to working with the most marginalized groups. The organization’s approaches promote children’s participation, protection and economic empowerment in order to reduce child poverty and to advance children’s human rights.

Plan Tanzania was selected through a competitive process to act as the GSF’s Executing Agency (EA) in Tanzania. Plan has the responsibility to identify sub-grantees to implement different elements of the programme to achieve the overall programme objectives and targets. The procurement process and contractual conditions of sub grantees will be in accordance with rules and procedures laid down in the Sub Grant Management Procedures developed by Plan for the GSF.

Invitation

Plan Tanzania, acting as Executing Agency (EA) for the Global Sanitation Fund in Tanzania, invites suitably qualified firms/organisations to express interest in the role of sub-grantee (SG) for the GSF grant programme in Tanzania and submit concept note along with a detailed proposals to execute the programme components under the GSF supported Government of Tanzania (GoT) called Usafi wa Mazingira Tanzania (UMATA). The concept notes will be evaluated first and only successful concept notes will result in the full proposal being evaluated. The timeframe for submission of concept note and proposals (double submission) to Plan Tanzania will be 28 calendar days – therefore the deadline for submission is 24 June 2013. The initial contract duration will be 2.5 years, extendable upon satisfactory performance of services.

Role of Sub Grantees

Sub-grantees are the primary agents that implement the programme of activities that have been set out in the Country Programme Proposal funded by the GSF with the purpose of contributing directly to achieving the objectives of the GSF. Their work is supported by grants administered by the Executing Agency.

The role of the SG will include:

i. Directly implementing programme activities to achieve relevant programme objectives; ii. Engage with local stakeholders, including communities, other civil society groups and local government, as appropriate to support the achievement and sustainability of the programme results; iii. Mobilize co-funding to assist the ultra-poor and wider impact of the programme; iv. Prepare and send technical and financial reports; v. Undertake audits as required; vi. Procure goods and services necessary for sound and efficient management of the grants programme and for achievement of programme objectives; vii. Monitor and report on project progress; viii. Participate in periodic joint review meetings that will include of PCM, EA, CPM, other sub-grantees, GSF management and other stakeholders; ix. Ensure transparency and accountability of project funds in project delivery.

Eligibility

The applicant must be a legal entity registered in Tanzania with the right to enter a contractual agreement with Plan Tanzania. It can also be a consortium of legal entities where the lead agency is registered in Tanzania. It must have no history of legal proceedings related to fraud or corruption. The applicant could be any type of firms/organisations that fulfills the above criteria. The applicant must demonstrate that it:

i. Has the necessary technical skills and experience to manage and deliver the project. ii. Has the capability to manage and account properly for the total project costs.

INSTRUCTIONS TO APPLICANTS

RFP_SG/TANZANIA/2013/1

Notice: This is an open Call for Proposals where both the Expression of Interest (EOI) and the Full Proposal are submitted together at one stage. The EOI will be evaluated first and the detailed proposal will only be evaluated if the EOI Note qualifies through the below set out evaluation process. This letter is not to be construed in any way as an offer to contract with your organisation/ firm. The cost of preparing this proposal and of negotiating a contract, including any related travel, is not reimbursable nor can it be included as a direct cost of the assignment.

Plan Tanzania acting as the Executing Agency (EA) for the GSF Grant Programme in Tanzania is seeking qualified offers for seven sub grants, related to three separate Terms of Reference: • Strengthening the supply of sanitation products and services through sanitation marketing o SG1: Bahi o SG 2: Chamwino
o SG 3: Kongwa • Increasing households and business access to finance to support improvement in sanitation and hygiene o SG 4: Bahi, Chamwino and Kongwa • Sanitation demand creation and hygiene behavior change in communities and schools o SG 5: Bahi o SG 6: Chamwino
o SG 7: Kongwa

Your organisation/firm is kindly invited to submit your best technical and financial offer for the requested services. Your proposal could form the basis for a contract between your organisation/ firm and Plan Tanzania.

To enable you to submit a proposal, in addition to the Instruction to Offerors, please find a list of the Annexes to support the application process:

i. Annex I: Expression Of Interest Submission Form ii. Annex II: Full Proposal Submission Forms iii. Annex III: Budget Template for Financial Offer (Excel format) iv. Annex IV: Cover Letter v. Annex V: Terms of Reference: Strengthening the supply of sanitation products and services through sanitation marketing vi. Annex VI: Terms of Reference: Increasing households and business access to finance to support improvement in sanitation and hygiene vii. Annex VII: Terms of Reference: Sanitation demand creation and hygiene behavior change in communities and schools viii. Annex VIII: Country Programme Proposal (CPP) ix. Annex IX: Global Sanitation Fund Results Framework x. Annex X: Sub-grantee Management Procedures xi. Annex XI: Draft Agreement of Cooperation

Procedure for Proposal submission

This is an open Call for Proposals where both the EOI and the Full Proposal are submitted together at one stage.
The Instruction for Offerors (this document) and all related Annexes, including the EOI Submission and Full Proposal Submission Forms, can be downloaded at this web address: http://www.plantanzania.org and http:// http://www.wsscc.org/global-sanitation-fund/opportunities.
The submission must be in English and must comprise the following documents;

i. EOI ii. Detailed Proposal. iii. Financial Offer iv. Cover Letter duly signed by the CEO or a designated person within the organization. In the case of a consortium, the submission must be confirmed by the proposed partners by way of a co-signature or a signed supporting the letter.

Any request for clarification should be referred to the Country Director before close of business on 17/6/ 2013 at the following e-mail address gsf.tanzania@plan-international.org. Any written reply to a particular question will be uploaded to our web address: http://www.plantanzania.org for all interested parties to access.
There shall be an information/pre-EOI and proposal workshop on 12/06/13 to give applicants and opportunity to clarify matters pertaining to the Expression of Interest and Request for Proposals. If you are interested to attend the workshop, please confirm your participation to Plan Tanzania at gsf.tanzania@plan-international.org by 07/06/2013 and further information concerning location and agenda will be provided.
You are being requested to inform Plan Tanzania by e-mail : gsf.tanzania@plan-international.org before close of business on 17/06/ 2013 as to: i. Your interest to submit a Expression of Interest and Full proposal ii. Which Sub-Grants you are interested to submit proposals for
Interested organizations should submit two hard copies of the submission and an electronic copy of the submission saved on CD-Rom by 24/06/2013, 1700 hours Tanzania time by registered mail, courier service or by hand delivery to the address below:

Country Director Plan Tanzania Usafi wa Mazingira Tanzania (UMATA) Global Sanitation funded Program in Tanzania P.O.BOX 3517 Dar Es Salaam TANZANIA

Kindly include reference "RFP_SG/TANZANIA/2013/1" in the submission. Only offers sent to the physical address specified above will be accepted. If you do not receive an e-mail confirming receipt of your submission send an email to: gsf.tanzania@plan-international.org.

Proposals must be received by Plan Tanzania on or before 1700 hours Tanzania time on 24/06/2013. Any proposal received after this date may be rejected. Plan Tanzania may, at its discretion, extend the deadline for the submission of proposals and will notify all prospective proposers in writing before or after the submission deadline. The extension of the deadline may accompany a modification of the solicitation documents prepared by Plan Tanzania at its own initiative or in response to a clarification requested by a prospective proposer. Plan Tanzania will reject any offers if bidders modify or alter the solicitation documents. Plan Tanzania takes no responsibility for effective delivery of the electronic document.
Plan Tanzania is not bound to accept any highest or lowest bid.

Technical Component

The Technical component of your EOI and the Full Proposal should be concisely presented and structured in the order provided for in EOI and Full Proposal Submission Form. In addition, provide information and documents that will facilitate our evaluation of your organisation legal existence, substantive reliability and financial and managerial capacity to provide the services, including the recent certified annual financial statements of accounts or proof from previous donor that the funds given were used effectively for the intended program.

Financial Offer

Submit your quote for the financial offer for the project in local currency (Tanzania shillings) and convert the total cost to USD using the current exchange rate, using Annex III: Budget Template for Financial Offer. Notes on how to complete the summary budget template are included in the document itself. The detailed sheet is provided to support the development of an appropriate budget and might be requested further down the selection process, as part of the final contract negotiations. It is therefore advised that you use this format to develop your financial bid figure.
The EOI should not include financial information
Under the GSF Grant Programme in Tanzania payment to sub grantees will be made upon satisfactory achievement of specific milestones described in the contract.
Advance payment will be made to reflect cost of quarterly activities.

Evaluation of Proposal

The EOI will be evaluated first and the proposal will only be evaluated if the EOI has been selected.
All EOI and Full Proposals will be evaluated in accordance with the provisions of evaluation criteria for EOI, Full Proposal and Financial proposals. The evaluation procedure will consist of a formal, substantive and financial assessment of the proposals received. Evaluation of the proposal will be conducted by a selected Evaluation Team that will follow strict evaluation procedures as included below and the evaluation will be carried out within proposal validity period.

i. The submission deadline has been respected. If the deadline has not been respected the application will automatically be rejected. ii. If the proposal has followed the instructions iii. A score will be given to the proposal based on pre-agreed criteria.

Price is an important factor; however, it is not the only consideration in evaluating responses to this RFP.
Detailed evaluation leading to a final selection or award may take several weeks.

Criteria for Evaluation of EOI

In relation to the EOI the following Evaluation Grid will be used.

i. Legal eligibility (pass/fail) ii. Capability and experience in implementing sanitation and hygiene project (25%)
iii. Capability and experience of managing and accounting for grants (25%) iv. Project management experience, Monitoring & Evaluation capacity (25%) v. Access to a breadth of knowledge and experience in the sanitation and hygiene sector, especially hygiene promotion, awareness raising, demand creation and advocacy (25%)

Criteria for Evaluation of Full Proposal

In relation to the Full Proposal the scoring of the technical proposals, three areas will be evaluated, with the indicated weightage:

i. Project Design (50%) - this will also include a Pass/Fail component ii. Sustainability (25%) iii. Organisational Capacity (25%)

A minimum score of 70% will be expected for a proposal to be considered for funding. The evaluation grid below will be the guiding template for evaluation of the proposal.

Evaluation Criteria

S/N A. Project Design Points 01 Relevance of the proposal in contributing to the achievement of the objectives as outlined in the CPP (Relevance of proposed interventions, target area and beneficiaries) Pass/fail 02 Overall strength of the intervention design: intervention strategy and choice of target population in reference to the CPP 10 03 Relevance of interventions in relation to the mandate and expertise of the Organisation 10 04 Does the project bring in added-value elements, such as equal opportunities, consideration of physically or mentally challenged people, resource leveraging, rights innovation and best practices 10 05 Sensitivity to gender and social inequality 5

Evaluation Criteria 06 Quality and adequacy of monitoring and evaluation plan, including relevance to GSF M&E system 5 07 Feasibility: can the stated objectives be achieved within given time plan and budget? 5 08 Time frame and work plans 5 SUB TOTAL 50 S/N B. Sustainability
01 Extent to which proposal articulates a collaboration plan with other organisations/service providers and Local Authorities 5 02 Costs effectiveness of the interventions (cost for activities versus operational cost and any other contribution from organisation) 10 03 Sustainability of the services provided beyond the project period 10 SUB TOTAL 25 Organisational Capacity
01 Current or past experience in sanitation and hygiene and geographical area 5 02 Competencies of key staff in relation to proposed objectives and activities 5 03 Adequacy of human resources to implement the interventions technically over the proposed duration of the project. 10 04 Adequacy of organisational management (management structure of the organization to support and manage the proposed team) 5 SUB TOTAL 25 Grand Total 100

Although the total points on the technical proposal add up to 100, they contribute 70% of the total weight while the financial will be 30%. Score out of 100 will be recalculated to be represent a proportionate score out of 70.

Evaluation of financial proposal

Financial proposal shall be opened by the committee once the technical evaluation is completed and tabulated. Only organisations who scored 50 and above out of the recalculated 70% in technical evaluation shall be considered for financial offer analysis. Organisations that obtain less than 50 out of the recalculated 70% in technical proposal evaluation shall be rejected. The winner shall be selected on the basis of an overall average rating, i.e. both technical and financial ratings, by the committee members.

The Financial Offers would be reviewed and given a score based on an assessment of the cost effectiveness of the bid compared to the scope of the work proposed in the proposals. This would be done in a qualitative, not formulaic approach.

The following criteria would be considered in analyzing Sub-Grantee Financial Proposals: i. Appropriateness of budget allocated to specific interventions/activities proposed (5) ii. Organizational overhead costs as percentage of total project cost (5) iii. Size of salaries compared with sector averages (5) iv. Cost of capital expenditure required as % of project total cost (5) v. Cost per beneficiary (5) vi. Additional resources leveraged/contributed by the organisation to the programme budget (5)

Technical Specifications of Requirement

No changes, substitutions, or other alterations to the technical specifications of requirement stipulated in the RFP will be accepted unless approved in writing by Plan Tanzania.

No Commitment

The RFP contains no contractual offer of any kind. Any proposal submitted will be regarded as an offer by the proposer and not as an acceptance by the proposer of the offer made by Plan International Tanzania. No contractual relationship will exist except pursuant to a written contract document signed by Plan International Tanzania and by the selected proposer. The RFP does not commit Plan International Tanzania to consider any proposal, to award a contract or to pay any costs incurred in making necessary studies for the preparation thereof.

Withdrawal and Modification of Proposals

Proposals may be modified or withdrawn in writing, prior to the deadline for submission of proposal. Proposals may not be modified or withdrawn after the deadline.

Errors in Proposals

Proposers or their authorized agents are expected to examine any maps, drawings, specifications, circulars, schedules, and other instructions pertaining to the work, made available by Plan International Tanzania to the proposers for inspection. Failure to do so will be at the proposer’s own risk. In case of error in the totaling of prices, the unit price will be governed.

Proposal Opening

Each specific RFP will be reviewed by Plan Tanzania. The first screened set of proposals will be forwarded to Evaluation Panel prescribed by Programme Coordinating Mechanism for the final screening.

Confidentially

The RFP or any part thereof, and all copies thereof must be returned to Plan Tanzania upon request. It is understood that the RFP is confidential and proprietary to the Plan Tanzania, contains privileged information, part of which may be copyrighted, and is communicated and received by you on the condition that no part thereof, or any information concerning it may be copied, exhibit, or furnished to others without the prior written consent of the Plan Tanzania, except that you may exhibit the specifications to your prospective sub-contractor for sole purpose of obtaining offers from them. Notwithstanding the other provisions of the RFP, recipients of the RFP will be bound by the contents of this paragraph whether or not they submit a proposal or respond in any other way to this RFP.

Contract

Any contract resulting from this RFP will include the Specific Conditions for Contract and General Conditions for contract as applicable.

Validity of proposals

The EOI and Full Proposal submitted shall remain valid and open for acceptance for a period of 60 days from the designated closing date indicated for receipt of proposals in this Request for proposal. Once the proposal is accepted during this period, the price quoted in the proposal must remain unchanged for the entire period of the resulting contract unless otherwise specified in this RFP.

Rejection of proposals and Split Awards

Plan International Tanzania reserves the right to reject any and all proposals if they are, inter alia:

i. Received after the deadline stipulated in the Request for Proposal; ii. Not properly marked or addressed as required in the Request for Proposal; iii. Delivered to another office location than the one required and stated in the Request for Proposal; iv. Contain an alternate Proposal; or not otherwise in compliance with this Request for Proposal.

Plan Tanzania also reserves the right to split an award between any proposers in any combination, as it may deem appropriate.

How to apply:

Interested organizations should submit two hard copies of the submission and an electronic copy of the submission saved on CD-Rom by 24/06/2013, 1700 hours Tanzania time by registered mail, courier service or by hand delivery to the address below:

Country Director Plan Tanzania Usafi wa Mazingira Tanzania (UMATA) Global Sanitation funded Program in Tanzania P.O.BOX 3517 Dar Es Salaam TANZANIA