Consultancy for Documenting Digital Stories on Impact and Gender in Energy Access in Private Sector Companies

Request for Proposal: Terms of Reference Consultancy for Documenting Digital Stories on Impact and Gender in Energy Access in Private Sector Companies – Ethiopia Portfolio – October 2024

Job Title: Request for Proposal: Terms of Reference Consultancy for Documenting Digital Stories on Impact and Gender in Energy Access in Private Sector Companies – Ethiopia Portfolio – October 2024

Closing date: 17/10/2024

1. The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund

The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) transforms lives by providing investment funding and technical assistance to commercially viable businesses that improve the lives of rural communities. It mobilizes donor funding to support early and growth-stage businesses in agriculture and renewable and clean energy sectors, with a focus on improving incomes and employment for rural and marginalized groups. It is a non-profit organization, with its headquarters in Nairobi and operational centers in Somalia, Ethiopia, Dar-es-Salaam, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Côte d’Ivoire.

We surface and commercialize new ideas, business models, and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve resilience to the effects of climate change while also addressing the crosscutting themes of women, youth, and fragility. AECF is committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go.

2. Energy and Adaptation to Climate Change (REACT SSA) programme.

REACT SSA is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and implemented by AECF since 2017 targeting eight countries (Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Its objective is to improve access to renewable energy for low-income off-grid households, increase incomes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the target countries. One of the objectives of the REACT SSA program is to capture and disseminate lessons on how increased access to clean energy can deliver positive impact on the rural poor, especially women, through i) business models, ii) improved business environment, through policy influencing and advocacy, iii) improved business environment through crowding in, replication and copying best practice. The programme focuses on five investment portfolios (solar home systems/PAYG; micro-grids; clean cooking; micro-energy, asset financing and carbon markets; and productive uses of energy and irrigation pumps).

3. Rationale for this consultancy

This assignment involves creating digital stories to document lessons and success stories from AECF REACT SSA program for the Ethiopia Portfolio. The aim is to highlight AECF’s efforts in poverty alleviation through improved energy access, showcasing contributions to sustainable energy and positive impacts on gender inclusion, quality of life, distribution channels, employment, innovation, and clean cooking. The aim is to strengthen program enhancement, resource optimization, and provide a learning mechanism for AECF and its partners. The documentation also intends to inform the scaling up of successful practices, particularly in promoting gender-inclusive solutions by renewable energy companies in Ethiopia.

Additionally, the initiative demonstrates AECF’s value in gender lens investing for overall thought leadership and resource mobilization efforts. Through this consultancy, AECF seeks to identify the specific factors of success, understand the actual actions being undertaken on the ground and the impact of interventions on the lives of the programme beneficiaries. The documentation will also propose some promising practices that can be maintained and replicated or scaled up in the future and combine human stories and voices of beneficiaries and accounts of investee’s technical staff. These digital stories will be shared with private sector players, development partners and the public.

4. Scope of Work

The task involves capturing stories from various locations in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. To accomplish the intended objective, the consultant will work under the overall supervision of AECF.

• Will work in collaboration with AECF to determine the exact scope of the stories; identify and develop topics and agree on investee end-beneficiaries to be visited.
• Prepare tools, scripts and formats that will be used for documenting the stories.
• Conduct fieldwork in the selected communities with AECF programme and investee staff where applicable. This will include focus group discussions, interviews, observations, and visits to beneficiaries to elicit their views.
• Prepare success stories by analyzing and presenting relevant information about project implementation.
• Produce text, photographs, and infographics highlighting the success stories and including voices of beneficiaries and other stakeholders.
• Prepare a draft publication featuring the assessment findings and the digital stories using a mix of text, visuals, and multimedia content.
• Conduct validation meeting with respective companies to ensure the draft publication reflects the company’s experiences and perspectives.
• Prepare a final comprehensive publication that incorporates the validated findings, company stories, achievements, lessons learned, recommendations, and conclusions.
• Prepare a comprehensive presentation for disseminating the digital stories.

5. Specific Deliverables and Expected output.

The consultant will deliver to AECF:

NB: The dates will be adjusted based on the actual contracting date.

 6. Duration

The assignment will be conducted within a period of 45 days from the date of signing the contract.

7. Reporting

The consultant will report to the AECF Gender, The Communications team, and the REACT SSA Ethiopia Team.

8. Qualifications and experience

The consultant /firm should have.

• At least 5 years of writing experience in digital story writing in a creative way for diverse audiences.
• A consultancy firm with a team of experts in technical writing, storytelling, photography, and copy editing.
• Professional experience in investigative and human impact story writing, preferably in renewable energy, gender, and development.
• Experience and deep understanding of gender lens investing principles, strategies, and best practices and be knowledgeable about the intersection of gender and renewable energy.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey complex concepts compelling and engaging.
• Possess strong research and analytical skills to gather relevant information, conduct interviews, and extract meaningful insights from data. They should be able to identify key milestones, challenges, and lessons learned from the selected companies.
• A comprehensive understanding of gender issues, particularly in rural and marginalized communities with familiarity with the gender dynamics, challenges, and opportunities within these contexts.
• Ability to navigate diverse cultural contexts and effectively engage with businesses from different backgrounds. Given the diverse communities and contexts involved, the consultant should possess cultural sensitivity and the ability to work with people from different backgrounds. This will facilitate effective communication, collaboration, and understanding of local perspectives.
• Strong understanding of renewable energy technologies, policies, and programs, particularly in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. Familiarity with the current trends, challenges, and opportunities in the renewable energy sector and the on communities and their potential to address gender inequalities.
• Prior experience in documenting similar stories or working on gender-focused initiatives. This demonstrates their ability to handle the complexities of the assignment and deliver high-quality results.
• Ability to manage timelines, prioritize tasks and ensure deliverables are met within the agreed scope.
• Have work experience in Ethiopia. Country based consultants will be an added advantage.

9. Evaluation criteria

An evaluation committee will be formed by the AECF. All members will be bound by the same standards of confidentiality. The consultant should ensure that they fully respond to all criteria to be comprehensively evaluated.

The AECF may request and receive clarification from any consultant when evaluating a proposal. The evaluation committee may invite some or all the consultants to appear before the committee to clarify their proposals. In such an event, the evaluation committee may consider such clarifications in evaluating the proposals.

In deciding the final selection of a qualified bidder, the technical proposal will be given a weighting of 80% based on the evaluation criteria. Only the financial proposal of those bidders who qualify technically will be opened. The financial proposal will be allocated a weighting of 20% and the proposals will be ranked according to the total points scored.

The mandatory and desirable criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are identified in the table below.

10. Proposal Submission 

Interested companies/individuals must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

a. A technical proposal, max 15 pages (excluding annexes) including the following:

• A profile of the lead consultant (max. 3 pages) explaining why they are the most suitable for the work
• CVs of the team composition.
• An understanding of the consultancy requirements.
• Methodology and work plan for performing the assignment.
• Detailed reference list indicating the scope and magnitude of similar assignments.
• Letters of references/recommendation from previous companies/assignments
• Relevant services undertaken. Sample of past work: applicants are requested to submit a sample of previous projects and/or links to demonstrate the experiences required by this Terms of Reference
• Registration and other relevant statutory documents (this apply to Institutional consultants).

b. A financial proposal

• Financial proposal clearly showing the proposed team member, roles, and proposed days and the proposed professional fee (daily rate and total amount per team member). The financial proposal shall also include an indication of reimbursables (travel, communication etc.)

N/B: Technical and Financial proposals should be submitted as separate documents

11.  Pricing

AECF is obliged by the Kenyan tax authorities to withhold taxes on service contract fees as well as ensure VAT, at 16%, is charged where applicable. Applicants are advised to ensure that they have a clear understanding of their tax position with regards to provisions of Kenya tax legislation when developing their proposals.

12. Application

The AECF is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The AECF considers all interested candidates based on merit without regard to race, gender, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

• Interested consultancy are requested to submit their technical and financial proposal to aecfprocurement@aecfafrica.org by 17^th October 2024, 5pm EAT
• All questions should be directed to the procurement email by 10^th October 2024, 5pm EAT.
• The subject of the email should be Consultancy for documenting Gender Adoption in Energy Access in private companies-Ethiopia. The AECF shall not be liable for not opening proposals that are submitted with a different subject or responding to questions that did not meet the deadline as indicated.

13. Disclaimer

AECF reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party.

The AECF does not charge an application fee for participation in the tender process and has not appointed any agents or intermediaries to facilitate applications. Applicants are advised to reach out directly to the AECF.