81290730-Support to the implementation of the new topic Food Safety in the context of improving border control and to finalise the establishment of the EAC Regional Pool of Rapidly Deployable Experts

Titel

81290730-Support to the implementation of the new topic Food Safety in the context of improving border control and to finalise the establishment of the EAC Regional Pool of Rapidly Deployable Experts
81290730

Kurze Beschreibung

PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY (EAC) REGION (PANPREP)
Introduction
The EAC Secretariat and the EAC Partner States have declared the fight against infectious diseases a health priority for the region. For this is an important area of interest for the German Government too. The "Support to Pandemic Preparedness in the EAC Region" project (PN 21.2049.1-001.00, Term: 09/2022 - 08/2025), which has been commissioned to GIZ by the?German?Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) aims at assisting the EAC Secretariat to improve the regional preparedness and response capacity. It contributes to putting the East African Community regional contingency plan into practice and to implementing the regional risk and crisis communication strategy. The project also advises the Secretariat on the sustainable integration of "One Health". This approach involves professional disciplines and sectors of society that play an important role in preventing and responding to outbreaks of infectious diseases and in mitigating its impact.
Context
Infectious diseases are still one of the leading causes of death in the East African Community and pose a major challenge to weak health systems. Around two thirds of all infectious diseases and 75% of all novel diseases are zoonoses. They are transmitted between animals and humans directly or via vectors. High levels of mobility and migration, increasing transnational trade, climate change and ever closer interaction between humans and animals foster the spread of infectious diseases in the region. Pathogenic contamination of food of animal origin is an important source of infection: for example, each year, around 100 million people worldwide contract a salmonella infection. Over 150,000 of these infections result in death, more than 30,000 of them in Africa. Food contaminated with pathogens also compromises the food supply and has a significant adverse impact on the region"s economy, since the hygiene standards required for trade are not met. Disease outbreaks have a particularly severe impact on poor people and the rural population - which still makes up around 80 per% of the total population - because of their proximity to wild and farm animals and their limited access to health care as well as to animal health and animal husbandry services. Outbreaks pose an ongoing threat to public health, the economy and can be instrumental in undermining social peace and security in the region. Women are at high risk of infection because they are responsible for caring for family members who fall ill.
The focus of this TOR addresses the ability of the East African Community to mobilize and deploy quickly a defined number of experts in the field of fighting outbreaks of infectious diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential and the capacity and ability of the EAC to support partner states in the ability to detect and prevent the spread of zoonoses from microbially contaminated food of animal origin which is traded across borders within the EAC region.
As the East African Community is still in its early years, many basic aspects of safety of food from animal origin have not been addressed in an integrated and harmonized manner leading to barriers to cross-border trade within the community and a high health risk for the population of the partner states.

Beschreibung der Beschaffung

Info for EU Advertisement
BMZ-funded GIZ Project "Support to Pandemic Preparedness in the East African Community (EAC) Region": Call for tender to support the implementation of parts of the project (Food safety and rapidly deployable expert pool).
Project Description
The contract is part of the project "Support to Pandemic Preparedness in the EAC Region", which was mandated by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and will be implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH from September 2022 until August 2025. The project has a financial volume of up to 4 million EUR.
The overall objective of PanPrep project is that the health of the population in the EAC has improved and forms the basis for sustainable growth in the region. To achieve this objective, the programme intervenes in three outputs: Output 1 aims at strengthening the human resource capacity for infectious disease prevention and control in various sectors in the EAC region. Output 2 strengthens the technical capacities of the EAC Secretariat, Partner States and food safety agencies at selected border crossing points responsible for improving the microbial safety of food of animal origin. Output 3 ensures that the EAC Secretariat is established in the region as an authority for risk and crisis communication.
GIZ is seeking the services of a contractor (consultancy firm or consortium) to support PanPrep and the EAC Partner States in strengthening their ability to prevent and to react to outbreaks of infectious diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential.
Work and services to be provided
The objective of the East African Community (EAC) and its Partner States Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic Congo is to widen and deepen economic, political, social and cultural integration in order to improve the quality of life of the people of East Africa. A healthy and productive population is a basic need for the achievement of the mentioned objective.
The project aims to foster sustainable growth in the region through the improvement of the health of the population in the EAC region. It intervenes on three main outputs and fields of action: The 1st field of action aims at strengthening the human resource capacity for infection prevention and control following the one health approach through the establishment of a rapidly deployable expert pool (output 1). The 2nd field of action "food safety" seeks to strengthens the technical capacities of the EAC Secretariat, Partner States and food safety agencies at selected border crossing points responsible for improving the microbial safety of food of animal origin (output 2). The third field of action, "risk and crisis communication", supports the EAC secretariat in establishing itself in the region as an authority for risk and crisis communication (output 3).
GIZ is seeking to procure the services of a contractor (consultancy firm or consortium) with relevant experience in the fields of food safety and pandemic preparedness to support the achievements of two outputs of the programme. The contractor will focus mainly on contributing to output 2 food safety (85% of contracted services) and provide limited and targeted contributions to output 1 (15% of contracted services).
The service provided by the contractor focuses on the staff of the EAC and the partner states and includes three main work packages:
Work package 1: Rapid Pool
Work package 1 includes services aimed at finalization of the establishment of the EAC Regional Pool of Rapidly Deployable Experts. There is need for final editing of the TORs of the experts, selection processes and test deployment of the experts.
The Contractor is expected to cooperate closely with the PanPrep Project Manager and EAC-Secretariat experts as well as with Africa CDC, US CDC, WHO and the GIZ Global programme Pandemic Prevention, Response, One Health (GP PPOH).
Work package 2: Food Safety
This is a new area of work in the PanPrep project. The contractor will concentrate on the safety of food of animal origin with the option of widening the approach in a follow-on phase to also include chemical and other food contamination of public health concern. Trade at border posts plays an important role in the transmission process. The same is valid for so-called wet markets, where fresh products are sold. Work package 2 targets the officers in charge of food safety at selected border posts within the EAC region. It aims at standardising procedures and enhancing the officer"s technical capacity. The Contractor is in charge of implementing both outputs of the work package.
The mission shall be carried out between 1 March 2023 and 31 August 2025 and involves the provision of one international (full-time) expert, a pool of up to 6 regional experts with a total of 257 days and one administrative position.

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.

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, commercial register number.
2. Eligibility declaration that no grounds for exclusion in Section 123, 124 of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (GWB) apply.
3. Eligibility declaration subcontractors if applicable.
4. Association clause if applicable.

Liste und kurze Beschreibung der Auswahlkriterien

1. At least 5 reference projects in the technical field in either or combination of Human or Animal Health
of which at least 2 reference projects in the region Africa in the last 3 years.
2. The technical assessment is only based on reference projects with a minimum
commission value of 500.000,00 EUR.

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.