RFP – Program Final Evaluation

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Republic of Lebanon
Ministry of Agriculture

Final Evaluation of the

National Program for the

Improvement of Olive Oil quality and

Actions against the diffusion of Phytoplasma

Request for Proposal (RFP)

Reference Number: RFP-AID9527-2016-Final Evaluation

1. Objective

The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to select and enter into a contractual agreement with a suitable contractor to carry out the Final Evaluation of the National Program for the Improvement of olive oil quality and to control stone fruit Phytoplasma in Lebanon.

2. Background

The National Program for the improvement of olive oil quality and actions against the diffusion of Phytoplasma, hereinafter “The Programme”, funded by the Italian Government for a total value of about 1,75 million Euro and directly executed by the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), intends to contribute to food security in the country by requalifying agriculture production in line with international standards and to promote measures to fight the spread of diseases that threatens the drupes productivity. Accordingly, the project has two main components: a) olive oil quality improvement in four Lebanese regions and b) epidemiology assessment of drupes’ phytoplasma in the country, undertaking research on insect vectors and secondary hosts.

As per article 9 of the Project Agreement signed between the Italian and the Lebanese Governments, an evaluation of the activities financed under the Project shall be undertaken. Most activities were implemented by 30.06.2014 and a Final Evaluation is accordingly expected to take place starting in 2016.

3. Characteristics of the bidder

3.1 status

The provider shall be a public institution, company, recognized foundation or individual expert operating in the field of agriculture, socio-economic assessment and food security, with proven expertise in evaluation of development projects. Two or more entities may form a consortium and submit a joint proposal to undertake the work. Such a proposal must be submitted in the name of one member of the consortium - hereinafter the “Contractor". The Contractor will be responsible for undertaking all negotiations and the delivery of the results and it will be the main point of contact for the Ministry of Agriculture – hereinafter the “Contracting Authority”.

3.2 Previuos experience

 Excellent knowledge of agriculture, rural development and food security;

 At least 10 years’ experience in monitoring and evaluation of agricultural and rural development programmes, strategic and technical support planning, needs assessment;

 At least 10 years’ experience in working with developing countries and/ or in the Middle East Region;

 Proven ability to deliver high quality products in relatively short time;

 Excellent analytical, communication and reporting skills;

 Proved proficiency in English (spoken and written). Working knowledge of French and Arabic is an asset.

3.3 Staffing

The selected Contractor shall be responsible for selecting and hiring staff dedicated to perform the evaluation according to these Terms and International standards. To avoid any conflict of interest all experts involved in the evaluation must be independent and should never have been involved neither in the formulation nor in the implementation of the Programme.

The Contractor shall provide three profiles of expertise:

  1. for the evaluation of the “olive oil” component (olive oil production, olive oil technology and marketing, food policy analysis, or related field)
  2. the evaluation of the “drupes’ phytoplasma component” (fruit tree disease control and diagnosis, integrated pest management, or related field)
  3. the project and team coordinator (rural development, -economics, agricultural science, food security, or a related field).

All staff proposed shall be able to work in a team, analyze situations and draw conclusions; shall be fluent in English (working knowledge of French and Arabic is an asset) and have proven professional drafting and reporting skills in English.

Experts assigned to the two components shall have relevant education background and proven significant experience (at least 7 years) in the specific field.

Experts assigned to project and team coordination shall have at least ten years of progressively professional experience in rural development, policy analysis, and preferably in food policy analysis. It is required also previous experiences in monitoring and evaluation of agricultural development programs, preferably in Lebanon.

4. works to be performed

4.1 main tasks

The Contractor shall:

  1. Evaluate the grade of accomplishment of the specific objectives of the two main project components;
  2. Evaluate the adopted strategies and instruments, implemented activities, achieved results and highlight best practices, if any;
  3. Formulate recommendations for the future (how activities could be continued by MoA)

The evaluation analysis shall be based and elaborated on the following evaluation criteria:

  • Relevance of the project and quality of the project planning. This criterion focuses on the extent to which the design of the project effectively:

- Analysed the project’s coherence with the strategy of the Lebanese and local government and the Italian Development Cooperation

- Identified key stakeholders and target groups

- Assessed institutional capacity issues and effectively promoted local ownership

- Clearly and accurately identified real problems

- Analysed lessons learnt from past experiences and ensured coherence with current initiatives

- Provided a clear analysis of strategy options and justified the recommended implementation strategy

- Established a clear and logically coherent set of project objectives (goal, purpose, outputs) and a set of indicative activities for delivering each project output

- Analysed assumptions and risks

- Established appropriate management and coordination arrangements

  • Efficiency, relates to how well the various activities transformed the available resources into the intended outputs and results in terms of quantity, quality and timeliness:

- The quality of day-to-day management, for example in (i) management of the budget (including whether an inadequate budget was a factor), (ii) management of personnel, information, property etc. (iii) whether management of risk was adequate, i.e. whether flexibility was demonstrated in response to changes in circumstances; (iv) relations/coordination with local authorities, institutions, beneficiaries, other donors; (v) respect for deadlines

- How far the costs of the project were justified by the benefits whether or not expressed in monetary terms with similar projects or known alternative approaches

- Technical assistance: how well did it help to provide appropriate solutions and develop local capacities to define and produce results

- Quality of monitoring: its existence (or not), accuracy and flexibility, and the use made of it

- Did any unplanned outputs arise from the activities

  • Effectiveness; relates to how far the project’s outputs were used and the project purpose realized:

- Whether the planned benefits were delivered and received as perceived by all key stakeholders

- Whether there was any institutional reform and if behavioral patterns changed in the beneficiaries and how far these have produced the planned improvements

  • Impact, relates to the overall project impact of the two project components on the beneficiary:

- To what extend the planned goal has been achieved and how far that was directly due to the project;

- How far enhanced economic and social development resulted from the project activities;

- If there were unplanned impacts, how they affected the overall impact

- Where appropriate, all gender related, environmental and other cross-cutting impacts that were achieved

  • Sustainability, relates to any positive outcomes of the project at the purpose level which are likely to continue after external funding ends:

- Ownership of objectives and achievements, e.g. how far all stakeholders were consulted on the objectives from the outset, and whether they agreed with them and remained in agreement throughout the duration of the project;

- Institutional capacity, e.g. the degree of commitment of all parties involved, such as local and national Governments (e.g. through policy and budgetary support), stakeholders and counterpart institutions; the extent to which the project is embedded in local institutional structures, whether the institutions appears likely to be capable of continuing the flow of benefits after the project ends (is it well-led, with adequate and trained staff, sufficient budget and equipment)

- Whether counterparts were properly prepared for taking over, technically, financially and managerially;

- The adequacy of the project budget for its purpose

- Socio-cultural factors, e.g. whether the project is in tune with local perceptions of needs and of ways of producing sharing benefits;

- Financial sustainability, e.g. whether the products or services provided were affordable for the intended beneficiaries and remained so after funding ended; whether enough funds were available to cover all costs (including recurrent costs) and continued to do so after funding ended; and economic sustainability, i.e. how well the benefits compared to those on similar undertakings once market distortions are eliminated

- And similarly to the above, were cross-cutting issues such as gender equity, environmental impact and good governance, were appropriately accounted for and managed from the outset of the project

  • Assumptions and Risks, relates to the assumptions and risk assessment and will examine whether these were:

- adequate or valid, or unforeseen external factors intervened;

- how flexibly management adapted to ensure that the results would still achieve the purpose;

- how well it was supported by key stakeholders including local Governments, etc.

- whether the balance of responsibilities between the various stakeholders was appropriate, which accompanying measures were or should have been taken by the partner authorities, and with what consequences;

- how unplanned results may have affected the benefits received;

- whether any shortcomings at this level were due to a failure to take account of cross-cutting or over-arching issues such as gender, environment and poverty during implementation

More in detail, with regards to the analysis of Programme, the Contractor shall:

  1. Evaluate the accomplishments of the olive oil component notably: i) the achievement of qualitative and quantitative improvement of olive oil production in four Lebanese regions, in line with European commercial standards, through the specific Programme activities in favor of cooperatives and farmers, ii) the establishment and functionality of a national laboratory for the certification of olive oil quality according to international standards and iii) the design and adoption of valid legislation and/ or norms;
  1. Evaluate the accomplishment in fighting stone fruit phytoplasma (Candidatus phytoplasma phoenicium) by: - i) providing the Lebanese MoA with technical tools to monitor phytopathogens that threat the national production of drupes, ii) better understanding the epidemiology of the disease, iii) carrying out research on the insect vector – and iv) assessing the efficacy of proposed control measures (elimination of infected plants; set-up of a permanent phytoplasma monitoring system).

To achieve these goals, the Consultants will have free access to all available project documentation and data sources and are expected to contact/interview the project coordinators and the main direct and indirect beneficiaries of the project as well as partners and stakeholders.

The Monitoring and Evaluation Team will report directly to the Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation Beirut (AICS).

At the end of the Evaluation, the Evaluators will hold a restitution workshop at the premises of the Ministry of Agriculture, with key project stakeholders, to present and put at discussion the main findings.

4.2 Report content

The Final Report (written in English) shall contain the following:

  1. An executive summary on major findings and recommendations;
  2. Information on the agreed scope and evaluation methodology employed;
  3. Description of results (with detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis);
  4. Analysis of challenges;
  5. Lessons learnt of the project.
  6. Conclusions and recommendations; where recommendations must be realistic and achievable about actions to be taken to further enhance the results and the impact of the project and for future interventions.
  7. Annexes: the list of persons and documents consulted, a brief curriculum vitae of the consultants and other technical annexes as relevant.

All formats, questionnaires and instruments developed for information gathering purposes shall be included as well in the report.

The draft and final reports shall be submitted in 3 hard copies and one electronic version on Compact Disc.

5. instructions to bidders

5.1 proposal strucure

5.1.1 Proposal Submission Form

The bidder's proposal must be accompanied by the Proposal Submission Form, signed by a duly authorized representative of the bidder, stating:

  • That the proposal meets the requirements of the RFP;
  • That the bidder undertakes, on its own behalf and on behalf of its possible partners and contractors, to provide the goods/services in accordance with the terms of the Request for Proposal (RFP), and its accompanying documents, for the amount set forth in the attached Financial Proposal;
  • The number of days the proposal is valid (from the date of closing of the RFP).

5.1.2 Information of Consortium

In case of consortium of individual experts, a brief summary of qualifications and expertise is requested to be attached. In case of public institution, company or NGO bidding, the following information must be provided in order to ascertain capabilities to deliver the work proposed:

1 - Company Information
1.1 Corporate information
1.1.1 Company mission statement (if applicable)
1.1.2 Quality Assurance / Quality Control mechanisms in place at the company
1.1.3 Organization structure
1.1.4 Geographical presence
1.2 Proposed sub-Contractor or consortium arrangements including company information (as above for each sub-Contractor)
2 - Previous Experiences (list and provide up to five (5) detailed examples of relevant experience gained within the past five years)
2.1 Project Name
2.1.1 Project Description;
2.1.2 Status (under development/implemented);
2.1.3 Reason for Relevance (provide reason why this project can be seen as relevant to this RFP);
2.1.4 Roles and responsibilities (list and clearly identify the roles and responsibilities for each participating Organization);
2.1.5 Team members (indicate relevant members of the team from the project that will be used in the performance of services).

5.1.3 Technical Proposal

The bidder should include in this section all relevant information for the Contracting Authority to evaluate the proposal, proposed timeline, resources dedicated partially or fully to the project.

IMPORTANT: The Technical Proposal shall contain no price or cost information.

The Technical Proposal must include the following sections:

a) Understanding of the Requirements for Services, including Assumptions:

Include any assumptions as well as comments on the services as indicated in the Technical Specifications, or as the bidder may otherwise believe to be necessary.

b) Proposed Approach, Methodology, Timing and Outputs:

Any comments or suggestions on the technical specifications, as well as the bidder's detailed description of the manner in which it would respond to the technical specifications.

c) Proposed Project Team Members:

The curriculum vitae (in English) of the senior professional members of the team, including their specific responsibilities on this project, relevant experience and qualifications.

5.1.4 Financial Proposal

The bidder's separate sealed price component must contain an overall quotation in EURO currency. The proposal shall not exceed the overall comprehensive cost of Euro 15,000.

The Financial Proposal shall be accompanied by a cover letter, signed by a duly authorized representative of the bidder, confirming the following:

a) the price;

b) the period of validity of the bid.

The Financial Proposal must contain a summary of total cost for the services proposed, all of which must be expressed and will be made in the currency of the proposal.

The Payment will be carried out after delivery and approval by the Contracting Authority of the Final Evaluation foreseen by this RFP.

5.2 Period of Validity of Proposals

The offer outlined in the proposal must be valid for a minimum period of 120 calendar days after the closing date. A proposal valid for a shorter period may be rejected by the MoA.

5.3 APPLICATION MODALITIES

The bidder shall submit the proposal in one external envelope clearly marked with: a) the RFP reference number (RFP-AID9527-2015-Final Evaluation) and b) the name/contact of the bidder. The external envelope shall contain two sealed internal envelopes.

  1. This first internal sealed envelope must contain the complete technical proposal including the following:

- Signed Proposal Submission Form (as specified in section 5.1.1)

- Information of Consortium (as specified in section 5.1.2)

- Technical Proposal (as specified in section 5.1.3)

  1. The second internal sealed envelope must contain the financial proposal and its cover letter (as specified in section 5.1.4)

The proposal shall be delivered by the closing date set forth in section 5.4.

NOTE: If the envelopes are not sealed and marked as per the instructions in this clause, the Contracting Authority will not assume responsibility for the proposal’s misplacement or premature opening and may – at its discretion – reject the proposal.

5.4 Closing Date for Submission

Proposals must be received during the office hours from 9am – 5pm between Monday and Friday at the address specified below no later than Friday 18th March 2016, 12 p.m. Beirut time:

Italian Agency for Development Cooperation Beirut

To the attention of Dietmar Ueberbacher

Baabda – Brazilia Region – Avenue Pierre Helou, Street 82, sector 3

Abdullah Farhat Building, 1st floor – Beirut, Lebanon.

E-mail:

Phone:+961 (0)5 951 376/377/378

Fax:+961 05 451 483

AICS and MoA, at their own discretion, may extend this closing date for the submission of proposals by notifying all bidders thereof in writing.

Any proposal received by the Contracting Authority after the closing date for submission of proposals may be rejected.

5.5 selection criterias

  • the appropriateness of the proposed approach;
  • the quality of the technical solution proposed;
  • the experience of the firm/consortium in carrying out related projects;
  • the qualifications and competence of the personnel proposed for the assignment;
  • the proposed timeframe for the project
  • Financial proposal

6. contacts