Foreign economic-aid-related services

Tender description

The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) is considering fulfilling a new requirement in 2018 where we will be seeking partners/suppliers to implement the Transparency and Accountability for Improved Growth and Services (Traction) programme in Malawi. Any contract would be expected to start in early 2019. This is a new five year Traction programme (with up to 24 month option to extend) that seeks to address accountability challenges that are severely hindering economic growth and undermining service delivery. DFID will contract through a competitive tender process for a single supplier (or suppliers if a lotted approach is adopted) to deliver the Traction programme in Malawi via the OJEU. There has been previous Early Market Engagement (EME) in August 2017 to inform the design stage with a further "desktop" “EME" planned for March 2018, this will be facilitated via the DFID Supplier Portal, with registration via Survymonkey. DFID encourages interest/participation from National suppliers with the appropriate capacity and capability. The the programme will take a highly adaptive approach. Pathways to success are likely to be emergent and therefore a deliberate, problem driven approach to programme implementation, with instrumental use of testing and learning, is necessary in order to navigate the complex political economy in Malawi. It is expected that between 6 and 8 issues will be targeted over the lifetime of the programme. Examples of issues the programme is likely to tackle include (but are not limited to): — addressing blockages in maize (and other agricultural) markets, — improving water supply in peri-urban areas, — improving drug or textbook procurement, — or reducing deforestation; as well as exploring issues impacting on growth such as trade barriers and negative consequences of the current tax regime. These issues will be identified through research to be done in the first year of the programme. Differing from a traditional civil society grant programme, a combination of small grants (to different stakeholders), technical expertise, facilitation, and media and advocacy work will be used to drive change on chosen issues. Currently, 1 000 000 GBP has been set aside for a demand-driven flexible PEA fund to be administered by the supplier responding to requests from across the DFID Malawi team for analytical support.