Technical Assistance on Community level study on Social and Gender issues in WASH

1.   The U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) signed a five-year, $66.2 million compact with the Government of Cape Verde in February 2012 to reduce poverty through economic growth. The $41.1 million Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Project  is designed to establish a financially sound, transparent and accountable institutional basis for the delivery of water and sanitation services to Cape Verdean households and businesses. The $17.3 million Land Management for Investment Project is expected to improve Cape Verde’s investment climate by refining the legal, institutional and procedural environment to create conditions for increased reliability of land information, greater efficiency in land administration transactions, and strengthened protection of land rights; developing and implementing a new land information management system; and clarifying parcel rights and boundaries on targeted islands with high investment potential.

2.   The Government of the Republic of Cape Verde, acting through the Client, has received grant funding of approximately one million three hundred fifty five United States Dollars (US$1,355,000) (“609(g)” Funding) Grant from MCC to facilitate implementation and preparation of the Millennium Challenge Compact, and it intends to apply a portion of the MCC funding to eligible payments under a contract for which the Request for Proposals is issued. Any payments made under the proposed contract will be subject, in all respects, to the terms and conditions of the Compact and related documents, including restrictions on the use of MCC funding and conditions to the disbursements of MCC funding.  No party other than the Government, MCA-CV II and MCC, shall derive any rights from 609(g) Agreement or have any claim to the proceeds of MCC funding.

In furtherance of the development of the proposed Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Project, the Millennium Challenge Account Cape Verde II (“MCA-Cape Verde II”) requires the services of a Consultant Firm to provide the following specific tasks:

• Undertake community-level qualitative research to learn lessons that can be built into detailed design of WASH project activities, to ensure that project activities adequately and appropriately address the conditions and needs of poor and vulnerable households and individuals;
• Provide recommendations, inputs, and guidance for national and utility level institutions to assess key social and gender issues in water, sanitation and hygiene and to inform national and utility level priorities, strategic plans, Information, Education, and Communications (IEC) activities, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) efforts; 
• Inform WASH project monitoring and evaluation frameworks, questions and instruments to ensure that the mechanisms for the project’s impact (causal chain and program logic) are well understood and feed into project design in order to ensure social and gender objectives are achieved;
• Review and test proposed IGF criteria and procedures related to Social and Gender-related requirements for IGF-submitted proposals. The inputs will be integrated into the project assessment, screening, scoping and scoring tools and templates in the IGF Operations Manual, as well as into the oversight and risk mitigation tools in the IGF's Environmental and Social Management Framework;
• Provide recommendations for inputs into the Strategic National Master Plan (“SNMP”), Strategic Environmental and Social Assessment (“SESA”) for the WASH sector, and the Santiago Master Plan (SMP); and
• Provide recommendations for national and utility level Information, Education, and Communications (IEC) planning.

Location: City of Praia, Cape Verde and at the consultant’s home office.

Anticipated Start Date: March 2013

Duration of Assignment: 5 months (no later than August 2013)

The MCA – CV II now invites eligible consulting firms consulting firms to submit their technical and financial proposals for the required assignment. The consulting firm should have at least 10 years of experience managing qualitative social and gender research projects, with some experience in the WASH sector.  Given the fact that this consultation is mainly a qualitative research it is expected that the Consultant team will include staff with experience of working in Cape Verde, with good knowledge on social and gender approach and experience and some knowledge of the WASH sector, and Cape Verdean and Portuguese language skills. Considerations should include: 1. Background and training; 2. Curriculum and years of demonstrated experience of project team members; and 3. Individual experience related to proposed work that demonstrated an understanding of the specific work to be performed. All deliverables must be prepared in Portuguese with an English synopsis. Some deliverables include an option for English translation.

A full request for proposal document in English, including the Terms of Reference (TOR), may be requested by the interested Consultancy Firms in writing to the address below.The RFP document will be sent in PDF format by e-mail.

The selection shall be carried out in accordance with the procedures set forth in Section 1.B. of the MCC Program Procurement Guidelines (PPG), which are available on the “Business & Procurements” page of the MCC website (http://www.mcc.gov). The selected firm will sign a contract (Section 5 of the RFP) on the basis of a fixed price/fee lump sum.

Interested Bidders are requested to send their proposals, which should include a TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL PROPOSAL following instructions on the RFP document (Section I. Instructions to Consultants, Point 4: Submission, receipt and opening proposal(4.4).

Interested bidders may obtain further information from the e-mail addresses below, during office hours 08:00 to 13:00 and 14:00 to 16:00 Cape Verde Local Time, from Monday to Friday.

Deadline for submission of the Proposals in the format as indicated in the Request for proposal (RFP) document, that is for Technical proposal (Forms TECH 1 -11) and for Financial Proposal (Forms FIN 1-4) should be addressed to the Procurement Agent in closed and sealed envelopes at the address indicated below by January 28, 2013, 11H00 Cape Verde local time.