The International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint subsidiary organ of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, hereby invites you to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) in reply to this call for Expression of Interest for the above subject.
This call for EOI consists of this document (including the instructions to interested vendors) and the following annexes:
Annex A: Pre-qualification criteria evaluation grid
Annex B: EOI Response Form (please sign)
Annex C: Pre-qualification Questionnaire (part A & B)
Background:
ITC is implementing The Gambia Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) that aims at supporting youth employment and entrepreneurship to address the economic root causes of irregular migration.
In addition, ITC is also implementing the Jobs, Skills and Finance (JSF) for Women and Youth in The Gambia Programme, in partnership with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). This programme aims to contribute in stabilizing the economic, social and security situation by facilitating social inclusion and employment of the youth and women, with a specific emphasis on promoting gender equality and addressing climate change.
Through the Skills for Youth Employment (SkYE) Fund, ITC selects partner training institutions for the roll-out of skills development programmes for youth in The Gambia. In its first round, the SkYE Fund trained over 800 young Gambians in market relevant skills, with high rates of job placement.
ITC is now launching the third round of the SkYE Fund, for training programmes to be delivered in 2021.
Terms of Reference (summary):
In this third phase of the SkYE fund, ITC is seeking training institutions, companies or associations, with a presence in the Gambia, to deliver market relevant technical and vocational trainings for Gambian youth. Activities will include identification of trainees, delivery of trainings to those recruited trainees, support to job placement of trainees and monitoring of employability results on the field.
The training programmes supported under the SkYE Fund are required to be free for youth with no fees attached. ITC will not finance any physical infrastructure, such as buildings. All training programmes are encouraged to consider the skills development needs of returnees. The training programmes should lead to certification and also be in a format and style compatible to the Gambia Skills Qualification Framework (GSQF), particularly a competency based format, and where no occupational standards exist, then in a learning outcomes format.
Additional details, specifications and terms of reference shall be provided in the tender document to be issued subsequent to this call for Expression Of Interest.
Pre-qualification requirements:
- Only those vendors qualified or qualified with conditions following the evaluation of their EOI as per the criteria detailed in the attached Annex A will be invited to participate in the anticipated tender exercise (RFP).
Pre-qualification evaluation:
The pre-qualification evaluation of the submitted EOIs will be made in two steps.
In a first instance, a desk review will be conducted.
For the desk review, firstly the following mandatory criteria will be considered:
- The vendor shall have training facilities in The Gambia
- The vendor shall possess a proven legal registration with the Gambian authorities (copies of official documentation to be attached)
- The vendor shall have proven ownership of the training facilities or a proven valid lease agreement for the training facilities (copies of official documentation to be attached)
- The proposed training programmes should not yet be funded by the Gambian ministry or any other funding body
Should the EOI miss to comply with one of the above mandatory criteria, the vendor’s EOI will be disqualified and this vendor will therefore not be invited to submit a proposal for the anticipated Request For Proposal (RFP) tender exercise.
Should the EOI comply with all the mandatory criteria, it will be evaluated further as per the all the other desk-review criteria listed in Annex A (1.1 to 2.15 ). During this phase of the evaluation, the score attributed to each criterion could be either “disqualified” or “qualified” or else “qualified with conditions”. Shall the score be “disqualified” for one of these criteria, the vendor will not be invited to submit a proposal for the anticipated RFP tender exercise. Shall the score be “qualified” or “qualified with conditions” for all the criteria, the vendor will be invited for an on-site visit of its training facilities to enable the EOI evaluation team to assess all the elements described in part 3. Facilities, Tools & Equipment of the Annex A.
Shall this last assessment result be “disqualified” for one of the criteria of the on-site visit, the vendor will not be invited to submit a proposal for the anticipated RFP. Only those vendors obtaining a result “qualified” or “qualified with conditions” following this last stage of the EOI evaluation will be invited to participate in the anticipated RFP.
For each criterion scoring “qualified with conditions”, the vendor will be provided details about the conditions to meet to enable qualification. The same principle will be adopted during the evaluation of the proposals submitted in response to the anticipated RFP tender exercise. It thus means that the contract award would be conditional in case some criteria score “qualified with conditions”. In such a case the contract could be signed by ITC only if all the conditions expressed following the evaluation of the proposal submitted are completely fulfilled within a given lead time.
Instructions to interested vendors:
Vendors interested in participating in the planned solicitation process should forward their expression of interest (EOI), by the closing date set forth in this EOI.
Closing Date : 25 October 2020, 23:59 CET
It is the responsibility of the Proposer to ensure that the emails containing the EOI reach the above mentioned email address before the Closing date. Proposals received after the Closing Date will be rejected and therefore not considered or evaluated, except in exceptional circumstances.
Clarifications
For clarifications regarding this call for EOI, please contact the Procurement Officer in writing via e-mail to: lagier@intracen.org, no later than the 23 September 2020. All communications in connection with this call for EOI must be conducted in writing between the Proposer and the Procurement Service, to the above designated e-mail. Except during the on-site visit of the vendor facilities for evaluation purposes, no communication, written or verbal, is allowed in connection with this call for EOI, with any NAQAA staff members or any ITC staff members outside of Procurement Services.
In order to maintain transparency, all Interested Vendors’ requests for clarifications and ITC responses will be recorded and circulated to all Interested Vendors, without indicating the source of the request.
EOI documents
Proposers are required to complete, sign and submit in the English language, the following documents:
- EOI Vendor Response Form, Annex B
- Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Annex C.
Part A , please submit only one part A by company/institution
Part B is the format for providing details of each training programme proposed. Hence, a separate Part B needs to be filled and submitted for each course.
E.g. A bidder is proposing three trainings, one in Construction, one in Carpentry & Joinery and one in Vehicle Repair. This bidder should submit only one part A Form (1 per company) and three part B forms, i.e. one form for Construction training, one form for the Carpentry & Joinery training and one form for the Vehicle Repair training. The template for Part B can be copied and pasted.
- The vendor should provide the following documents to enable evaluation
- Accreditation status
- Certification of training programme & curriculum
- Valid tenancy/ ownership agreement
- Training plan/ master timetable
- For staff: certificates and transcripts, appointment letters, evidence of salary payment
- List of text books with author, title of the book, date of publication and quantity.
- Valid health and safety policy and plan & operational certificate
- Information in sufficient scope and detail to allow ITC to evaluate your EOI as per the attached evaluation table (Annex A)
- Any attachments and/or appendices to your Proposal
Electronic bid submission’s instructions (Please read carefully the instructions below)
ITC reserves the right to reject any submission which does not follow the below instructions EXACTLY.
EOI must be submitted with clear information in the “Subject” line of the e-mail(s) as detailed below:
CLEARLY indicate in the “Subject” line the following information:
- EOI-2020-08-EL/your company/institution name/e-mail number(e.g. 1/3, 2/3, 3/3)*
- You should submit your TECHNICAL INFORMATION ONLY in this e-mail. If any document in this e-mail contains any financial information/proposal, your EOI will be disqualified.
Send EOI e-mails ONLY to the e-mail address: lagier@intracen.org
*The maximum size of any attached file is15mb please split any bigger file if necessary and indicate the e-mail number in the subject line as instructed above.
Do not send catalogues, but provide a link to the catalogue instead.
ITC does not assume any responsibility for any missing and/or illegible pages of EOI, and this may result in rejection of your submission.
Please note that no further details of the planned solicitation can be made available to the vendor prior to issuance of the solicitation documents.
ITC reserves the right to change or cancel this requirement at any time during the EOI and/or solicitation process.
For any further information on ITC, please consult our website: www.intracen.org