Overview
The Government of Jamaica (GOJ) has received financing from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) – United Kingdom Caribbean Infrastructure Partnership Fund (UKCIF), in an amount equivalent to £35,515,000 towards the cost of the Essex Valley Agriculture Development Project (EVADP) and intends to apply a portion of the proceeds of this financing to eligible payments under a contract for which this invitation is issued. Payments by CDB will be made only at the request of the GOJ and upon approval by CDB, and will be subject in all respects to the terms and conditions of the Financing Agreement. The Financing Agreement prohibits withdrawal from the financing account for the purpose of any payment to persons or entities, or for any import of goods, if such payment or import, to the knowledge of CDB, is prohibited by a decision of the United Nations Security Council taken under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. No party other than GOJ shall derive any rights from the Financing Agreement or have any claim to the proceeds of the Financing.
The Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries (MICAF) the Executing Agency, now wishes to procure consultancy services to support gender-responsive economic inclusion of vulnerable groups in agriculture and organisational strengthening.
The objectives of the assignment include strengthening the: capacity of the GOJ to employ Gender-responsive Guidelines for Mainstreaming Economic Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups in Agriculture in order to facilitate the economic participation of men, women, youth, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups in agricultural policies, programmes and projects; and organisational capacity, social equity and long-term sustainability of farmers’ groups as partners in agricultural development. These objectives will be achieve by:
- Preparing a Situation Analysis that employs gender analysis including reporting on sex-disaggregated data, to assess the capacity of: (a) the GOJ, (MICAF, AIC, NIC and RADA) to mainstream economic inclusion of vulnerable groups in the agriculture sector; and (b) Farmers’ Groups within the project areas to be sustainable and effective development partners in the agriculture sector;
- Developing and implementing a Gender-responsive Training Manual for Farmers’ Groups with resources to support instructional delivery and;
- Developing Gender-responsive Guidelines for Mainstreaming Economic Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups in Agriculture.
- Developing Inclusive Career Pathways for Poor and Vulnerable Groups in Agriculture for use in a national gender-responsive advocacy and awareness campaign
The duration of this assignment is expected to be for a period of ten months.
MICAF now invites interested eligible consulting firms to submit Expressions of Interest for the provision of these consultancy services.
Eligiblity
Consultants/Firms or Joint Ventures (JV) shall be eligible to participate if:
- in the case of a body corporate, it is legally incorporated or otherwise organised in an eligible country, has its principal place of business in an eligible country and is more than 50 per cent beneficially owned by citizen(s) and/or bona fide resident(s) of eligible country(ies) or by a body(ies) corporate meeting these requirements;
- in the case of unincorporated firms, the persons are citizens or bona fide residents of an eligible country; and
- in all cases, the consultant has no arrangement and undertakes not to make any arrangements, whereby any substantial part of the net profits or other tangible benefits of the contract will accrue or be paid to a person not a citizen or bona fide resident of an eligible country.
Eligible countries are member countries of CDB.
The attention of interested Consultants is drawn to paragraph 1.9 of CDB’s Guidelines for the Selection and Engagement of Consultants (2011), setting forth CDB’s policy on conflict of interest.
In the assessment of submissions, consideration will be given to:
- technical competence, validated by references, in:
- Conduct of research using quantitative and qualitative methodologies , including participatory processes, and use of analytical data from surveys, censuses and qualitative data sources;
- Work in community development, group formation and development, and functioning of agricultural enterprises
- Development of guidelines/ manuals/ toolkits in consultation with government and non-government stakeholders
- gender, social inclusion and intersectionality analysis; gender disability and youth development
- social policy/programme development, monitoring and evaluation,
- qualifications and experience,
- qualifications and local/regional experience of the firm or JV on similar assignments. The firm or JV shall demonstrate the ability to mobilise teams with the following qualifications and experience as outlined below. For each discipline, the total number of available team resources with relevant qualifications and experience should be provided. Individual CVs are not required
- qualifications must include Post graduate qualification in the Social Policy Development, Gender and Development or equivalent fieldsin the Social Sciences. Experience working with of men, women, youth, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups in the agriculture sector is desired an.
- local/regional experience on similar assignments must include demonstrated technical competencies outlined in a(i-vi) above
- financial capability, by way of a statement confirming that the firm or members of the JV is/are neither bankrupt nor engaged in bankruptcy proceedings and confirmation, if requested, that financial statements for the past two years shall be provided;
- existing commitments, by way of explanation and accompanying provision of a list of current and expected assignments during the length of the project giving the name, stage and size of project and the role being/to be performed by the firm or members of the JV.
Expression of Interest must be submitted in English. Further information may be obtained from the first address below between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Instructions
Three (3) hard copies and one electronic copy of the Expressions of Interest must be received at the first address below; and one electronic copy must be sent to the second address below no later than 2:00 p.m. on Monday, December 2, 2019. The sealed envelope containing the submission should include the name and address of the applicant and shall be clearly marked “Expressions of Interest-Consultancy Services to Support Gender-Responsive Economic Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups in Agriculture and Organisational Strengthening”.
The Selection Method shall be Quality Based Selection. Following the assessment of submissions, a short-list of not less than three (3) and not more than six (6) applicants will be provided with full terms of reference and invited to submit technical and financial proposals to undertake the assignment. The GOJ reserves the right to accept or reject late applications or to cancel the present invitation partially or in its entirety. It will not be bound to assign any reason for not short-listing any applicant and will not defray any costs incurred by any applicant in the preparation and submission of Expressions of Interest.
Contact
1. Address one
Procurement Specialist
C/O National Irrigation Commission Ltd. / evadp@nic.gov.jm
191 Old Hope Road,
Kingston 6, Jamaica W.I.
2. Procurement Officer
Caribbean Development Bank
P.O. Box 408
Wildey, St. Michael
Barbados