Consultancy framework agreement for formulation, appraisal and review of Danish development cooperation programmes and projects

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (MFA) is in the process of streamlining the management of its development cooperation. Part of this effort concerns the simplification of the procurement process of key consultancy services relating to development cooperation. Consultancy contracts are currently procured individually by the case worker responsible for the programme or project. Case workers are MFA staff from MFA services at home in Copenhagen and abroad. In the procurement of individual contracts, they are responsible for the choice of procurement modality, the planning, preparation and management of the tender and contracting process. This process is often lengthy, and can have implications on programme and project timelines. Moreover, the fragmentation of the process makes it difficult to use the feedback from case workers on the fulfilment of the assignments. This makes it challenging to harvest learning from past performance and ensure a sustained quality of services. It is in this context that the MFA wishes to consolidate the procurement of consultancy services through a framework agreement with multiple contractors. The streamlining of the management of Danish development cooperation entailed a revision of the Danida – Aid Management Guidelines (https://amg.um.dk/). This foresees a delegation of key tasks to external consultants, primarily appraisals, and thereby an expected rise in the number of consultancy services to be requested. It is therefore an opportune time to seek a more streamlined procurement process of consultancy services. AMGs contain the policies, guidelines, and tools for the MFA’s development cooperation assistance. They cover different forms of Danish development cooperation modalities. The AMG’s Bilateral Guidelines (https://amg.um.dk/bilateral-cooperation/guidelines-for-programmes-projects-country-strategic-frameworks-and-hard-earmarked-multilat-support) and Financial Management Guidelines (https://amg.um.dk/bilateral-cooperation/financial-management) constitute the basic set of procedures for all Danish bilateral development cooperation. The guidelines outline the processes and requirements for the preparation, formulation, quality assurance, approval, implementation, completion and closure of Danish bilateral programmes and projects. The framework agreement is expected to solely cover bilateral development cooperation programmes and projects designed and implemented by Denmark. Therefore, the expected scope of work of consultancy services solely pertains to Official Development Aid (ODA) funds. The framework agreement is also expected to be divided into two lots. Under each lot, the MFA expects to conclude a framework agreement with between three to seven contractor to establish the terms governing contracts to be awarded during the term of the framework agreement, specifically the terms for award of contracts with/without reopening of competition amongst the contractors on the framework agreement. The expected lots reflect the thematic areas and priorities of Denmark’s Strategy for Development Cooperation: Lot 1: Climate change, environment, private sector development, enabling environment and financing. Lot 2: Governance, response to conflicts, forced displacement, irregular migration, health and education. Each lot is expected to require the provision of the following services pertaining to the design and implementation phases of bilateral development cooperation programmes, namely: Formulation of bilateral programmes and projects. This may include preparatory work in the formulation process if and as needed. Appraisal of the design of bilateral programmes and projects as a quality assurance milestone prior to approval. This includes external appraisals and early appraisals of larger or high-risk programmes/projects. Review of bilateral programmes and projects under implementation. This can span inception, midterm and technical reviews as part of the MFA unit’s monitoring and reporting cycle. The estimated values of the procurement and the lots are preliminary estimates.