Beschreibung der Beschaffung
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH — Project ‘Open Regional Fund for Southeast Europe — Modernisation of Municipal Services (ORF MMS)’/Sub-project ‘Regional Capacity Development Network (RCDN) for Water and Sanitation Services (WSS) in Southeast Europe’, seeks to engage a Consulting Company, in order to provide services for elaboration of a comprehensive set of Wastewater (WW) Capacity Development (CD) Programmes mainly intended for employees of Public Utility Companies (PUCs) and Local Self-Government Units (LGUs) in the Southeast Europe (SEE).
The RCDN sub-project is jointly financed by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). It is administratively embedded in the GIZ Project ORF MMS, commissioned by BMZ.
LGUs and PUCs in the Western Balkans face major challenges in providing sustainable WSS services to the population while meeting the EU environmental Acquis Communautaire. Key challenges include insufficient managerial and technical competencies as well as poor financial performance, combined with a complex institutional landscape. LGUs and PUCs often request support through provision of Capacity Development (CD) measures from their national associations. However, quality and range of CD measures vary significantly and are strongly linked to the heterogeneous capacities of the associations themselves. The majority do not possess sufficient resources to devise CD policies and design quality CD measures for a relatively small group of professionals in their respective countries and to implement them systematically and efficiently. CD measures are mostly add-ons to externally financed infrastructure projects, but sustainable and systemic spillover effects, on institutional level, hardly occur.
RCDN sub-project was therefore designed to establish a self-sustaining Regional CD Network for WSS in SEE.
Overall objective of RCDN is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the water utility companies in the Western Balkans, thus contributing to a better service provision for larger numbers of population groups that get access to drinking water and sanitation services, consistent with the EU environmental Acquis Communautaire.
RCDN intends to develop new CD Programmes, identified as an emerging challenge, being in line with IFIs" and donors" priorities and also fostering collaborative approach. Wastewater (WW) is high on the international agenda, reflected in respective priority-setting in the region. The proposed focus of RCDN on new WW CD Programmes is because:
(a) there is a solid rationale:
— the process of preparation, development and implementation of WWCT infrastructure projects is mainly characterised by many deficits and even failures,
— currently, focus is given mostly on the investment and construction, but often neglecting the importance of Operation and Maintenance (O&M) aspects,
— thus, LGUs and their PUCs are facing even bigger difficulties after the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) is build (O&M and sludge management).
(b) it is an opportunity:
— over the last decade, significant national grant and credit support for construction of WWTPs is provided by national authorities, IFIs and the donor community in all Western Balkan countries,
— WWTPs is a sensitising option and a good example for CD since it is clearly demand-based (targeting very specifically LGUs and PUCs), and thus a boosting option for CD measures.
The assignment puts high emphases on:
(a) capacitation of local WW experts as trainers, and
(b) involvement of the RCDN Partner Associations (namely, APUCs, and LGAs), aiming at delivering the WW CD Programmes by them on long-term perspective, and facilitating know-how transfer.
Activities of the consulting company have to be carried out in line with the developed RCDN quality standards.
Pilot delivery of the WW CD programmes is foreseen in Albania, B&H, and North Macedonia.