Call for Consultancy Service
Centre of Excellence and Business Cluster Study in Metal Economic Sector
Objectives of the Assignment
Overall Objective
The overall objective of this Consultancy Service is the production of an economic study on the creation of a Centre of Excellence to strengthen the Metal sector value chain and on the Metal Clusters Development.
Specific Objectives
The cluster based development is a top priority of the Ethiopian Government, as well as of other African Countries, as tool for promoting income and employment growth. The SMEs have a pivotal role in the process of industrialization in Africa and in Ethiopia as well, as these are tools to promote entrepreneurship. The Ethiopian Government has been fostering the development of clusters and in 2011 it produces the first specific directive for that. The approach used by the Government is toward the metal of premises where enterprises can enter and operate and the provision of supporting packages that include training on saving and access to credit, BDS, training on market skills and linkage of enterprises with big companies. On the other side, even UNIDO – the agency of the United Nations for the Industrial Development – is promoting another approach with the same aim of supporting the cluster development. The approach is direct to provide assistance to underperforming clusters, build trust, foster governance, promoting business networks and strengthening the institutional capacity.
As part of the project DEAL has been elaborated an employment strategy that involve the support to existing clusters in the area of the project, Mekelle, Wukro, Atsi womberta, Raya Alamata for the Metal sector. The objectives of the study in terms of cluster development are the following:
· Identification of the existing clusters in Metal Sector in the project area;
· Identification of the policy framework within the cluster system does exist and operate in Tigray Region;
· Identification of the weakness within the clusters in Metal value chain in order to attract investors and business;
· Identification of the skills gap in terms of technical know-how, machineries and technologies and access to markets in the identified clusters;
· Elaboration of recommendations for linking the clusters with medium and big size companies for subcontracting arrangements in the identified clusters.
On the same time, as long term strategy for employment, an assessment of the potentiality for development of Centre of Excellence is considered as a priority. The concept of Centre of Excellence is quiet broad, in this study we consider the CoE as entity or shared facility that provides leadership in a specific area, able to share best practices in research, training, work or study. In this regard, the study aims at assessing all the existing CoE related to Metal Sector and understanding where there are unexploited potentialities to develop such centre.
The objectives of the study in terms of development of Centre of Excellence are:
Required Qualifications, Skills and Experiences
The consultancy will take place with strict time of 40 calendar days. This consultancy is offered in a competitive basis. Potential consultants or firms are invited to submit the following:
1. Technical proposal or/and document,
Ø How the baseline research will be organized; which assessing tools will be elaborated; the timetable of the action (elaboration of the tools; data collection; data analysis; elaboration); methodology for collection and analysis of the data.
Ø Copies of all the Curriculum Vitae (CVs) of the key consultants have to be included in the proposal.
2. Reference and proven experience in similar works. In case of interest, VIS will require to submit the previously done researches (these will be treated as confidential and only used for the purpose of quality assurance).
3. Financial proposal including major cost breakdown;
4. A sample of policy study report (if any) for a similar project completed within the last 1 to 2 year (this will be treated as confidential and only used for the purpose of quality assurance);
5. Two reference (including one from your last client/ employer);
6. The overall evaluation is composed of two steps. First the technical evaluation and then the financial evaluation. A consultancy firm who does not qualify technically score of 75/100 will not be eligible to go to the next step of financial evaluation. The following table shows detailed technical evaluation criteria considered in the evaluation of the technical proposal.
The maximum payment amount is 130,000.00ETB for the studies. The payment rate will be decided by the evaluation commission considering the results of technical and financial evaluation.
Once the winner has been awarded, the winner has to provide a bank guarantee in form of CPO for the 20% of the whole financial offer that will be release immediately after the conclusion of the work.