KEY INFORMATION

Project Reference No(s):

EuropeAid/128969/D/SER/MW

Contacts:

EuropeAid Co-operation Office, European Commission
Phone: +32.02.299.11.11

IMPORTANT DATES:

Announced Date

January 23, 2010

Express Interest By

February 23, 2010

General Information

Opportunity Type:

Consulting

Country/Region:

Malawi

Publication Date:

Feb 08, 2010

Project Amount:

EUR 2,000,000

Contract Award

Add Contract Award

Notice/Contract Number:

EuropeAid/128969/D/SER/MW

Project Summary

MW-Lilongwe: EDF — technical assistance contract for improved forest management for sustainable livelihoods programme II

2010/S 16-019814

Location: Malawi, southern Africa

Service procurement notice

1. Publication reference:

EuropeAid/128969/SER/MW.

2. Procedure:

Restricted.

3. Programme:

10th European Development Fund (10th EDF).

4. Financing:

Financing agreement.

5. Contracting authority:

National Authorising Officer for the EDF.

Contract specification

 

6. Nature of contract:

Fee-based contract.

7. Contract description:

The contract is to provide 4 long-term technical assistants and 15 man-months of unallocated short-term expertise (approx. 3 experts) for the implementation of the second phase of the improved forest management for sustainable livelihoods programme. The programme, whose purpose is ‘to improve the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities through participatory forest management’, will involve, among others, enhancing local forest governance and community-based forest management; individual smallholder livelihoods; Forestry Department institutional organisation and forest sector financing. The contract will include, inter alia, providing expertise on participatory forest management, training and capacity building for staff and communities, project management and strategic planning, financial management, monitoring and evaluation, procurement, as well as sector, institutional and forest policy review, advocacy, forest management, participatory planning and community mobilisation. Unallocated short-term expertise may cover areas such as communication, enterprise development, livelihood analysis and enhancement.

8. Number and titles of lots:

Not applicable.

9. Maximum budget:

2 000 000 EUR.

10. Scope for additional services:

The contracting authority may, at its own discretion, extend the contract in duration and/or scope subject to the availability of funding, up to a maximum not exceeding the length and value of the initial contract. Any extension of the contract would be subject to satisfactory performance by the contractor.

Conditions of participation

 

11. Eligibility:

Participation in tendering is open on equal terms to natural and legal persons (participating either individually or in a grouping (consortium) of tenderers) from ACP States and Member States of the European Union and international organisations as authorised by the instrument applicable to the programme under which the contract is financed (see also item 30 below).

12. Candidature:

All eligible natural and legal persons (as per item 11 above) or groupings of such persons (consortia) may apply.
A consortium may be a permanent, legally-established grouping or a grouping which has been constituted informally for a specific tender procedure. All members of a consortium (i.e., the leader and all other members) are jointly and severally liable to the contracting authority.
The participation of an ineligible natural or legal person (as per item 11) will result in the automatic exclusion of that person. In particular, if that ineligible person belongs to a consortium, the whole consortium will be excluded.

13. Number of applications:

No more than 1 application can be submitted by a natural or legal person whatever the form of participation (as an individual legal entity or as leader or member of a consortium submitting an application). In the event that a natural or legal person submits more than 1 application, all applications in which that person has participated will be excluded.

14. Shortlist alliances prohibited:

Any tenders received from tenderers comprising firms other than those mentioned in the shortlisted application forms will be excluded from this restricted tender procedure. Shortlisted candidates may not form alliances or subcontract to each other for the contract in question.

15. Grounds for exclusion:

As part of the application form, candidates must submit a signed declaration, included in the standard application form, to the effect that they are not in any of the exclusion situations listed in Section 2.3.3 of the ‘Practical Guide to contract procedures for EC external actions’.

16. Subcontracting:

No subcontracting will be allowed.

17. Number of candidates to be shortlisted:

On the basis of the applications received, 4–8 candidates will be invited to submit detailed tenders for this contract. If the number of eligible candidates meeting the selection criteria is less than the minimum of 4, the contracting authority may invite the candidates who satisfy the criteria to submit a tender.

Provisional timetable

 

18. Provisional date of invitation to tender:

1.4.2010.

19. Provisional commencement date of the contract:

1.7.2010.

20. Initial period of implementation of tasks and possible extension of the contract:

36 months (possible extension through negotiated procedure of up to 30 months).

Selection and award criteria

 

21. Selection criteria:

The following selection criteria will be applied to candidates. In the case of applications submitted by a consortium, these selection criteria will be applied to the consortium as a whole:
1) Economic and financial capacity of candidate (based on item 3 of the application form). In the case of the applicant being a public body, equivalent information should be provided:
(a) the value of annual turnover of the candidate must exceed 5 400 000 EUR for each of the past 3 years (2006, 2007 and 2008);
(b) the value of cash and cash equivalents at the beginning and end of years 2006, 2007 and 2008 are positive.
2) Professional capacity of candidate (based on items 4 and 5 of the application form):
(a) at least 15 staff currently work for the applicant in the natural resources management field;
(b) at least 20 % of all staff working for the candidate in 2009 in the natural resource management field are permanent.
3) Technical capacity of candidate (based on items 5 and 6 of the application form):
(a) the candidate has successfully completed at least 3 medium- and long-term (e.g. more than 2 years) projects worth at least 2 000 000 EUR in the past 3 years (2006, 2007, and 2008);
(b) thereof at least 1 technical assistance project of at least 2 000 000 EUR in the natural resource management field;
(c) the company must have been registered and operational for at least 5 years.
An economic operator may, where appropriate and for a particular contract, rely on the capacities of other entities, regardless of the legal nature of the links which it has with them. It must in that case prove to the contracting authority that it will have at its disposal the resources necessary for performance of the contract, for example by producing an undertaking on the part of those entities to place those resources at its disposal. Such entities, for instance the parent company of the economic operator, must respect the same rules of eligibility and notably that of nationality, as the economic operator.
If more than 8 eligible candidates meet the above selection criteria, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the applications of these candidates must be re-examined to identify the 8 best applications for the tender procedure. The only factors which will be taken into consideration during this re-examination are:
— number of contracts (above 100 000 EUR) carried out in the forestry sector since 2006,
— value of contracts in the forestry sector since 2006,
— number of contracts in EU/EC-funded projects,
— number of contracts in sub-Saharan Africa,
— number of contracts carried out by the candidate with a budget above 2 000 000 EUR and completed since January 2006.

22. Award criteria:

Best value for money.

Application

 

23. Deadline for receipt of applications:

23.2.2010 (16:00), Central African Time.
Any application received after this deadline will not be considered.

24. Application format and details to be provided:

Applications must be submitted using the standard application form (available from the following Internet address: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/work/procedures/implementation/services/index_en.htm), whose format and instructions must be strictly observed.

Any additional documentation (brochure, letter, etc.) sent with an application will not be taken into consideration.

25. How applications may be submitted:

Applications must be submitted in English exclusively to the contracting authority:
— either by recorded delivery (official postal service) to:

Attention: Mr Peter Simbani, National Authorising Officer, NAO Support Unit, Ministry of Finance, PO Box 30049, Lilongwe 3, MALAWI,

— or hand-delivered (including courier services) directly to the contracting authority in return for a signed and dated receipt to:
National Authorising Officer, NAO Support Unit, Ministry of Finance, Capital Hill, Lilongwe, MALAWI.
The contract title and the publication reference (see item 1 above) must be clearly marked on the envelope containing the application and must always be mentioned in all subsequent correspondence with the contracting authority.
Applications submitted by any other means will not be considered.

26. Alteration or withdrawal of applications:

Candidates may alter or withdraw their applications by written notification prior to the deadline for submission of applications. No application may be altered after this deadline.
Any such notification of alteration or withdrawal shall be prepared and submitted in accordance with item 25. The outer envelope (and the relevant inner envelope if used) must be marked ‘Alteration’ or ‘Withdrawal’ as appropriate.

27. Operational language:

All written communications for this tender procedure and contract must be in English.

28. Additional information:

Not applicable.

29. Date of publication of contract forecast:

20.8.2009.

30. Legal basis: ACP–EC Partnership Agreement signed at Cotonou on 23.6.2000 as amended on 25.6.2005 and in 2008 (Annex IV).

 

 

The above is a complete copy of the original procurement notice.

Project Information

Links:

Procurement Notice Page

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