Expression of Interest (EOI)-Retender

Perform Needs Assessment and Data Mapping for Rwanda's Integrated Green Finance Information System. 

Reference Number: 83459172

Publication date: 15.03.2024 

Introduction

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federally owned international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. The GIZ Office in Kigali covers GIZ’s portfolio in Rwanda and Burundi. GIZ Rwanda/Burundi implements projects on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union and other commissioning authorities in the following priority areas: Sustainable Economic Development; Good Governance; Climate, Energy and Sustainable Urban Development; Digitalization and Digital Economy; and regional projects in the Great Lakes Region.

1. Context

• Introduction

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federally owned international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. GIZ has worked in Rwanda for over 30 years. The primary objectives of cooperation between the Government of Rwanda and the Federal Republic of Germany are poverty reduction and promotion of sustainable development. To achieve these objectives, GIZ Rwanda is active in the following areas: Training and Sustainable Growth for Decent Jobs; Climate and Energy; Digitalization and Digital Economy; Mineral Governance and Burundi; and Good Governance.

About Digital Cluster and the Digital Transformation Center Rwanda

The Digital Cluster is a Rwandan-German initiative to develop impact-driven digital solutions at regional and continental levels in Africa. Therefore, it not only provides advisory services and training for government institutions and local tech companies but also a modern space to boost creativity and collaboration. 

The Digital Transformation Center is a space dedicated to delivering impact-driven digital solutions, developing the capacities of the local innovation ecosystem, and replicating and scaling up digital solutions at the regional and continental levels. The implementation of innovation at the Digital Transformation Center is in collaboration with the Ministry of ICT’s implementing agency, the Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA).  The Digital Transformation Center supports both the public and the private sectors in transferring knowledge and skills and developing organizational, structural, and technological capacities. 

The Digital Transformation Center is now organized in various topics called Verticals for orientation, and proper collaboration with partners and the Rwandan ICT ecosystem and these verticals are collectively known as the GIZ Digital Cluster. These verticals include 

Public Sector Innovation

The public sector innovation vertical is where the government, civil society and private sector all intersect to work together in developing digital solutions and innovation around the challenges experienced in the public sector. In this vertical, the demand is set through a series of collaborations from the government, mainly from the Chief Digital Officers of every sector, The Rwanda Information Society Authority RISA and the Ministry of ICT and Innovation and many other implementing agencies to work together. The solutions developed under the Public Sector innovation vertical revolve around digitization, change management, ICT building blocks, UN Sustainable Development Goals, Smart cities, and efficient delivery of Government services. 

Digital Inclusion & Literacy

The Digital Cluster is actively involved in capacity-building and digital literacy, targeting people in rural areas, women and people with disabilities, ICT professionals, tech startups and employees of political partner agencies. The Digital Inclusion and Literacy vertical works together with several civil society organizations, The Ministry of ICT and Rwanda Information Society Authority RISA to implement joint programs that bridge the skills gap for both public servants and citizens to create an environment conducive to digital transformation and adoption of digital skills for economic development and improved livelihoods.  

Startup Ecosystem Support

The Digital Cluster supports young entrepreneurs and startups through incubator and accelerator programs to build and expand their businesses. These programs provide access to mentorship, funding, and resources to help young entrepreneurs overcome the challenges of starting a business. By fostering collaboration and innovation, these initiatives are helping to create a thriving ecosystem for young entrepreneurs to succeed in today's competitive marketplace. 

Artificial Intelligence Hub (AI Hub) and data

Most of the digitalization efforts, both private and public, rely on data and insights into that data. The AI hub vertical works around Improving access to training data and AI technologies for local open innovation, strengthening local technical know-how on AI in Rwanda, Develop Policy Frameworks Ready for AI - Ethical AI, Data Protection and Privacy, and one of the biggest topics in AI under the AI hub is Machine translation.  

The Macroeconomic and Investment Policies Project

The Macroeconomic Investment Policies project, as part of the Good Governance Cluster aims at strengthening individual and institutional capacities for economic analyses and evidence-based policymaking. The project has five interlinked ‘support areas’: (1) Planning and implementation of public investments; (2) Macroeconomic modelling; (3) Promoting evidence-based fiscal policy; (4) Improving research-based higher education and strengthening research and political dialogue, and (5) Supporting the implementation of the Rwandan Sustainable Finance Roadmap. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) is MIP’s main counterpart

Rwanda has a strong track record of mainstreaming climate commitments into its national plans and sectoral strategies. With one of the lowest per capita carbon emissions, Rwanda is highly vulnerable to climate change. Its exposure to disasters linked to natural hazards, such as heavy rainfall, flooding, and landslides, is expected to increase. The World Bank’s Country Climate and Development Report estimates that climate risks could reduce Rwanda’s GDP by 5–7 percent in multiple years by 2050, with a negative impact on private consumption, exports, and government revenues. Recognizing its vulnerability, Rwanda’s Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy (GGCRS), launched in 2011 and revised in 2023, is embedded in Rwanda’s long- and medium-term development plan, Vision 2050, and its National Strategy for Transformation (2017–24), as well as aligned with some sector strategies, such as agriculture, forestry, land use, urbanization, transport, energy, manufacturing technologies, and disaster risk reduction and management. Rwanda’s commitment to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), updated in 2020, sets the objective of reducing, by 2030, the greenhouse gas emissions by 38 percent relative to a business-as-usual baseline, primarily in agriculture, energy, and waste sectors. It estimates the climate-related investment needs between 2021 and 2030 at 11 billion USD (or around 7 percent of GDP per year), of which 40% is set to be financed from domestic resources, and the rest from external resources, including the private sector. The investment needed to implement the revised GGCRS is even estimated to be 2 billion USD annually.

With the objective to overcome the impediments to private climate financing, such as small market size and high perceived risk for low-income countries, Rwanda Sustainable Finance Roadmap, launched in October 2022, defines key milestones to be achieved, through engagement of several institutions, to mobilize local, regional, and international sustainable finance to meet Rwanda’s strategic climate-related objectives. The roadmap, in addition, aims to establish Rwanda, through the Kigali International Finance Center, as a regional financial hub.

Rwanda has adopted several initiatives to mobilize climate finance from different sources. It achieved direct access to the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund and established, in 2012, Green Fund (FONERWA) as a strategic basket fund for climate action. To date, FONERWA mobilized 247 million USD and funded 46 projects. It also provides training for public and private sectors and supports a national task force charged with climate finance mobilization for NDC implementation. On the side-lines of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), in November 2022, FONERWA and the Development Bank of Rwanda, together with a range of development partners, launched a 104 million USD Ireme Invest green investment facility to assist - through grants, concessional loans and credit guarantees - Rwanda’s private sector in accessing green financing and aligning it to the SDGs. In December 2022, the International Monetary Fund approved a 319 million USD Resilience and Sustainability Facility to support reforms that would integrate climate related considerations in the macroeconomic policies and frameworks, as well as the delivery and monitoring of Rwanda’s climate commitments. Earlier, in May 2022, the European Union committed to contribute, over the next four years, 30 percent of its 260 million USD envelope under the Multiannual Indicative Program to climate change goals. In 2022, Germany made 95 million EUR available for climate initiatives and sustainable urban development, in line with the Climate and Development Partnership, signed in March 2022, with the intention to provide additional funds in the future. Rwanda is exploring further options relating to carbon credit financing and developing a green finance market to help close the financing gap in support of the green growth priorities. At the June 2023 Paris Summit for a new global financing pact, the French Development Agency, AFD, pledged programmatic budget support in the amount of 50 million EUR combined with 3 million EUR technical assistance grant.  

Climate finance related discussion in Rwanda currently revolves around the question about how to engage IFIs and development partners to scale up Ireme Invest, and pioneer new climate finance instruments, and coordinate them to achieve tangible progress on the ground. Merging macro-policy and investment banking, moving from project to programmatic approach by creating a common big pot with clear criteria (taxonomy) of what is “green” and a joint reporting framework emerge as the guiding principles.

The lack of guidelines and reporting standards about which funds can be deemed green (taxonomy) represents a big impediment for scaling up green investments. According to the Rwanda Banking Association, there are ample funds available (coffee and tea, for example, could absorb 500 million USD over 24 months); therefore, a phased approach and pragmatic use of definitions (e.g., IFC or EIB guidelines) until the national taxonomy has been developed will be used. Other impediments include the lack of (tax) incentives for the private sector, low domestic savings, and poor understanding of green/sustainable financing. Going forward, the focus will therefore be on the development of taxonomy and extensive capacity development for the banking sector and regulators.

Rwanda’s climate commitments have been considered in various budget preparation and planning processes. Since 2019, the Manual of PFM Policies and Procedures has signaled the climate policy priorities by asking the sectoral ministries to consider environmental and climate change issues in their environment and climate change monitoring statements and climate change checklists. The FY22/23 budget call circular has, in addition, obliged them to highlight top policy areas and identify priority climate-related spending by indicating key interventions, and report on their implementation. This, in turn, has helped the ministries gather useful information and improve understanding of sectoral needs. Furthermore, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) has monitored the progress in implementation of environmental and climate change policies and has published the biannual State of Environment and Outlook Report. Finally, quantitative climate risk analysis has been integrated into the FY 2023/24 Fiscal Risk Statement; this analysis has been underpinned by a sound policy framework for the budget identification of fiscal risks elaborated during the strategic planning and fiscal framework phase. No new or separate policy frameworks and practices have been created; rather, the existing ones were modified and reinforced with the elements that are sensitive to green growth. 

Going forward, additional efforts will be needed to mainstream the green dimension into institutional arrangements and strengthen capacities in fiscal and monetary policies.  First, assuring reliable and high-quality climate-related database on weather, climate, agriculture, land-use and green financing to strengthen transparency and accountability, and to inform the decision-making processes. Second, improving the assessment of climate sensitive public investments and management to minimize the risks of “greenwashing”. Third, introducing public schemes, such as tax incentives, grants and subsidies, research funding to support low-carbon investments. Fourth, developing regulatory and supervisory practices and tools, such as national sustainable finance taxonomy, stress-testing, and scenario analysis guidance, reporting and disclosure regulations, etc. based on a thorough vulnerability analysis to establish and promote the Rwandan banking and insurance sector as a model for sustainable lending and investment. Finally, enhancing expertise and knowledge exchange among Rwandan institutions and internationally to raise awareness about and the understanding of climate risks. The plan is to advance homegrown climate reform agenda and position Rwanda internationally as a frontrunner in climate policy reform agenda.  

• Coordinated GIZ support for the development of an Integrated Green Finance Information System

1.2.1 Rwanda’s integrated green finance information system

Against this background, the rationale for Rwanda’s integrated green finance information system is to:

• Collect information in a systematic and coordinated manner

The Green Finance Information System will provide a single platform of climate finance flows (national, international, public and private), by (i) incorporating the existing information, currently scattered across various government information systems, and (ii) promoting multi-stakeholder data partnerships among Rwandan institutions. 

• Allow more informed decision-making on mobilizing resources and optimizing resource allocation

The Green Finance Information System will allow for more strategic and evidence-based decision-making, by detecting financing gaps on one side and identifying potential public and private funding sources on the other. Enhanced transparency will deepen understanding of green and sustainable financing, and facilitate impact evaluations of private and public investments, including those financed through ODA. 

• Monitor and report on international commitments

The Green Finance Information System’s holistic approach will strengthen monitoring of and reporting on Rwanda’s international commitments, such as the NDC.

• Give visibility to government action

The Green Finance Information System, will, in addition, demonstrate the government’s commitment to mobilize public and private resources, use innovative financial solutions to address impediments to access to green finance, and free up fiscal space for much needed environment, social and governance reforms. 

1.2.2 Links to other climate finance initiatives

The integrated Green Finance Information System will be aligned with:

• Green budget tagging framework, which will be implemented and integrated into the MINECOFIN’s information system to track, by late 2024, all capital expenditures. As such, it will raise awareness on how budget decisions are linked to national priorities by facilitating and improving monitoring and reporting.
• Rwanda Green Taxonomy, which, by end 2023, and based on the environmental objectives relevant to Rwanda’s development priorities, will track, monitor, and demonstrate the credentials of green activities by investors, issuers, lenders, and other financial sector participants. As such, the Green Taxonomy will help mobilize green financial flows in a confident and efficient way. It will foster market transparency and integrity by providing a clear definition and classification of sustainable economic activities based on a set of qualitative and/or quantitative criteria. 

1.2.3 ICT components of the Green Finance Information System

The Green Finance Information System will be part or sub-system of Rwanda’s existing information management systems.

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) willl, on the one hand, require upgrades of ICT systems already in place. On the other hand, data governance frameworks will be needed that enable data management and sharing across government and beyond.  Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and its partner – MINECOFIN have decided to probe the feasibility of an ICT-based approach by creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The MVP is defined as an integrated, scalable ICT solution that has the following main features:

• Web-based, including interface for the public
• Processing and displaying of NDC-related financial flows
• Processing and displaying of NDC-related project management data
• Processing and displaying of data related to Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV)

The implementation of these features is intended to create a maximum number of organizational and technological standards enabling a smooth expansion of the system to all SDG-related policy fields at a later point of time.

Possible features of the Green Finance Information System:

• Internet-based solution
• Server in Rwanda
• NDC project parameters including project budget, financial gaps and progress monitoring.
• Public user interface esp. for private investors, international donors
• Sector-specific Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV).

The ICT-related needs will be identified by a special expert provided by GIZ. The contractor and the special expert must cooperate closely with each other.

1.2.4 Next steps in developing an integrated Green Finance Information System

As one step towards an integrated Green Finance Information System, this assignment aims at mapping, analyzing and finally visualizing available data on green finance flows in Rwanda through a dashboard. The underlying analysis of data sources, data quality and relevant stakeholders will feed into a larger, more comprehensive needs assessment, that, under the guidance of MINECOFIN and other critical stakeholders, would allow for piloting of the Green Finance Information System before its fully-fledged solutions would be put in place.

In the first instance, conceptualized by the beginning of 2024, the Green Finance Information System would provide a strategic framework to track green financing.

2. Tasks to be performed by the contractor

The contractor is responsible for providing the following services: 

1. Data Catalogue for the Rwanda Integrated Green Finance Information System
   1. Compile a catalogue of significant data sources relevant for climate finance (from MINECOFIN and FONERWA) – national budgets, international climate funds, multilateral development projects, etc. from the larger finance database according to pre-defined criteria/taxonomy. The catalogue structure must be aligned with the GoR’s data catalogue structure.
   2. Clearly define and document the data fields/variables to be extracted, and provide suggestions how to coherently and reliable combine data from different tools/systems
   3. Document the specific process/workflow for sharing the extracted data with the developer team. Leverage data sharing frameworks according to previous data exchanges with external partners.
      • This should include to a minimum; file formats, storage locations, and access permissions.
   4. Develop comprehensive view on other potential data sources and stakeholders to support green finance analysis.
2. Provide Data, and Support Analysis and Data Validation
   1. Define validation criteria/checks to ensure data quality
   2. Consult domain experts in government, public, and private sectors to validate relevance, accuracy, and reliability of the data catalogue’s criteria/checks.
   3. Provide extracted sample dataset with key fields to developers or facilitate access to the larger finance database.
3. Stakeholder Ideation and Dashboard Validation
   1. Map stakeholder roles, needs and objectives regarding climate financing information: key questions the information system shall answer for the differenet user groups; desired user experience; which visual elements to display information, e.g., bar graphs, sankey charts, etc, and which depth of drill down analysis, such as from national to provincial to district, etc.
   2. Conduct 2-3 workshops with key stakeholders – Ministry officials, funding agencies, and other development partners in the green innovation and climate mitigation ecosystem(s).
   3. Suggest 1-2 initial visualizations/insights for stakeholder feedback
   4. Gather partner’s requirements and recommendations in terms of internal capacity building needs in setting up the governance and coordination mechanisms, and next steps in the development of the Rwanda Integrated Green Finance Information System.

The milestones, as laid out in the table below, are to be achieved by the contractor:

Period of assignment: 1^st March 2024 until 31^th July 2024

3. Concept

In the bid, the bidder is required to show how the objectives defined in Chapter 2 are to be achieved, if applicable under consideration of further specific method-related requirements (technical-methodological concept). In addition, the bidder must describe the project management system for service provision.

Technical-methodological concept

Strategy: The bidder is required to consider the tasks to be performed with reference to the objectives of the services put out to tender (see Chapter 1). Following this, the bidder presents and justifies the strategy with which it intends to provide the services for which it is responsible (see Chapter 2).

The bidder is required to present the actors relevant for the services for which it is responsible and describe the cooperation with them.

The bidder is required to present and explain its approach to steering the measures with the project partners.

The bidder is required to describe the key processes for the services for which it is responsible and create a schedule that describes how the services according to Chapter 2 are to be provided. In particular, the bidder is required to describe the necessary work steps and, if applicable, take account of the milestones and contributions of other actors in accordance with Chapter 2.

Project management of the contractor

The bidder is required to draw up a deliberate and realistic activity plan with explanatory notes on risks of delays and failures as well as proper mitigating and reactive measures.

Moreover, the bidder is required to explain its approach for coordination with the GIZ project. GIZ will provide one contact person for the contractor. The explanations of the bidder shall consider the following minimum standards to be met by the contractor:

• Provision of at least one contact person for GIZ
• Existence of substitution management
• Reliable and prompt communication via phone, email and meetings
• Management of costs and expenditures, accounting processes and invoicing in line with the requirements of GIZ

The bidder is required to draw up a personnel assignment plan with explanatory notes that lists all the experts proposed in the bid; the plan includes information on assignment dates (duration and expert days) and locations of the individual members of the team complete with the allocation of work steps as set out in the schedule.

4. Personnel concept

The bidder is required to provide personnel who are suited to filling the positions described, on the basis of their CVs (see Chapter 7), the range of tasks involved and the required qualifications.

The below specified qualifications represent the requirements to reach the maximum number of points.

Team Leader

Tasks of the team leader

• Overall responsibility for the advisory packages of the contractor (quality and deadlines)
• Coordinating and ensuring communication with GIZ, partners and others involved in the project
• Personnel management
• Regular reporting in accordance with deadlines, and commit to weekly sync meetings to review progress
• Identify any additional inputs/support needed from other functions.
• Highlight risks from delays in dependencies

Qualifications of the team leader

• Education/training (2.1.1): University qualification (Master) in Economics, Financial Management, Public Management or equivalent
• Language (2.1.2): Good business language skills in English and Kinyarwanda
• General professional experience (2.1.3): 15 years of professional experience in the public sector
• Specific professional experience (2.1.4): 10 years in public financial management
• Leadership/management experience (2.1.5): 4 years of management/leadership experience as project team leader or manager in a company
• Regional experience (2.1.6): 4 years’ experience in projects in Rwanda.
• Development Cooperation (DC) experience (2.1.7): 2 concrete examples of working on projects with focus on digital transformation in DC

Expert 1: Data Engineer

Tasks of Expert 1

• Regular reporting in accordance with deadlines
• Facilitate coordination with the technical support team to access necessary datasets
• Facilitate workshops with critical stakeholders to understand objectives, scope, and requirements
• Managament of stakeholders’ expectations
• Maintain documentation of features, functionalities and technical specifications for reference
• Conduct demos and reviews with critical stakeholders to gather feedback

Qualifications of Expert 1

• Education/training (2.1.1): University degree in computer science, software engineering, data science, or a related field
• Language (2.1.2): Good business language skills in English (C1)
• General professional experience (2.1.3): 4 years’ experience in data engineering, data analytics a maintaining database systems
• Specific professional experience (2.1.4):
  • Experience handling large, diverse datasets from web APIs or databases
  • Proficiency in dashboard/reporting tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Looker, etc.
  • Proficiency in dashboard/scripting language like SQL, Python, or R
  • Understanding of specific industry contexts like finance, and ability to work in cross-functional teams
• Leadership/management experience (2.1.5): - non applicable -
• Regional experience (2.1.6): 4 years’ experience in projects in Rwanda
• Development Cooperation (DC) experience (2.1.7): - non applicable -

Soft skills of team member(s)

In addition to their specialist qualifications, the following qualifications are required of team members:

• Team skills
• Initiative
• Communication skills
• Socio-cultural competence
• Efficient, partner- and client-focused working methods
• Interdisciplinary thinking

5. Costing requirements

Assignment of personnel

Team Leader: On-site assignment (Kigali, Rwanda) for 35 expert days

Expert 1: On-site assignment (Kigali, Rwanda) for 30 expert days

Travel

Not applicable

Workshops, training

Not applicable. The GIZ will be in charge of the stakeholder workshop related cost and logistics.

Other costs

Not applicable

Flexible remuneration item

Not applicable

6. Inputs of GIZ or other actors

Not applicable

7. Requirements on the format of the bid

The structure of the bid must correspond to the structure of the ToRs. In particular, the detailed structure of the concept (Chapter 3) is to be organised in accordance with the positively weighted criteria in the assessment grid (not with zero). It must be legible (font size 11 or larger) and clearly formulated. The bid is drawn up in English (language).

The complete bid shall not exceed 10 pages (excluding CVs).

The CVs of the personnel proposed in accordance with Chapter 4 of the ToRs must be submitted using the format specified in the terms and conditions for application. The CVs shall not exceed 4 pages. The CVs must clearly show the position and job the proposed person held in the reference project and for how long. The CVs can also be submitted in English (language).

If one of the maximum page lengths is exceeded, the content appearing after the cut-off point will not be included in the assessment.