The eligibility to submit a proposal is not restricted to specific countries or regions in the world. Consultants might form consortia with a view to strengthening their technical expertise and experience.
The invitation to tender was published in the International Herald Tribune and the Economist.
The consultants will be selected on the basis of their technical and financial proposal according to the lead agent’s rules for the selection of consultants. It is understood that different aspects of ITC’s work (for example, technical cooperation, thematic focus areas, market services and internet resources) may require different evaluation methodologies. Accordingly, tenderers are free to address methodological issues in a differentiated manner in the technical approach they propose for desk reviews and fieldwork. In the technical proposals, tenderers will propose how best to undertake the above-mentioned tasks within the available time and resources. They will also provide details of the methodology they propose to use. The evaluation process should be as independent, objective and impartial as possible.
Award criteria include experience of the consultants and/or the consulting companies in the field of trade and development; experience in conducting evaluations; experience of working with bilateral and/or multilateral donors; methodological experience with emphasis on empirical evaluation work; background and range of professional qualifications of staff; team leader experience of the proposed team leader; and, access to relevant professional expertise in developing countries.
The proposed team leader and team members cannot be changed after submittal of the proposal, unless due to force majeure. Change in the proposed core team would lead to disqualification of the service provider. The same rules apply after signing of the contract and would be treated as breach of contract on the part of the service provider.
Consultants submitting proposals for this evaluation should provide proof that there is no current working relation by any of the team members with ITC, incompatible with the requirements of full independence for this evaluation or any other relation with would create a conflict of interest. This implies that consultants selected should have no concurrent assignment with ITC, and they should not have been involved in any of earlier external assessments/reviews/evaluations of ITC; or a work history with more than 20 per cent of working days with ITC.
The evaluators selected will be fully responsible for the conduct and content of the evaluation and shall follow the Evaluation Guidelines by Danida. The evaluators shall also be fully responsible for the ensuring quality assurance (QA) of the evaluation and shall in the inception phase set up appropriate QA mechanisms to be documented in the inception report. Quality control (QC) is the responsibility of the Management Group.