ITC
2019-32-GB Market Intelligence and Innovation in Pakistan Request for EOI

Reference: 2019-32-GB
Beneficiary countries: Pakistan, Switzerland
Registration level: Basic
Published on: 29-Apr-2019
Deadline on: 15-May-2019 00:00 (GMT 2.00)

Description

INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE (ITC)

Major Upcoming Business Opportunity Notice

CALL FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST (EOI)

Important: The purpose of this call for EOI is to identify appropriate suppliers who can potentially fulfil the requirements. The present call for EOI does not constitute an invitation to tender. Only suppliers deemed qualified by ITC will receive the invitation to tender.

Reference: 2019-32-GB Market Intelligence and Innovation in Pakistan

Date of this Call for Expression of Interest (EOI): 29 April 2019

Closing Date for Receipt of EOI at ITC/PS: 15 May 2019

Background to programme

The Growth for Rural Advancement and Sustainable Progress (GRASP) is a six-year project that will contribute to the reduction of poverty through development of rural SMEs in selected districts within two provinces of Pakistan: Baluchistan and Sindh. GRASP will focus on selected product lines within livestock and horticulture.

GRASP will take a holistic approach to building SME competitiveness in agribusiness value chains starting from a deep understanding of markets and working back through the value chain to enable SMEs and ultimately producers to create and capture additional value.

At the impact level, GRASP will create employment and income opportunities in rural areas of Sindh and Baluchistan. Outcome and outputs of GRASP include measurable improvement in the business environment for SMEs, improved agricultural productivity and climate resilience in selected areas, better access for farmers to market information and agricultural services, increase in revenue and financing for selected SMEs and increased value added and adoption of environmental technology. GRASP has a very strong focus on women's economic empowerment.

GRASP has a budget of €48m funded by the European Union. ITC will implement GRASP through three Pakistan based teams and a wide network of Pakistani and international partner organizations. This challenging project will involve managing many concurrent inter-linked activities from the market to the production level and innovative tools such as matching grants.

Terms of Reference (summary):

Within the capacity building activities, ITC intends to support SMEs to increase added value and marketing volumes through developing value chains and supporting SMEs to improve management, increase access to finance, build climate resilience, apply environmental technologies to add value and improve quality and reduce waste throughout the system.

 

In this regard, ITC is seeking the services of an experienced vendor to carry out services in one of the following sets of programme activities:

 

  1. Market intelligence: value chain analyses, market opportunity studies, consumer demand, market information systems
  2. Building value: Post harvest and processing, quality management, food safety, to extend marketing reach and build value, branding and marketing, access to finance, entrepreneurship, incubation and innovation, e-commerce, establishing Challenge Funds.
  3. Business management: financial management, R and D, human resources management, Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET)
  4. Environment and climate change resilience: methodologies, research and tools to assess climate change risks and vulnerabilities in agriculture value chains; mainstreaming climate change into policies and processes at provincial policy making level; water management policy, capacity building for MSMEs, support services and farmers on adapting to climate change; assessment of options to increase uptake of technologies to improve environmental management in agriculture e.g. through more efficient water use, increased uptake of renewable energy.
  5. Gender: methodologies, research and tools to mainstream gender into rural development planning and projects. Design and implementation of initiatives to support women in participation in economic activities in the agricultural value chain e.g. livestock, processed fruits, and handicrafts.

Vendors are invited to express interest in these project areas.

Please specify which are the areas your company specializes in. It may be more than one and it is understood that they are crossovers between the project areas.

Provide a maximum of a 10 page EOI plus Annexes.

ITC Procurement Services invites interested companies to forward their Expression of Interest (EOI) by fax or by email before the closing date to:

 

Procurement Services

International Trade Centre

Palais des Nations

1211 Geneva 10

Switzerland

batt@intracen.org

Telefax: +41 22-730 0900

Website: www.intracen.org 

Please indicate your vendor ID number and the reference of this EOI in your response. If not registered with ITC/UNOG or UNGM, please follow the Procedure for Registration as Potential Vendor at www.ungm.org as soon as possible.

ITC reserves the right to change or cancel this requirement at any time during the EOI and/or solicitation process.

Please note that only those companies considered qualified by ITC for this project will be invited to participate in this procurement exercise.

For any further information on ITC, please consult our website: www.intracen.org