INVITATION TO TENDER FOR NUTRITION SERVICES

Dear Applicant,

We are excited to launch a tender for nutrition services - this intends to bring onboard institutional partners capable of providing NiE technical support in response to requests coming from countries.

The purpose of this Call for Tenders is to solicit competitive offers for the supply of Nutrition Services for the Global Nutrition Cluster and the SMART Team within Action Against Hunger Canada.

Closing Date: Sunday 19th of May 2024, at 23:59, EST

The explanatory meeting for former, current, and prospective partners on the purpose and intention of the tender, will be held on 10 April at 09:00 EST. Please register using this link: Explanatory meeting Registration link.

The clarification meeting on the RFP, will be held on 29 April at 09:00 EST. Please register using this link: Clarification meeting Registration link

To apply to RFP, click on the following link: RFP

Yours sincerely,
GNC Operations Team and SMART Initiative
Action Against Hunger Canada

Technical description of the Goods / Services

Terminology

Backstopping Technical Advisor – the person who provides support to a Technical Advisor, usually including review of materials in draft, regular communication to hear how the work is progressing and to provide a fresh perspective on how the work is progressing; often backstopping can also incorporate capacity strengthening but this is not always the case. All technical advisors, even senior ones, benefit from backstopping.

Technical Advisor – the person who provides support to the requesting governments, nutrition clusters, and / or local and international non-governmental organizations; this is the person that carries out the bulk of the work for a request.

Detailed Responsibilities

High-level Description of Work to be Performed

The subject of the call for tender is to provide services by the Contractor of the following services to Action Against Hunger Canada. Please take into consideration the below requirements:

• Please list out a range of daily rates in CAD for each seniority level of each service.
• All-inclusive rates mean staff time, support costs, management, and administration, necessary for the delivery of work.
• The rates will be fixed for two years.
• Cost of Travel (air tickets, per diem, accommodation, visa, transportation, etc,) and program activities, including translation of the materials, will be submitted and negotiated separately and thus should not be included in the offered rate.
• In addition to the daily rates, other expenses might be added to the Supplier Purchase Order or Statement of Work when needed, such as travel costs or program activities costs (e.g. training costs).

The Technical Advisor will be responsible for strengthening the delivery of the response through the provision of senior leadership, technical support, and capacity building during in-country / remote support deployments to governments, nutrition clusters, and / or local and international non-governmental organizations.

Selection of applicants for Framework Agreements will be based on the applicant’s ability to provide services in the selected Primary Technical Areas listed below. A list of Secondary Technical Areas is included to permit applicants to expand on their service offer. Applications for service provision of a Secondary Technical Area, without specialisation in a Primary Technical Area, will not be sufficient basis for Framework Agreement, as the number of requests in the Secondary Technical Areas currently does not warrant the need for specific framework agreements.

Primary Technical Areas:

1. Prevention and management of malnutrition in emergencies
   1. Detection and treatment of wasting in children
   2. Management of complicated wasting
   3. Simplified approaches for the management of wasting
   4. Infant and Young Child Feeding and Nutrition in Emergencies
2. Cross-cutting approaches and modalities applied to nutrition
   1. Cash and voucher assistance for nutrition programming
3. Needs Assessment and Analysis for Nutrition Outcomes
   1. SMART Surveys
   2. Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)
   3. Nutrition Information Systems (NIS) (e.g. routine programme data; multisectoral data; surveillance)

Secondary Technical Areas

1. Prevention and management of malnutrition in emergencies
   1. Maternal nutrition
   2. Adolescent nutrition
   3. Micronutrients
   4. Multi-sectoral nutrition programming
   5. Management of small and nutritionally at-risk infants under 6 months and their mothers (MAMI)
2. Cross-cutting approaches and modalities applied to nutrition
   1. Social behaviour change
   2. Gender programming in nutrition
   3. Gender based violence
   4. Climate Change/Environmental protection
   5. Nutrition Advocacy
   6. Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
3. Needs Assessment and Analysis for Nutrition Outcomes
   1. IYCF-E Surveys
   2. Coverage Surveys (e.g., SQUEAC, SLEAC, etc.)
   3. Qualitative Assessments (e.g., KAP, Barrier Analysis, KII, FGDs, etc.)
   4. Other surveys (e.g., LinkNCA, Cost of Diet, FSNA, etc.)
4. High-level leadership, facilitation, and engagement for nutrition programming
   1. Protocols, policies, strategies, and action plans
   2. Multi-sectoral programme design and evaluation
   3. Strengthening localisation and HDPN
   4. Resource mobilization, financing, and accountability

Whilst each technical support package is tailored to specific needs, across the technical areas, support provided could include following activities: capacity strengthening; the design and delivery of trainings and orientations; development of training plans; survey design and implementation; formative research; personnel, organizational and programmatic capacity mapping; policy assessment; coaching; strategy and work plan development; tool development; support to technical working groups; monitoring and evaluation design; learning and documentation; and advocacy support.

Detailed ToRs for each technical support will be developed and the ToR and expected deliverables will be refined once the technical support starts. In case of in-country deployment, the in-country supervisor will meet with the Technical Advisor within 48 hours of arrival in country, as the situation remains dynamic and requires a certain degree of flexibility.

Activities are indicative and not limited to above listed. Time and scheduling permitting Technical Advisors may also be requested to perform other relevant tasks. If these present a significant deviation from the Purchase Order or Statement or Work, these would be discussed with and agreed upon by all parties and documented (at least by email if not an official amendment to Purchase Order/Statement of Work document).

Travel and program activity costs should be excluded from the quoted price as this will be covered by AAH Canada or added, as needed, in the PO/SoW subsequently.

In order to facilitate hosting arrangements for deployments, applicants will be required to have a Standby Partnership Agreement with a UN agency. As UNICEF is the Nutrition Cluster Lead Agency, this is the most common UN agency to host advisers. If one does not exist, it will need to be negotiated prior to any deployment wherein a UN agency intends to host the technical advisor. If needed, alternative solutions will be explored for hosting an advisor (hosting by applicant organisation or by a partner organisation, in which case an agreement between hiring and hosting organisation will need to be negotiated) but these can be time consuming and may prohibit timely provision of technical support.

Desired Qualifications of the Nutrition Individual or Team within an Organization or Company

Generally, to complete these works to the quality required for GNC/SMART initiative, the organization is expected to propose a team with the following qualifications:

SMART Initiative

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Required:

1. The consultant should have at least 8 years' work experience in nutrition and public health in emergencies
2. Demonstrated experience in designing and leading nutrition assessments
3. Excellent knowledge of SMART, rapid nutrition assessments methodologies and statistical software including ENA for SMART and other statistical packages
4. Strong skills in coordination and the ability to work effectively with a range of stakeholders, including nutrition clusters, partners, and the Ministry of Health
5. Highly developed writing skills – both at a programmatic level (assessment reports, proposals) and a policy level (policy papers, guidance notes)
6. Strong communications skills (both written and verbal) at a level appropriate for high- level external representation (lobbying, presentations)
7. Ability to analyse diverse information and develop recommendations for an appropriate response to emergencies
8. Master's degree in nutrition or public health, or equivalent
9. Demonstrated capacity in SMART methodology

GNC

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Required:

1. Master’s degree in Economic, Social Science, Nutrition, Public Health, or related field.
2. More than 10 years (for Senior Level Technical Advisor), 5-10 years (for Mid-Level Technical Advisor) or less than 5 years (for Junior Level Technical Advisor) work experience in nutrition and public health in emergencies.
3. Demonstrated experience in designing and leading nutrition initiatives.
4. Demonstrated experience in capacity building, including conducting learning needs assessment, capacity assessment and capacity building strategies.

Desired

1. Experience in the development of innovative training tools (will be considered an asset).

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, ABILITIES AND OTHER ATTRIBUTES

Required:

1. Demonstrated understanding and commitment to humanitarian principles.
2. Strong skills in coordination and the ability to work effectively with a range of stakeholders, including nutrition clusters, partners, and the Ministry of Health.
3. Highly developed writing skills – both at a programmatic level (assessment reports, proposals) and a policy level (policy papers, guidance notes).
4. Strong communications skills (both written and verbal) at a level appropriate for high- level external representation presentations).
5. Flexibility in ways of working: the nature of assignments might shift based on emerging needs.
6. Ability to analyse diverse information and develop recommendations for an appropriate response to emergencies.
7. Excellent knowledge and demonstrated experience in nutrition and public health in emergencies.
8. Ability to work in English to a high standard.
9. Technical skills and experience in the thematic areas selected for the application.

Desired:

1. Working knowledge of French, Spanish and / or Arabic desirable.
2. Existing standby partnership agreement with UNICEF or another UN agency, or willingness to put one in place.

Special Provisions

More specifically for this call for tender, the contractor will:

• Ensure that efforts are made for Gender and GBV risk mitigation to be a cross-cutting concern across all support provided for the GNC Technical Alliance. The Technical Advisor will ensure this happens and ensure that any opportunities for any gender/GBV related support are identified and discussed with country teams.
• Ensure that efforts are made to enhance the role and power of local and national organizations (especially women led, or women’s rights focused organizations) in nutrition responses is a key objective of the GNC. Therefore, during the development, implementation and follow up, all reasonable efforts should be made to explore possible opportunities for local organizations to lead or at least by involved in the technical support. This should be at every stage of the assignment, including the development of the ToR and preparation for the work to take place, as well as, for example, involvement (preferably leading) on the development of any products and involvement in training.
• Local resources (i.e. from country offices, partners, etc.) should be prioritised when considering the ability to fulfil support requests. The supplier should demonstrate how they will embrace localisation in their proposal and service provision.
• Ensure the adherence and compliance with Action Against Hunger Canada International Safeguarding Policy as well as Action Against Hunger Canada Good Business Regulations.

Marking

As a means to acknowledge the support of the GNC or SMART and its donors, the GNC, SMART and donor logos should be included in any or all materials produced by or with the support of the Technical Advisor, unless there are specific security reasons for not doing so. Technical Advisors should ensure these are in place and according to requirements, with support from the GNC.