81305757-Technical Assistance for Digital Connectivity Promotion in Africa

Kurze Beschreibung

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) is a German federal enterprise in international cooperation for sustainable development. We work for our clients and together with our partners on more than 1,500 ongoing projects in around 120 countries. GIZ employs over 20,000 people worldwide.
The promotion and dissemination of digitisation is a development policy goal in its own right, which the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is pursuing in a special way together with its partners. On behalf of the BMZ, GIZ is implementing a lot of different digital solutions in various sectoral and global projects. In addition to the BMZ Digital Transformation Centres operating worldwide, these include a wide range of projects such as the Fairwork Foundation, the Data Economy, GovStack, blockchain partnerships, cyber security and open data for policy-making. In line with the needs and potentials of the partners, these projects support local capacities to shape the digital transformation themselves.
The Data Economy Initiative focuses on political and technical cooperation in the area of data value creation, contributing to the overall objectives. The background is that geopolitical tensions around data sovereignty, the fairness of the data economy and the underlying value chains have intensified and are increasingly attracting the attention of policy makers worldwide. The Initiative promotes the development of a data-driven economy by supporting partner countries in their development and implementation of data regulation and by piloting and scaling data-driven innovation with local partners. In collaboration with the Smart Africa Alliance, national regulators, and the private sector, the project operates in three action areas: data value creation, capacities on data and data policy.
In addition to these action areas, the Data Economy Initiative is cooperating with the Finnish HAUS Institute for Public Management for the purpose of promoting green and secure data infrastructure promotion, the fourth action area, by establishing the Digital Investment Facility (DIF) covering Sub-Saharan Africa. This mechanism is supporting the facilitation of investments in green and secure data infrastructure under the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus (EFSD+) and other funding sources from European Member States, by promoting enhanced and integrated partnerships between the public and private sector, as well as financing institutions, with a focus on facilitating interactions between European and African actors in line with the Global Gateway Strategy. The resources of the facility will be prioritized to regions that show the highest demand and capability to develop feasible infrastructure projects and where also markets show sufficient demand for sustaining the infrastructure.
In detail, the DIF will
1) contribute to building a favourable environment for European investments into African data infrastructure markets. For this, African key stakeholders" capacities on sound project design will be enhanced and African project developers, promoters and operators supported in unlocking European funding opportunities for public and private entities working in partnerships. To support stakeholders" capacities and project design, technical guidelines on green and secure data infrastructure will be developed in a multi-stakeholder approach. Furthermore, the DIF will
2) provide tailor-made market insights for European financiers such as INTPA, EIB, KfW or Finnfund and other European Development Finance Institutions. On this bases, promising investment opportunities will be scoped, pre-evaluated and discussed with European financiers and investors in a dedicated Investment Roundtable for synergies and better coordination of support. Ultimately, the DIF will
3) deploy project advisory services on integrated project design including pre-feasibility assessments and, in case of successful consideration by European financiers, project structuring for African promoters and developers with the aim to enhance the bankability of public-purpose infrastructure proposals addressing market failures or development gaps (additionality). European and African stakeholders such as European manufacturers, solution providers, African developers, promoters, public authorities will receive the opportunity to liaise in an annual Data Infrastructure Forum that will be organised and hosted by the DIF.
Consequently, the DIF will serve as a vehicle to match the growing demand for investment in African data infrastructure markets with increased investments from European financiers in a green and secure manner in line with the Global Gateway Strategy, ultimately contributing to the development-oriented and human-centric data economy and society in Africa.

Beschreibung der Beschaffung

The contractor is responsible for achieving the output, complying with the associated indicators, and implementing the tasks described below.
Module objective
Increased number of bankable proposals for investments in green and secure data infra-structure accepted for consideration by European financiers through the Digital Investment Facility (DIF).
Module objective indicator
5 bankable and high-quality proposals from priority regions prepared for submission to International and European financiers" pipelines such as EIB, DFIs and private investors.
(Baseline: 0)
Output 1 (see Annex (A), Output 3):
Bankable investment opportunities for green and secure data infrastructure projects are accepted for consideration by financiers
Output indicator 1 (see Annex (A), Output indicator 3.3.2):
7 projects supported through DIF advisory services resulting in project proposals at pre-feasibility stage covering economic, technical, legal, environmental, cybersecurity and operational assessments.
(Baseline: 0)
The delivery of results under output indicator 1 shall translate into contributions under module objective indicator, i.e. out of 7 projects supported through DIF advisory services at least 5 should result in bankbable and high-quality proposals to be submitted to European financiers" pipelines. Therefore, the above indicators are subsequently formulated, i.e. building on each other.
The contractor is responsible for conducting the following work packages consisting of different tasks and for achieving the corresponding milestones to deliver on Output 3.
The work packages 1 - 5 are to be understood as a sequence of services provided to GIZ beneficiaries that shall result in one bankable infrastructure investment proposal per traversed sequence, adding one contribution to the output indicator 3.3.2 each.
While work packages 1 - 3 are obligatory under each sequence, retrieval of work packages 4 - 5 depends on the maturity, need and probability of success of each coached proposal. Hence, the services under work packages 1 - 5 must be provided to up to 7 different beneficiaries across Sub-Sahara Africa within the contract period.
Work package Inception: Initial clarification of the assignment
Work package 1: Technical review
Work package 2: Business and financial plan review and project organizational setup
Work package 3: Pre-Feasibility Study
Work package 4: Project promotion strategy and fund-raising support
Work package 5: Contract closing
Work package 6: Documentation, Knowledge Management and Communication

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 Auswahlkriterien

Wirtschaftliche und finanzielle Leistungsfähigkeit: 1. Average annual turnover for the last three years (last-but-four financial year can be included in case of tenders held within 6 months of end of last financial year), at least: 1.000.000,00 EUR
2. Average number of employees and managers in the last three calendar years, at least 10 persons

Liste und kurze Beschreibung der Bedingungen

Eignung zur Berufsausübung: 1. Self-declaration: name of company and address, tax ID, registration and commercial register number or equivalent register in accordance with the legal provisions of the country of origin.
2. No grounds for exclusion pursuant to § 123, § 124 GWB, § 22 LkSG
3. Declaration of bidding consortium and/or declaration of subcontractors (if applicable)

Liste und kurze Beschreibung der Auswahlkriterien

Technische und berufliche Leistungsfähigkeit: 1. The technical assessment is only based on reference projects with a minimum commission value of 350.000,00 EUR.
2. At least 4 reference projects in the technical field design and development of digital infrastructure projects (i.e. broadband, mobile connectivity, data centres), incl. project design, technical review, feasibility assessment and financial structuring of investment deals of which at least 2 reference projects in Africa the last 3 years

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.