Asia External Representation Office (Snar): Organizing and Carrying out Business Matching as one of the key components of the Third Japan-African Business Forum (hereafter called the Forum)

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

(CONSULTING SERVICES - FIRMS SELECTION)

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

ASIA EXTERNAL REPRESENTATION OFFICE (SNAR)

1. The African Development Bank hereby invites Consultant Firm to indicate their interest in the following Assignment: Organizing and Carrying out Business Matching as one of the key components of the Third Japan-African Business Forum (hereafter called the Forum), which consists of six plenary sessions, a regional session, and a business matching, under the theme of “Shaping a New Africa in the Era of COVID-19”, to be held 100 to 200 times for three to six weeks between April and June 2021.

2. The services to be provided under the Assignment include:   

   Three consultants will organize and carry out business matching as one of the key components of the Forum; one will lead a business matching team, whose working days are eighty (80) and should begin no later than five (5) months before the forum, and the other two will support business matching, whose working days are forty (40) working days for each and should begin no later than five (5) months before the forum.

3. The job descriptions of the consultants are as follows:

1. 1. Support to identify context, rationale and framework of SNAR’s business matching event
      • Review SNAR’s overall business design and implementation plans for the business matching under the Forum and provide advices for the overall design;
      • Advise SNAR measures to materialize the outcomes of business matching into actual business development/investment in Africa; and
      • Collect and summarize information of business matching events held by relevant institutions/organizations targeting business interaction between Japanese and African private sectors.
        

1. 2. Make a list of African and Japanese companies for business matching

                (i)          African companies

• • • Advise SNAR points of consideration to be prioritized when selecting African companies from the viewpoints of size of companies, sector, country/ region and so forth;
    • Research, select and contact African private companies being interested in collaboration with Japanese private companies, and invite and encourage them to participate a business matching with Japanese companies; and
    • Support SNAR to complimentarily list up African private companies through its network within the African Development Bank Group and partners such as the African Diplomatic Corps in Japan

                (ii)          Japanese companies

• • • Based on the company profiles of African companies, research, select and contact Japanese private companies being interested in collaboration with African public and private companies, and invite and encourage them to participate a business matching with African companies;
    • Consider and implement public relations activities for Japanese private sector for the business matching under the Forum; and
    • When necessary, have pre-discussions with some Japanese companies together with SNAR to examine outcomes of the B2B meeting under the business matching

1. 3. Organize and manage platform for business matching
      • Support to list up and register African/Japanese companies with company profile information (e.g. company name, basic corporate information including operating countries, areas of business) on the on-line platform;
      • Manage and monitor a process of the registration of participants for the business matching in the Forum in collaboration with a vendor of the system; and
      • Provide supports to African/Japanese companies to manage their registration information on the on-line platform if necessar
        

1. 4. Support B2B meeting during business matching

                (i)          Before B2B meeting

• • • Summarize available support options offered by the business partners, mainly public institutions, for big business, small and medium enterprise and start-ups when implementing business in Africa;
    • Advise SNAR screening measures for effective matching between African and Japanese private companies;
    • Identify some specific B2B meetings, say 10-20 meetings between African and Japanese private companies, which are likely to yield materialized outcomes and advise SNAR materialization plan; and
    • For such specific B2B meetings, take communication with African and Japanese companies and propose discussion agenda;
      

                (ii)         B2B meeting on the day

• • • Supervise the overall progress and implementation of business matching through the on-line platform;
    • For some specific B2B meetings which are likely to yield materialized outcomes, join the meeting together with SNAR and/or relevant public partners to facilitate discussions during the meeting;
    • Take meeting memo for those meetings where the Consultant Firm participates and summarize further actions to be taken; and
    • Support arrangements for individual business matching meeting

                (iii)        After B2B meeting

• • • Advise SNAR measures to identify discussion outcomes of the B2B meetings such as distributing and collecting questionnaires for the private companies; and
    • Advise SNAR further follow-up plans for B2B meetings, especially those meetings which discussed concrete business ideas in Africa

1. 5. Report
      • Prepare completion report on business matching including major findings, suggestions for the further follow-up measures and future business matching;
        

1. 6. Others
      • Assist in other related tasks that the Head of the SNAR may deem necessary from time to time;
        

4. The Asia External Representation Office (SNAR) invites Consultant firms to indicate their interest in providing the above-described services. Interested eligible Consulting Firms or associations of Consulting Firms shall provide information on their qualifications and experience demonstrating their ability to provide the services (documentation, references for similar services, experience in comparable Assignments, availability of qualified staff, etc.).  
   

5. Registration in the Bank’s DACON system at the same time of EOI submission is encouraged (https://econsultant.afdb.org:44356/welcomedacon?SAP-language=EN#) since  registered applicants are requested to provide their DACON number with their expression of interest.

6. The eligibility criteria, the establishment of a short list and the selection procedure shall be in conformity with the Bank’s Rules and Procedure for the Use of Corporate Consultants. Please, note that interest expressed by a Consulting Firm does not imply any obligation on the part of the Bank to include it in the shortlist.
   

7. A two-stage process shall be adopted in evaluating proposals. Proposals shall be ranked according to technical score (TS) and financial score (FS) using the weights (T = the weight given to the technical proposal, 80 % (F = the weight given to the financial proposal 20%) (T + F = 1). The overall score shall be calculated as follows:

Overall Score (OS) = (TS x T %) + (FS x F %)

The minimum requirement of the technical proposal is 70 points. The points given to the evaluation criteria are:

The points given to the evaluation of sub-criteria for qualifications of key personnel are:

The financial proposals corresponding to the technical proposals which obtained the minimum qualifying technical score will be opened. A score of 100 is given to the financial proposal evaluated to be lowest and the scores for the other financial proposals is directly proportional thereto.

8. The estimated duration of services is seven (7) months and the estimated starting timing is 14^th December 2020 (to be determined in our negotiation for the contract because of the unforeseeable conditions due to COVID-19 pandemic).

9. Interested Consulting Firms may obtain further information at the address below during the Bank’s working hours: 9:30 to 18:30 JST
   

10. Expressions of interest must be received at the address below no later than 10th

November, 2020 at 12:00 local time in Tokyo, Japan, and specifically mentioning

“Organizing and Carrying out Business Matching as one of the key components of the Third Japan-African Business Forum (hereafter called the Forum), which consists of six plenary sessions, a regional session, and a business matching, under the theme of “Shaping a New Africa in the Era of COVID-19”, to be held 100 to 200 times for three to six weeks between April and June 2021.” 

For the attention of: 

Mr. TOKUSHIGE Yoshifumi and Mr. IMAMURA Tatsuya

African Development Bank 

Asia External Representation Office

Zip Code: …100-6024

Town: ………24F No.2408, Kasumigaseki Building, 3-2-5 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo  Country: ……Japan 

Tel: ……….....+81-(0)3-4589-8721 

Fax: …………+81(0)3-4589-8725 

E-mail: ……… SNAR_Tender@AFDB.ORG