Background:

Building on achievements of the Reinforcement & Expansion of the Coffee Sector in Laos (RECoSeL project), the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD) have jointly prepared a new project to pursue the development of the coffee sector in Lao named “Project of Reinforcement of Commercial Capacity for Coffee in Northern Lao (CLA1134 PRCC Coffee North) since early 2020.

The AFD Board has awarded, in 2021, a 3.15 million Euro grant to finance this project. This three-year project aims at supporting the Lao coffee sector towards the production of quality coffee recognized on regional and international markets and composes of five components: (i) support for CNCL and LCA, (ii) Coffee North Development, (iii) support for research, education and training in the coffee sector, (iv) Income diversification through sustainable management of association crops and (v) Project management, monitoring & evaluation and capitalization. The project description is provided in attachment 1.

The project will be under the responsibility of MAF. A project management unit (PMU) is created under the Department of Agriculture (DoA/MAF) to ensure project management, monitoring, reporting and capitalization of project experiences.

The DOA/MAF envisions the recruitment of the Technical Assistance to support the PMU in accordance with AFD and Lao Procurement Policy. The inputs required to complete the assignment is between 120 to 140 person-months for the estimated budget of 700,000 EUR.

This Request for Expressions of Interest is open to the national and international Consulting firms.

Eligibility criteria to AFD financing are specified in sub-clause 1.3 of the "Procurement Guidelines for AFD Financed Contracts in Foreign Countries", available online on AFD’s website: http://www.afd.fr.
Consultant firms, research institutes and NGOs involved in the RECoSeL implementation would be eligible to the bid.

Submission:
The Applicant shall submit only one application, either in its own name or as a member of a Joint Venture (JV). If an Applicant (including any JV member) submits or participates in more than one application, those applications shall be all rejected. However, the same Subconsultant may participate in several applications.

If the Applicant is a JV, the expression of interest shall include:
- a copy of the JV Agreement entered into by all members, or
- a letter of intent to execute a JV Agreement, signed by all members together with a copy of the Agreement proposal,
In the absence of this document, the other members will be considered as Subconsultants.

Experiences and qualifications of Subconsultants are not taken into account in the evaluation of the applications.

Interested Applicants must provide information evidencing that they are qualified and experienced to perform those Services. For that purpose, documented evidence of recent and similar services shall be submitted.

Scope of Consulting Services:
Determination of the similarity of the experiences will be based on:
- The contracts size (Indicative inputs): 120 to 140 person-months for the key experts;
- The nature of the Services related to: Technical Assistance for the project implementation
- The technical area and expertise:
(i) references and experiences in setting up / implementing Technical Assistance for donor-funded rural projects in rural development / agriculture;
(ii) reference experience as Technical Advisor in support to sector policy development, value-chain structuration project or sector governance;
(iii) good knowledge of the coffee sector developpement. Lao coffee sector will be a plus;
- The location (southeast asia) and experiences in Lao PDR is a plus.
The Client will also take into account for the evaluation of the applications the following items:
- Skills and availability of in-house technical back-up experts provided to the on-site experts;
- Local experts/representatives/partners;
Among the submitted applications, the procurement steering committee under the responsiblity of the DOA/MAF will shortlist a maximum of six (6) Applicants, to whom the Request for Proposals to carry out the Services shall be sent. Only Short-listed candidates will be contacted.

The Expressions of Interest must be submitted to the address below (in person and by email) no later than 22 Febuary 2022, 17.00 (Vientiane time).

Attention to: Mr. Bounsu Soudmaly
Plant Protection Center, Department of Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR.
Phone: +856 20 22246171 Email:sbounsu@yahoo.com

NB: your e-mail response should not exceed 6 MB. If this should be the case, please breaking your answer into multiple emails.
Interested Applicants may obtain further information within five working-days after the publication of the REOI at the address below during office hours: Mr. Bounsu Soudmaly, +856 20 22246171, sbounsu@yahoo.com.