Expression of Interest (EOI)

Implementation Support of Urban Lab on Sustainable Planning and Construction

Reference Number: 83445124

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, Mineral Governance, Peace and Security in the Great Lakes Region.

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1. Context

The GIZ global project “Urban Innovation made in Africa – Sustainable Planning and Construction”, funded by BMZ’s Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development Fund II, focuses on integrated approaches to sustainable, climate-friendly, and pro-poor urban planning and construction. The project is technically and organizationally coordinated in Germany. It consists of three connected components: (I) Inter-ministerial coordination in Germany, (II) Implementation of an Urban Lab process in Rwanda, and (III) Global peer-exchange and learning.

The share of the urban population in Rwanda is expected to double by 2040. Construction is one of the main causes of pollution, CO2 emissions, and deforestation. Sustainable, climate-sensitive planning and construction is anchored in sector and funding-policies. In addition, many implementation approaches exist in Rwanda. Yet, the laws and regulations as well as good practices are still insufficiently implemented.

The Urban Lab process in Rwanda is intended to serve as a model case for how sustainable, climate-friendly, and pro-poor urban planning and construction can be implemented in a country with high rates of urbanization and high need for climate adaptation. The objective is that the Urban Lab process will provide insights that can be used as examples for national, regional, and international policy processes. At the same time, practical experiences and findings from the Urban Lab process serve as a reality check for the national ministerial dialogue in Germany and provide insights and practical knowledge for the global peer-learning. The experiences and conclusions will be documented and shared with other countries facing similar issues to facilitate the further development of regulations and practices that promote financing for sustainable urban planning and construction. Finally, a guide for policymakers to sustainable, gender-sensitive and condensed pro-poor construction methods shall be developed based on the recommendations and discussions of the Urban Lab in Rwanda and oriented towards national guidelines.

The focus areas of the Urban Lab process in the sustainable planning and construction sector are:

• Condensed building solutions
• Sustainable building materials
• Vulnerable groups (pro-poor and gender-sensitive planning and construction)

The guiding question of the Urban Lab process is: How can the provision of sustainable and affordable housing be accelerated for households with incomes below 200.000 RWF?

The Urban Lab process is implemented by GIZ and supported by the Ministry of Infrastructure (MININFRA) and the City of Kigali. It aims to bring together 40 representatives from local communities, the planning and construction industry, research and academia, local government, national government agencies, financial institutions, and the private sector, including at least 20 women, to address specific sectoral and spatial challenges.

The aim of the consultancy is to support the successful implementation of the Urban Lab process in Rwanda, including supporting the dissemination of experiences and lessons learnt on relevant regional and global formats. As a consultant you will work with the GIZ Regional Office Rwanda/Burundi. This office has a very dynamic and growing portfolio of bilateral, regional and global assignments with ambitious partners. The focus of the GIZ Regional Office is on sustainable economic development, good governance, climate, energy & urban development and digitalisation.

2. Tasks to be performed by the contractor

The contractor is responsible for providing the following services:

• Event Management: Support in the event management of the Urban Lab process by
  1. Support in conducting three larger workshops of approx. 40 participants
  2. Conducting of co-creative break-out working groups in between the General Assembly Workshops
  3. Management of participants
  4. Invitation of participants
  5. General communication with participants
  6. Communications with event locations
  7. Organization of catering during the events
  8. Support in the administrative procedures such as participants registration, reimbursement of travel cost, etc.
• Documentation and analysis:
  1. of inputs, views, ideas, and results from the ‘General Assembly Workshops’ clustered by stakeholder group that are supposed to feed the guide for policymakers
  2. of inputs, views, ideas, and results from the co-creative working groups clustered by stakeholder group that are supposed to feed the guide for policymakers
  3. in how far stakeholder inputs, views, ideas were incorporated into the final guide for policymakers
  4. Support in the creation of the final guide for policymakers
  5. Support in summarizing the findings, results and lessons learned of the Urban Lab process
• General support in the preparation of
  1. capacity development measures
  2. communication materials
  3. an oversees delegation trip
  4. a public presentation / exhibition of the results of the Urban Lab process
• Communication and cooperation: For the period of assignment, the contractor is expected to participate in regular (weekly / bi-weekly) exchanges with GIZ and institutions related to the Urban Lab process such as the political and further partners. Furthermore, the virtual collaboration via Microsoft Teams is to be ensured.

Certain milestones, as laid out in the table below, are to be achieved during the contract term:

Period of assignment: from 01.09.2023 until 31.08.2024.

3. Concept

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

Note: The numbers in parentheses correspond to the lines of the technical assessment grid.

Technical-methodological concept

Strategy (1.1): The tenderer is required to consider the tasks to be performed with reference to the objectives of the services put out to tender (see Chapter 1 Context) (1.1.1). Following this, the tenderer presents and justifies the explicit strategy with which it intends to provide the services for which it is responsible (see Chapter 2 Tasks to be performed) (1.1.2).

The tenderer is required to present the actors relevant for the services for which it is responsible and describe the cooperation (1.2) with them.

The tenderer is required to present and explain its approach to steering the measures with the project partners (1.3.1) and its contribution to the results-based monitoring system (1.3.2).

The tenderer is required to describe the key processes for the services for which it is responsible and create an operational plan or schedule (1.4.1) that describes how the services according to Chapter 2 (Tasks to be performed by the contractor) are to be provided. In particular, the tenderer is required to describe the necessary work steps and, if applicable, take account of the milestones and contributions of other actors (partner contributions) in accordance with Chapter 2 (Tasks to be performed) (1.4.2).

The tenderer is required to describe its contribution to knowledge management for the partner (1.5.1) and GIZ and to promote scaling-up effects (1.5.2) under learning and innovation.

Project management of the contractor (1.6)

-Not applicable-

Further requirements (1.7)

Gender aspects (such as gender ratio and gender sensitive content) are to be considered throughout the respective activities.

4. Personnel concept

The tenderer 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 in the technical assessment.

Short-term expert pool with minimum 3, maximum 5 members

For the technical assessment, an average of the qualifications of all specified members of the expert pool is calculated. Please send a CV for each pool member (see below Chapter 7 Requirements on the format of the bid) for the assessment.

Tasks of the short-term expert pool

• See Chapter 2

Qualifications of the short-term expert pool

• Education/training (2.6.1): 2 experts with university qualification (German ‘Diplom’/Master) in Economics, Social Sciences or similar
• Language (2.6.2): 2 experts with C2-level language proficiency in English. 3 experts with C2-level language proficiency in Kinyarwanda.
• General professional experience (2.6.3): 1 expert with 12 years of professional experience in the development consultancy sector, 2 experts with 3 years of professional experience in the development consultancy sector
• Specific professional experience (2.6.4): 1 expert with 2 years of professional experience in community engagement, 2 experts with 3 years of professional experience in event management sector
• Regional experience (2.6.5): 3 experts with 10 years of experience in Rwanda (country)
• Development cooperation (DC) experience (2.6.6): 1 expert with 5 years of experience in DC
• Other (2.6.7): 1 expert with 3 years of professional experience in urban development sector.

Soft skills of short-term expert pool

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

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

The tenderer must provide a clear overview of all proposed short-term experts and their individual qualifications.

5. Costing requirements

Assignment of personnel and travel expenses

Expert pool:  Assignment for 157 expert days (virtual and on-site collaboration must be ensured).

Per-diem and overnight accommodation allowances are reimbursed as a lump sum up to the maximum amounts permissible under tax law for each country as set out in the country table in the circular from the German Federal Ministry of Finance on travel expense remuneration (downloadable at https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de).

Accommodation costs which exceed this up to a reasonable amount and the cost of flights and other main forms of transport can be reimbursed against evidence.

All business travel must be agreed in advance by the officer responsible for the project.

Sustainability aspects for travel

GIZ would like to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂ emissions) caused by travel. When preparing your tender, please incorporate options for reducing emissions, such as selecting the lowest-emission booking class (economy) and using means of transport, airlines and flight routes with a higher CO₂ efficiency. For short distances, travel by train (second class) or e-mobility should be the preferred option.

If they cannot be avoided, CO₂ emissions caused by air travel should be offset. GIZ specifies a budget for this, through which the carbon offsets can be settled against evidence.

There are many different providers in the market for emissions certificates, and they have different climate impact ambitions. The Development and Climate Alliance (German only) has published a list of standards (German only). GIZ recommends using the standards specified there.

Specification of inputs

6. Inputs of GIZ or other actors

-Not applicable

7. Requirements on the format of the tender

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

The complete tender must not exceed 10 pages (excluding CVs). If one of the maximum page lengths is exceeded, the content appearing after the cut-off point will not be included in the assessment. External content (e.g., links to websites) will also not be considered.

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 each. They 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).

Please calculate your financial tender based exactly on the parameters specified in Chapter 5 Quantitative requirements. The contractor is not contractually entitled to use up the days, trips, workshops or budgets in full. The number of days, trips and workshops and the budgets will be contractually agreed as maximum limits. The specifications for pricing are defined in the price schedule.

8. Eligibility Criterion 

• Average annual turnover for the last 3 financial years: Atleast: 128,816,000 RWF
• Number of of employees as at 31.12 of the previous year: Atleast 5 persons
• The technical assessment will only base on reference projects with a minimum commission value of RWF 48,950,080
• Atleast 1 reference project in the technical fields of development cooperation
• Atleats 5 reference project Africa/Rwanda in the last 3 years
• A company must Atleast be 3 years old (After Company Registration) 

9. Annex / Attachments

Annex 1 – Grid for the technical assessment of bids

Annex 2 – Template for the Technical Proposal

Annex 3 – Factsheet “Urban Innovation made in Africa”

Annex 4 – Urban Lab Process Description

Submission of offer: The Expression of Interest should contain the following:

10. Technical Proposal:
    • A cover letter expressing your interest in this assignment
    • Technical proposal with a brief description of why you would be considered as the most suitable for the assignment, relevant expertise, and a detailed, clear methodology, your approach to complete the assignment, template attached.
    • CV of the Consultants proposed
    • Company registration certificate (RDB)
    • VAT Registration certificate
    • Latest tax clearance certificate if applicable
    • Proof of successful completion of related assignments. 

Financial Proposal: indicates the all-inclusive daily rate, supported by a breakdown of all costs. The costs must be in RWF and VAT

Please submit electronically your EoI (technical & Financial offer) in 2 separated emails and should be in PDF files to this email ONLY: RW_Quotation@giz.de  until latest 19^th August 2023

Please you must write on each email subject this sentence: 

83445124 Technical/financial offer, without this sentence, your offer may not be considered 

Hard copies are not allowed this time

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