Foreign economic-aid-related services

Tender description

This is a prior information notice (PIN) only: publication and calls for competition will be conducted once the scope of work is fully defined. The UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) will be seeking suppliers to deliver a new land programme titled ‘Land Facility’ and, separately, a supplier to deliver a Decision Support Unit (DSU) to support implementation of the Land Facility. We are currently deciding on the optimal procurement route (Lots or separate Tenders) Both calls will be relevant to suppliers with expertise and experience in (a) the land sector and (b) governance and political economy engagement. The DSU will also require strong monitoring and evaluation expertise and experience. This PIN and the planned Early Market Engagement (EME) events advertised below, build on an earlier PIN for the Land Facility issued in December 2019 and an EME event held in February 2020. The main purpose of this PIN and the planned EME events is to consult on draft TOR for both components. Land facility The goal of the Land Facility (LF) is to promote stability, inclusive growth and responsible investment by promoting more effective, efficient and equitable rural and urban land governance. The aim of the programme is to help build basic capacity and systems and mobilise the necessary political support, so governments can implement and resource sustained land governance reform. The focus of the programme is on central land administration policy and systems and the political process needed to implement and sustain reforms. It will run for 6 years and will work in around 10 countries in Africa depending on size and needs. Geographic scope will be reviewed during implementation with the possibility to extend the LF to other regions, including Asia and Latin America. Specific objectives of the LF will include: (a) building central government and other relevant agencies’ capacity to plan, implement and/or manage priority land reforms; (b) mobilising and building wider political support to implement reforms and making the business case for long-term financing for land governance through PPPs, loans or country resources; (c) advancing or accelerating priority reforms by providing technical assistance and, in special cases, targeted funding for implementation, including legislative reform, developing land administration systems, establishing appropriate funding models and institutional structures, implementing land registration pilots; (d) supporting improved coordination and alignment between government and development partner interventions in the land sector. The aim of the LF therefore is to support more systematic and sustained implementation of land administration system reforms, in accordance with global guidelines and good practice, and prepare the ground for national scale-up as relevant and appropriate. The facility is likely to have two parallel tracks: ‘Track 1’ in countries with significant opportunities and political support for reform, which will involve intensive support to a land reform process with long-term teams in-country, including TA support embedded in relevant government agencies. And ‘Track 2’ in countries with opportunities but less certain political support for reform, involving discrete, lighter-touch but still strategic technical support or engagement to build the case for reform or unblock reform processes. The contract for the LF will be up to 6 years, with a budget of up to GBP 80 million, although the currently approved and available budget is likely to be GBP 35 million. Key features of the LF that build on achievements and lessons from past and ongoing FCDO and other land programmes include: • thinking and working politically: ensuring interventions are grounded in a proper understanding of the political landscape; engage with critical national interest groups that may block or undermine reform and mobilise key champions to build consensus and find compromise solutions; • inclusion and equality: ensuring land reforms protect and strengthen women’s land rights, including inheritance rights, and safeguard the rights and interests of marginalised groups; • flexibility: a highly flexible and adaptive approach that will deploy long-term technical assistance and other tools to build capacity and support implementation; • integration with other FCDO programmes: the LF will collaborate with other programmes to support a wider set of UK aims, including, for example, urban development (Cities Infrastructure and Growth), conflict, and prosperity; • coordination and alignment of land interventions: key focus on improving coordination and alignment of donor interventions in land to ensure these complement each other and reinforce the case for sustained reform. Decision Support Unit (DSU) The purpose of the DSU is to support balanced and evidence-based decision-making by FCDO and the suppliers of the LF in the context of complexity and uncertainty and a changing operational context. It will support the flexible and adaptive implementation of the LF in focus countries by providing FCDO and suppliers with independent advice and a challenge function, drawing on process evaluations, local insights and ongoing research by others. The DSU will run for the duration of the LF programme, initially for 6 years with a budget of up to £8 million, although the currently approved and available budget is likely to be GBP 4 million. Specific objectives of the DSU will include: (a) to run process evaluations alongside the country-level work of the LF and other work on responsible land investment to test assumptions and provide a continual review of progress and effectiveness and generate insights, particularly on the political space for reform; (b) to provide regular advice and challenge to suppliers at the strategic and tactical level to improve decision-making and challenge biases; (c) to augment FCDO monitoring capacity and enhance supplier accountability.