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Swisscontact - Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation, is headquartered in Zurich and was founded in 1959 by leading figures from the Swiss private sector and Swiss universities. It is exclusively involved in international cooperation and since 1961 has carried out its own mandated projects. Swisscontact currently manages projects in 41 countries on behalf of public and private donors. Swisscontact is registered as an international non-governmental organization (INGO) in Bangladesh under the NGO Affairs Bureau, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
BMMDP (Phase-II) Project Background:
Bangladesh is already facing enormous economic losses in the agriculture sector due to an increasing frequency of extreme weather events, such as floods, cyclones and hailstorms. Farm enterprises and non-farm MSMEs can significantly benefit from microinsurance, which can secure their livelihood investment in case of damage caused by climate change events. But there are several constraints that are preventing the market system development of microinsurance, particularly in the agriculture sector. BMMDP was initiated recognising the need for an appropriate risk management tool in Bangladesh’s agriculture sector.
The overall goal of BMMDP Phase-II is to increase resilience of farmers and related micro, small, medium size enterprises in the crop, livestock, and fishery sectors against climatic hazards through promoting microinsurance in a sustainable manner. Through the programme, at least 200,000 farmers and enterprises will use climate-sensitive microinsurance services, increase income and have better resilience against climate change-related losses, thus improving their productivity and contribution to food security, and an inclusive economic growth of Bangladesh. The impact of BMMDP Phase-2 will be to ensure “Farmers have higher income and better resilience against climate change-related losses, thus improving their productivity and contribution to food security, and inclusive economic growth of Bangladesh”. This will be done by facilitating a functioning and market-based microinsurance sector that gives farmers the confidence to invest in higher-value areas and tempers income losses during shocks and stresses. The key outcome of the programme is to increase the supply of new, commercially driven, client-focused, climate-sensitive microinsurance products in the target sub-sectors of crop, fisheries, and livestock which will be matched by higher demand from smallholder farmers and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). To achieve the goal, the Phase-2 will have three specific, interlinked interventions:
- Facilitate a conducive policy environment for climate-sensitive microinsurance.
- Stimulate climate-sensitive, client-centric, and commercially viable products/services and improve the support service market for microinsurance through a) technical assistance (TA) for public and private sector organisations, b) provision of innovation fund (or matching grant)- innovation fund, co-financing modality to trigger competition among private sector partners, and c) testing a small de-risking fund (or climate Risk-Resilience Fund CRRF) with Sadharan Bima Corporation.
- Increase mass awareness and understanding relevant stakeholders and among low-income households to encourage demand for climate-resilient microinsurance products.
Swisscontact and BMMDP regards monitoring and results measurement (MRM) as an integral part of project management, which fulfils three core functions: steering, accountability, and learning. The project will develop an MRM guideline for its MRM system within the inception period and requires the support of a consultant for that.
Objective of the Assignment:
The objective of this assignment is to develop the MRM guideline for the BMMDP Phase II in close collaboration with the MRM and programme team. The MRM guideline will build on Swisscontact’s global MRM guideline for relevant projects and on the MRM, system used in Phase I of the project.
Scope of Work:
The following elements must be incorporated and ensure in the guideline:
- The guideline will elaborate on how the programme can use information collected continuously through the MRM system for:
- Steering its interventions by always keeping the project aim in mind and applying a results-oriented programme management approach throughout the project cycle i.e. the design, planning, implementation, and evaluation phases.
- Ensuring a continuous process of learning and
- Ensuring accountability towards stakeholders to prove the results and quality of its work.
- The guideline must adhere to DCED standards for MRM, consider OECD-DAC evaluation criteria, take into account the market system development approach and systemic change measurement process, and contain separate intervention specific sections.
- The MRM guidelines must address the lessons learned from MRM challenges in BMMDP Phase I. Key challenges were creating a system to avoid doubling counting during data collection, having intervention specific attribution strategy for impact assessments, measuring results of pilot interventions.
- The MRM guideline will design templates and samples of Results Chains (RC) with appropriate and meaningful qualitative and quantitative (gender-disaggregated and inclusive) indicators. It will also provide templates for measurement plans (covering when, how and by whom the indicators will be measured) and show how the indicators in RCs feed into the log frame indicators. Indicators must be clearly defined definitions, contain calculation methods, particularly in terms of ensuring that they can be reasonably measured and reported with available data sources and accurately reflect the project progress towards its impact, outcomes, and outputs.
- Identify appropriate, realistic, efficient, and effective methods and tools for collecting data for all indicators.
- The role of BMMDP team member and stakeholders in the MRM system should be clearly defined.
- The guideline will elaborate on how MRM data will be collected, recorded, analysed, aggregated, and reported to show results of the different interventions.
- Contain templates for economic and financial analysis for value for money calculations based on different scenarios.
- The guideline must adequately capture how the project will be monitored and evaluated qualitatively and propose strategies and processes that should be used to gather and analyse the information.
Deliverables
|
Timelines
Tasks |
Indicative Timeline |
| Completion of contracting formalities and onboarding of consultant |
By 1st week of January 2024 |
| Inception meeting with BMMDP and Swisscontact team |
By 1st week of January 2024 |
| Review of project-generated literature/ documents, reports |
By 2nd week of January 2024 |
| Meeting/workshop with BMMDP and Swisscontact team for gathering insights associated Manual |
By 2nd week of January 2024 |
| Sharing draft version of MRM Manual with for feedback |
By 4th week of January |
| Submission of Final MRM Manual after incorporating feedback |
28th February 2024 |
Requirements
The consultant should meet the following qualifications:
- A master’s degree in development studies/Economics/Statistics/or similar discipline.
- At least 10 years of experience in MRM
- Strong knowledge and expertise monitoring result measurement following DCED standard for inclusive market system development approach-based projects, matching grants and de-risking funds, preferably for Bangladesh.
- High level experience in preparation of frameworks and manuals for different types of development programmes.
Reporting
Within Swisscontact, the Consultant reports directly to the Team Leader of the Bangladesh Microinsurance Market Development Programme BMMDP (Phase-II). If required, the Consultant can be assigned permanently or temporarily within his/her responsibility to another superior. If necessary, he/she must follow the instructions of the Swisscontact Executive Director who shall act as the final authority.
Proposal Submission Requirements
All prospective consultants are required to submit a proposal covering Technical and Financial aspects covering:
- A Curriculum Vitae (CV) of the Consultant.
- An accompanying letter describing relevant work experiences in MRM and manual development.
- A financial proposal including fee rate(s) and indicative Level of Engagement (LoE) and other expenses required for undertaking the assignment.
Selection Criteria
While the exact set of criteria will vary based on the nature of the assignment, the following criteria are generally applicable for evaluation of the potential consultant:
- Technical/Professional capacity to carry out the assignment (relevant skills, knowledge).
- At least 10 years of relevant experience in similar projects.
- Outline of how the consultant will accomplish the tasks based on the scope of work.
The following evaluation method will be applicable for the evaluation of the proposal:
- Quality and cost-based evaluation will be applied by an evaluation team comprising of members of the BMMDP project and Swisscontact Bangladesh Country Office.
- The proposal will be taken for the evaluation and ranked based on obtained score for the proposals.
- The consultant achieving the highest score in the proposal will be awarded the contract, provided both parties reach an agreement on the final budget in compliance with Value for Money tenets of SDC/SC. If there is no agreement on the final budget, then the consultant with the next highest score will be considered for negotiation.
Technical and Financial Proposal Parameters
The parameters for evaluation are divided into two parts:
1. Technical Proposal score-80
2. Financial Proposal score -20
Evaluation Methodology
1) Technical proposal Evaluation Methodology
The Technical proposal will be opened first. Only bidders who qualifies (60% of score 80) in technical proposal will have financial evaluation.
2) Financial proposal Evaluation Methodology
Consultant who secures qualifying mark in the technical proposals will be considered for financial proposal evaluation. The maximum score for the financial proposal would be score 20. It will be awarded to the lowest consultant provided that its Financial Proposal is compliant with the requirements specified in this document (see compliance requirements and relevant aspects below). Scores will be allocated to other consultants depending on deviation from the least cost bid.
3) Final Selection of the Consultant:
The final selection of the consultant will be combining the technical proposal and financial proposal scores.
Scoring Criteria
The assessment criteria will be as follows:
| Criteria |
Weight |
Technical Proposal Score |
Technical/Professional capacity to carry out the assignment (relevant qualifications, skills, knowledge). |
35 |
Experience in similar projects and assignments |
30 |
Outline of the LoE with workplan |
15 |
Financial Proposal Score |
Financial proposal |
20 |
Total |
100 |
Submission Details
Interested consultants should email the electronic copy of the technical and financial proposal and other necessary documents to: bd.bmmdp@swisscontact.org by December 25th 2023, before 5:00 PM (Bangladesh Standard Time).
BMMDP programme reserves the right to accept or reject any or all proposals/ application without assigning any reason whatsoever. Please note that if any applicant does not meet all the above requirement, the application will be disqualified without further evaluation. |
