Implementation Partnership for Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) Infrastructure Development Works in West Kordofan State

Background

Under the Government of the Netherland’s funded “Partnership for Improving Prospects for Forcibly Displaced Persons and Host Communities” programme, also known as the PROSPECTS partnership, the ILO partners with IFC, UNICEF, UNHCR, and WB Group to develop a joint and fully integrated approach to respond to the forced displacement situation in Sudan.  The Partnership focuses on improving the quality of life and livelihood opportunities for South Sudanese refugee and host community populations in East Darfur and West Kordofan. The Partnership in West KordofanState targets its programming in Keilak, Kharasanaand Al Meiram.

Technical assistance under the Partnership focuses on three main pillars; namely, 1) Education, 2) Employment, and 3) Protection. Under Pillar 1 and 2, the ILOs Employment Intensive civil works programme will play a central role in employment creation, public asset creation, and value chain upgrading in the target locations. The Partnership is anchored by its Multi-Annual Country Programmecommitments, which identified critical public assets, including; health care facilities, water access points, schools/training centers, and selected value chain upgrading initiatives for restoration, revitalization, and/or rehabilitation in target areas ofWest Kordofan.

To undertake these civil works programmes the ILO has implemented a three week Contractors Training session (Theoretical) in the ILOs Employment Intensive Investment Programmes (EIIP) methodological approaches and field practices for five (5) selected contractors from the West Kordofan construction contractor community. All West Kordofan contractors successfully completed this training – demonstrating a detailed working understanding of the ILO contracting modality and the role the EIIP can play in improving infrastructure and use of local resources and inputs.  This theoretical training will be followed by practical applied training sessions that have been organized around the engagement of the contractors in direct award fixed cost / fixed duration contracts that will allow the ILO the opportunity to see the extent the EIIP methodologies and field practices were integrated into contracted civil works initiatives. This ToR has been designed to contract a service provider to implement and supervise the ILOs EIIP fixed cost / fixed duration contracts that have been developed for our recently capacitated local construction contractors from West Kordofan.

The EIIP approach is a potential engine for local development and improving community-level commercial exchange and income streams.InWest Kordofan State, the labor-intensive approaches have been identified as economically viable (i.e. the approaches enable use of local resources, hence lower cost infrastructure works),yet technical capacities for its practical use are limited. Therefore, capacity development of the relevant local institutions- to help facilitate the greater use of employment intensive construction methods by local small-scale contractors- is expected to result in a greater inventory of quality public assets and infrastructure in PROSPECTS targeted locations. In addition, public works campaigns are also expected to provide good opportunities for local young people to acquire and strengthen their skills through on-the-job learning on the job.

EIIP Methods

The EIIPapproach offers a cost-effective solution to deliver to rural community’s access to water and health facilities while generating a high demand for labour during implementation. It is expected that adoption of the EIIP approached, practices, andtechnologies by the local construction contractors communitywill to enhancepost-intervention employment opportunities for those engaged under the EIIP component of the project. It is of paramount importance, therefore, to demonstrate the viability of the approach through actual implementation and delivery of the priority infrastructure assets identified by the ILO in consultation with the national stakeholders.TheILO’s interventions thus aim to maximizelabour intensity (i.e. the ratio of labour inputs in comparison to capital inputs) of the infrastructure rehabilitation works without compromising technical standards. Through the approach, the intervention can equally generate much needed income, job, and skills development opportunities to as many project beneficiaries as possible.

During the mid-80s, in order to promote employment creation in rural infrastructure development, using the labor-intensive approaches,the ILO supported the Government of Sudan in piloting labour-intensive projects. However, the absence of the ILO’s EIIP activities in Sudan over the last two decades and the limited understanding, by local contractors, of the potential that labour-intensive methods has on employment creation and the demand for local materials/resources, created the conditions where no viable modalities were identifiable which could help to mainstream employment-intensive work into national practices/modalities.  Although the Ministry of Labour and Administrative Reform’s Labour-Based Coordination Unit (LBCU) is currently responsible for propagating the labour-based approach in the country, its implementation capacity is severely limited by budgetary resource allocations, skills and expertise mismatch with current technical challenges in the country, and related impacts that repeated adverse shocks (economic, COVID19, flooding, etc.) are having on the country. At present, there are no ongoing employment-intensive projects in West Kordofan State.

Objectives

The main objective of this contract is to implement and monitor the EIIP trial fixed cost / fixed duration contracts to be undertaken by five (5) local contractors in Kharassana, Keilak,and Al Meiram in West Kordofan State. These five contractors have all successfully completedthe theoretical component of the EIIP training and are now in a position to be awarded one of the trial fixed cost / fixed duration contracts. The trial contract works will help build capacitiesof the local contractors and workers recruited from the host communities and among the forcibly displaced persons, both women and men, in the construction sector in West Kordofan State.

Target Beneficiaries

The intended beneficiaries of this Implementing Partnership Agreement are many and include: (i) localcontractors(i.e. managing directors and site supervisors) that will be responsible for managing contracts and works on site, (ii) their employees/trainees  recruited from the local communities,(iii) local communities that will benefit from rehabilitated public assets, and(iv) local government engineers (engineers from the Ministry of Infrastructure and Urban Planningand the Ministry of Health) that will learn the worksite monitoring methods.

In the selection of workers and trainees , the service provider will supervise the contractorsto help ensure equitable and transparently determined  on-the-job training opportunities for young women and men from both host communities and FDPs, with due consideration of disability inclusion.

Assignment under the Implementation Partnership Agreement

The PROSPECTS Sudanwillundertake selected demonstration projects that provide critical and basic capacity building opportunities in infrastructure development to local small-scale contractors and rural communities in West Kordofanand leverage these infrastructure development opportunities to help employ and train young working age Sudanese males and females from both the Forcibly Displaced and Host Community households.These works are:rehabilitation of healthcare structures and water provision facilities in/around Keilak, as well as improving a number of water access sites in Kharasana and Al Meiram.The Implementation Partnership Agreement (IPA)pertains to the site supervision and training of unskilled or semi-skilled workers, and contracts management support for allfive fixed cost trial contract worksites. Under this IPA, the implementation partner will be expected to be substantively engaged with the soon to be established EIIPTechnical Working Group(TWG). The TWG is expected to be comprised of senior technical representatives from the key institutions (ILO, UNHCR, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Infrastructure, and the implementation partner) to steer and advise on the implementation of the various fixed cost trial contracts being undertaken by the local construction contractors.Specific tasks will includetwo categoriesthe following:

A: Rehabilitation contract management and execution

1. Prepare the contract documents for the five packages in liaison with ILO, ensuring that relevant clauses on decent work requirements are adequately captured;
2. Assign contract packages to the contractors in a transparent manner and sub-contract the five (5) contractorsthat will have undertaken the theoretical component of the training prior to the demonstration works, within the fixed scope of work and budget presented in the BOQs attached in the TOR and hand over the sites to the contractors;
3. Support the contractors in drafting and executing any works sub-contractsthat they may need to enter into for effective delivery of the project.
4. Developing work plans with five contractors in line with activities specified in each BOQ,
5. Monitoring of five (5) local small-scale contractors (and their sub-contractors) on site in their application of the EIIP theoretical training as per the contract documents, including that of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) standards in the context of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as other social and environmental safeguards as specified in the trial contracttemplate(to be agreed between the ILO and the implementation partner);
6. Collect data in formats agreed with ILO related to the works in each of five (5) worksites including the following:

I) number of workers recruited, disaggregated by the ratio between host communities and forcibly displaced persons (FDPs), occupation, age, and gender;

II) number of total workdays generated through the work, disaggregated by the ratio between host communities and FDPs, occupation, age, and gender;

III) total wages paid to workers, disaggregated by the ratio between host communities and FDPs, occupation, age and gender.

IV) workers’ selection modalities, including the number of applicants

7. Approve works done to specifications and process payment to the contractors and ensuring timely payment to workers contracted through the contractors;
8. Prepare and submit in a timely manner physical progress and financial expenditure reports according to the specified schedules. The physical progress report shall include information on the data sets and disaggregated as stated above.
9. Establish, lead and chair a Technical Working Group whose members include the ILO, UNHCR, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Infrastructure and the implementation partner, with the ILO delegated representative as a secretary, to monitor the overall implementation of the project. The TWG shall meet at least once every month.

B: On job training of the unskilled workers 

Under this category of work, the contractor will be required to integrate unskilled workers in the on-the-job training planned for the rehabilitation of healthcare and water access infrastructure in the Keilak/Kharasana and Al Meiram operations area(s). Based on the identified occupations and existing material regarding occupational standards / training standards (provided by the ILO),the contractor will:

1. Groups jobs/occupations into small independent units to modularize training content;
2. Identify the targeted workers from refugees and host communities. The workers should be a mixed of skilled (supervisory roles) and unskilled workers;
3. Determine prior knowledge, competencies, skills levels, and general education of proposed training/working candidates;
4. Based on the above develop a preliminary training programme (to be conducted before the works commence) to prepare the unskilled workers (programme on basic skills) each depending on the occupations of choice.
5. Work with the ILO and PROSPECTSSKILLS training experts to determine modules of employable skills that are independent enough and can be fully completed during the fixed cost / fixed duration trial contracts. Note: thatmodules should reflect the actual works that will be done during the rehabilitations. The modules of employable skills may be drawn from different areas of work (for example, electrical installation, carpentry, plumbing etc.) especially service jobs
6. Design training materials for the “on-the-job training component” and conduct an orientation to the work of supervisors on how to integrate rehabilitation work and training the workers
7. Develop monitoring and basic assessment tool to be applied by the contractors to capture progress and acquired skills by the workers
8. Based on the monitoring tool, provide the ILO with a brief “profile” indicating each trainee’s further training requirements upon completion of the construction works and on-the-job training.
9. Deliver on job training and report on enrolment and completion rates to the ILO project team

The ultimate goal through the aforementioned tasks is to support the contractors and workers to develop their skills in managing employment-intensive works. In addition, the rehabilitation works that will be done through trial contractual training should also provide opportunity for skills acquisition for the unskilled workers supporting the contractors work.

Deliverables and Reporting

The service provider shall submit the following reports against the progress of activities agreed with the ILO:

1. Inception report that containsfive (5) signed contracts between the service provider and the local contractors (including any sub-contracts), work plans for each work site in line with BOQs, as well as the number of workers(both skilled and unskilled)to be required for the work and their inclusive selection modalities that were agreed with the contractors based on the contract specifications: within 20 days after the signing of the five (5) contracts. The inception report should include the jobs to be performed for each rehabilitation work to be done.
2. 1^st progress report that contains worksite mobilization progress in percentage against activities specified in each BOQ, work plans, and budget delivery: within 14 days after the worksite mobilization;
3. 2^nd progress report that contains worksite progress in percentage against activities specified in each BOQ, work plans, and budget delivery: after the elapse of 50% of required work duration for each worksite
4. 3^rd progress report that contains worksite progress in percentage against activities specified in each BOQ, work plans, and budget delivery: after the elapse of 80% of required work duration for each worksite;
5. Final report that contains all the required data specified in the TOR and financial report, including enrolment and completion rates of trainees in preliminary and on the job training, no later than 10 days after the completion of the works in each site.

The service provider shall submit a digital copy of these reports in time in MS Office 2003 format or later version.The service provider shall also ensure to update the ILO with the worksite progress on a regular basis. This timely update shall includehighlighting any risks that may negatively affect delivery of the project within the specified quality, cost and time, and recommending any mitigating measures to the ILO.

Organization

To carry out this assignment, the implementing partner will beunder the general supervision of the PROSPECTS Sudan Programme Manager and under the direct supervision of the PROSPECTS regional EIIP Officer based in the ILO Country Office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. AT that field level, the implementing partner will work in close consultation with the PROSPECTS EIIP Engineer for West Kordofan based in El Fula.TheILOwill avail to the implementation partner existing training materialsadapted to the local language and context used during the theoretical component of the contractors training. ILO will also provide support in the design of the demonstrationworkplanswith provision of work standards, contract templates,work plan templates, and testing of materials if needed.TheILO will avail itself of the provision of quality assurance.With regards to Training, the ILO will avail to the contractor, the relevant forms that are to be used to collect training needs data on the unskilled workers, work with trained engineer to develop profiles for tasks for each job areas to be covered during the rehabilitation and develop a modularized trainings programme to be delivered onsite. The training expert/cum engineer will work with site supervisors to orient the on-site training and will assist in supervision. Develop tools to collect information on trainings needs/gaps for the selected workers/trainees. Jointly work with contractors to do orientation to work supervisors. Develop tools for monitoring during on job training. Facilitate material and financial costs for the training and monitoring. Explore options and opportunities for additional post training support.The service provider may outsource and include in its proposals any necessary costs for successful execution of this agreement that it may not currently have in-house.

Technical and Financial Proposals

A complete proposal with budget shall be prepared and submitted by the bidder. The technical proposal shall demonstrate the bidder’s capacity to successfully carry out the assignment, including its experience in such infrastructure works as well as management and technical ability. The technical proposal shall be concise and not more than 8 pages.The Provision for the contract works is $289,236 USD. This amount shall be included unchanged in the budget breakdown. All costs to be incurred by the contractors in implementation of the works are included in the BOQs, i.e. the procurement of tools, materials and equipment as well as costs for labour and overhead charges.

The service provider (implementing partner)is entrusted with the responsibility for theoverall management of the contracts, including worksite visits for monitoring, site supervision, reporting, payment transactions, insurance, testof materials, coordination of the TWG activities,and all that is necessary for successful completion of the assignment. The bidder shall prepare its detailed budget for provision of the described services as part of the financial proposal.

Time Frame &Payment Schedule

This assignment will be implementedwithin a period of up to 6 months, ending no later than 30^thNovember 2021. The bidder in its technical proposal shall include a detailed work plan for the overall management of the tasks outlined in the TOR.

Resources will be released upon submission of required items:

• (15%) as a first payment after submission of Inception report;
• (25%) as a second payment upon timely submission of 1^st progress report;
• (30%) as a third payment upon timely submission of 2^nd progress report;
• (20%) as a fourth payment upon timely submission of 3^rd progress report;
• (10%) as a fifth payment upon timely submission of the final report and handover of the project sites to be inspected by the ILO.

Service Provider Profile

The bidders shall meet the following minimum requirements (compliance to be clearly captured in the proposal):

• International NGO (INGO) registered in Sudan (please provide proof of registration)
• Has been operating in the West Kordofan State for at least five years
• A minimum of three years’ experience in WASH and buildings rehabilitation/construction works
• Able to successfully implement contracts of at least USD 500,000each annually (please attach at least two project completion certificates in the last five years)
• Management and technical capacity to implement such infrastructure works (please attach CVs of at least three proposed staff – 1 management, 2 technical)
• Experience working with government departments, UN agencies and other international organizations
• Experience working in humanitarian/refugee settings will be an added advantage

How to Apply

Interested companies should submit a technical and financial proposal to kirsch@ilo.org copying ahmeda@ilo.org no later than Sunday 27 May 2021. Requests for documents as well as questions related to the assignment can be submitted to kirsch@ilo.org until 10 May 2021. All suppliers will receive response latest by 16 May 2021.