81288435-Event management support for AU APSA and migration partner events in various African countries

Kurze Beschreibung

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, one of Germany"s main development agencies, has been cooperating with the African Union (AU) on behalf of the German Government since 2004. The GIZ AU Liaison Office is actively engaged in about 20 supra-regional projects in 33 African countries. The main office of GIZ AU is located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a number of offices in other locations, including South Africa, Algeria, and Tanzania. GIZ cooperates with seven of the eight AU departments, with a focus on the following five areas: (1) peace and security, (2) good governance and migration, (3) regional economic integration, (4) education/youth/employment, and (5) agriculture and land governance.
Many of the programmes pursue a multi-level approach and work not only at the continental level, but also at the regional and national level. Most staff work in the respective offices while some are seconded to the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) and to 19 of the AU"s Member States. They strategize together with the respective partners on how to best realize and implement continent-wide policies, agendas, protocols, and declarations. An important measure to create awareness and sensitize stakeholders - ranging from (high-level) policymakers, legislators, representatives of the media, academia as well as the private sector, and members of the civil society, including Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) - on relevant policy issues as well as facilitate networking between these actors are virtual and physical/face-to-face dialogue events. Such exchanges can focus on a particular country (national level), but also on specific regions or the continent (regional and continental level). The different exchange formats vary largely in format, length, and number of participants.
Some GIZ projects organize up to 25 events per year, depending on the requests and needs of partners as well as commissioning parties. Implementing such events, especially larger face-to-face events, requires a lot of resources and coordination efforts on the side of GIZ and its partners, including the procurement of air tickets for participants, booking of conference venues and accommodation for participants, securing catering, interpretation services and technical equipment as well as supporting the reimbursement of participants for expenditures such as visa and transport costs and coordinating COVID-tests.
This includes the two GIZ AU projects "Support to the AU on Labour Migration and Free Movement" (abbreviated as "migration project") and "Support to the AU in the areas of crisis prevention, conflict management and peace building within the framework of the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA), abbreviated as APSA project, which cooperate with the AU in the policy areas of migration and mobility as well as peace and security respectively. Both projects are funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Beschreibung der Beschaffung

Depending on the requests and needs of partners as well as commissioning parties, the two GIZ AU projects (the APSA and migration projects) organize up to 25 virtual and/or physical events per year. This includes events focused on a particular country (national level), but also on specific regions or the continent (regional and continental level). The different exchange formats vary largely in format, length and number of participants. Implementing such events, especially larger face-to-face events with participants from different countries and regions, requires a lot of resources and coordination efforts on the side of GIZ and its partners, including the procurement of air tickets for participants, booking of conference venues and accommodation for participants, securing catering, interpretation services and technical equipment as well as supporting the reimbursement of participants for expenditures such as visa and transport costs and coordinating COVID-tests.
Against this background, the two projects seek to engage an experienced event management company or consortium of event management experts with regional experience and networks in Africa and a track-record of having already supported different types of events on the continent, which can support the GIZ projects in the efficient, timely, and qualitative planning and implementation of events in different locations in Africa. The services require a high level of flexibility and adaptability on the side of the contractor.
The different event-related services to be delivered by the contractor are briefly outlined below and explained in more detail in the terms of reference (ToR). They encompass three main work-packages, namely:
- Work package 1: procurement of air tickets for participants
- Work package 2: event management services for face-to-face events
- Work package 3: event management services for online events
As part of work package 1 "procurement of air tickets for participants", the contractor is required to support GIZ in obtaining flight tickets for participants of regional and continental events, which means booking, procuring, and delivering flight tickets for GIZ, considering the GIZ regulations for reimbursing travel expenses as well as economic and environmental aspects. The total number of air tickets to be booked and purchased during the duration of the contract is estimated to be up to 563 roundtrip tickets for the APSA project and 562 roundtrip tickets for the migration project.
For work package 2 "event management services for face-to-face events", the contractor shall provide event management services for physical/face-to-face events, including the organization as well as the conduction of events on the ground. Services to be delivered include the search for and booking of hotel accommodation for participants, the search for and booking of event venues, the provision of cash-reimbursement for participants for travel costs (preferably in USD) and the procurement of local transport for participants (e.g. airports transfer), and support to arranging visas for participants.
Within work package 3 "event management services for online events" the contractor is responsible for overseeing the organisation and the conduction of online/virtual events as requested by GIZ and its partner organizations. This includes online events that are only accessible upon invitation (or registration) as well as events that will be publicly broadcasted. The services to be delivered as part of this package include: the provision and/or management of conferencing software and digital tools applicable for the individual purpose of each online event as well as the management of professional digital tools and methods for interactive conferencing such as breakout rooms, whiteboards etc. These tools need to take into account the conditions in different African countries.
The contractor needs to ensure that the processing of any personal data involved in the planning, organization, and implementation of events to be conducted, adhere to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applicable local laws.
To ensure the timely and efficient booking and delivery of air tickets as well as the implementation of virtual and/or physical/face-to-face events in the different event locations in Africa, the contractor needs to ensure that they have an efficient and reliable network of experienced travel agents and event management experts on the ground in Africa.
The contractor is required to ensure that there is a standard approach to planning events including standardized templates for event preparation and initial briefings before each event as well as regular briefing with the GIZ project teams to discuss challenges, lessons learnt and possibly improve procedures.
The contractor is also required to provide the following personal for the implementation of the tasks:
- Team leader
- Financial manager
- Expert pool with 2 up to 4 experts for the procurement of air tickets
- Expert pool with 2 up to 4 experts for preparation and implementation of virtual and face-to-face events
The backstopping concept of the contractor needs to include his strategy for managing and adapting to changing conditions and the monitoring of performance.
The planned contract duration is from the awarding of the contract until 31.10.2024.

Beschreibung der Verlängerungen

GIZ may optionally commission contract amendments and/or increases based on the criteria in the tender documents to the successful bidder of this tender. For details, please see the terms of reference.

Objektive Kriterien für die Auswahl der begrenzten Anzahl von Bewerbern

If more than five candidates/associations are considered suitable, only the five candidates/associations ranked in the top five according to the following selection criteria will be invited to submit a tender. The other candidates/associations will not be invited to submit a tender. This selection will be made under all eligible participants based on the following criteria:
I. Technical experience:
1. Demonstrated organizational skills (weighting 10%)
2. Demonstrated sustainable procurement practices for event management (weighting 10%)
3. Established network of service providers for event management in Africa (weighting 10%)
4. Use of an international accounting and bookkeeping system such as SAP (weighting 10%)
5. Demonstrated project management and financial monitoring capacities for event management (weighting 10%)
II. Regional experience:
Regional experience Africa (weighting 30%)
III. Experience of development projects (ODA-financed):
Experience of development projects (at least 50 % ODA-financed) (weighting 20%)

Beschreibung der Optionen

GIZ may optionally commission contract amendments and/or increases based on the criteria in the tender documents to the successful bidder of this tender. For details, please see the terms of reference.

Liste und kurze Beschreibung der Bedingungen

1) Trading name and address, beneficial owner(s), commercial register number, bank account, tax number, VAT identification number, brief company profile and contact in event of queries.
2) Extract from the commercial register or equivalent evidence/proof (not older than six months).
3) Self-declaration that no grounds for exclusion in Section 123, 124 of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (GWB) and EU-Russian sanctions apply.
4) If a candidate/tenderer wishes to use the capacities of another company for the execution of the contract, he must prove by submitting a declaration of commitment that the corresponding capacities are available to him for the execution of the contract.
5) If subcontractors are to be used, a declaration of commitment and a declaration that no grounds for exclusion pursuant to Section 123 GWB and/or Section 124 GWB apply to them must be submitted.
6) In the case of participation as a bidding consortium: tenderers must appoint a leading member and authorise this member to represent the group and to receive payments with discharging effect also for the other members. A corresponding agreement, signed by all members, must be attached to the application for participation. For this purpose, the form provided by GIZ must be used.

Liste und kurze Beschreibung der Auswahlkriterien

1) Declaration on the average annual turnover for the last 3 financial years (last-but-4 financial year can be included in case of invitation to tender held within 6 months of end of last financial year).
2) Declaration on the average number of employees and managers for the past three calendar years

1) Average annual turnover for the last 3 financial years: at least 180,000 EUR.
2) Average number of employees and managers for the past three calendar years: at least 5 persons.

Liste und kurze Beschreibung der Auswahlkriterien

It is necessary to provide minimum 1 reference project in the technical field "Event management (physical and online) in a political context in Africa" and at least 2 reference projects must be in Africa, each of them in the last three years with a minimum commission value of at least 75,000 EUR.

Bedingungen für die Teilnahme (technische und berufliche Fähigkeiten)

1) The technical assessment is only based on reference projects with a minimum commission value of EUR 75,000 (seventy-five thousand Euro) in the last three years.
2) The minimum requirements forsee at least 1 reference project in the technical field "Event management (physical and online) in a political context in Africa" and at least 2 reference projects must be in Africa, each of them in the last three years with a minimum commission value of at least EUR 75,000 (seventy-five thousand Euro).

Genaue Informationen über Fristen für Überprüfungsverfahren

According to Article 160, Section 3 of the German Act Against Restraint of Competition (GWB), application for review is not permissible insofar as
1. the applicant has identified the claimed infringement of the procurement rules before submitting the application for review and has not submitted a complaint to the contracting authority within a period of 10 calendar days; the expiry of the period pursuant to Article 134, Section 2 remains unaffected,
2. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that are evident in the tender notice are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for the application or by the deadline for the submission of bids, specified in the tender notice.
3. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that first become evident in the tender documents are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for application or by the deadline for the submission of bids,
4. more than 15 calendar days have expired since receipt of notification from the contracting authority that it is unwilling to redress the complaint.
Sentence 1 does not apply in the case of an application to determine the invalidity of the contract in accordance with Article 135, Section 1 (2). Article 134, Section 1, Sentence 2 remains unaffected.