Consultancy services to Support the Community Regenerative Blue Economy Incubation Programme

IUCN is a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.

Headquartered in Switzerland, IUCN Secretariat comprises around 1,000 staff with offices in more than 50 countries.

Created in 1948, IUCN is now the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of more than 1,300 Member organisations and some 10,000 experts. It is a leading provider of conservation data, assessments and analysis. Its broad membership enables IUCN to fill the role of incubator and trusted repository of best practices, tools and international standards.

IUCN provides a neutral space in which diverse stakeholders including governments, NGOs, scientists, businesses, local communities, indigenous peoples organisations and others can work together to forge and implement solutions to environmental challenges and achieve sustainable development.

Working with many partners and supporters, IUCN implements a large and diverse portfolio of conservation projects worldwide. Combining the latest science with the traditional knowledge of local communities, these projects work to reverse habitat loss, restore ecosystems and improve people’s well-being.

[www.iucn.org](https://www.iucn.org/)

[https://twitter.com/IUCN/](https://twitter.com/IUCN/)

Project Reference: P04809

Donor reference: (DN00140)

IUCN is a membership Union uniquely composed of both government and civil society organisations. It provides public, private and non-governmental organisations with the knowledge and tools that enable human progress, economic development and nature conservation to take place together.

Created in 1948, IUCN is now the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of more than 1,400 Member organisations and around 15,000 experts. It is a leading provider of conservation data, assessments and analysis. Its broad membership enables IUCN to fill the role of incubator and trusted repository of best practices, tools and international standards.

IUCN provides a neutral space in which diverse stakeholders including governments, NGOs, scientists, businesses, local communities, indigenous peoples organisations and others can work together to forge and implement solutions to environmental challenges and achieve sustainable development.

Working with many partners and supporters, IUCN implements a large and diverse portfolio of conservation projects worldwide. Combining the latest science with the traditional knowledge of local communities, these projects work to reverse habitat loss, restore ecosystems and improve people’s well-being.

[www.iucn.org](http://www.iucn.org)

[https://twitter.com/IUCN/](https://twitter.com/IUCN/)

Pamoja Tuhifadhi Bahari Yetu Project is a 4-year initiative (2024 – 2028) aiming to contribute to the improved environmental protection and biodiversity conservation of the coastal and marine ecosystems in Tanzania. Funded by the European Union through the Blue Economy for job creation and climate change adaptation, the project is implemented in parts of the Mtwara, Lindi, Coast and Dar es Salaam regions (Mainland) and Unguja Island in Zanzibar. The total project budget is 11.4M Euros. The initiative will contribute to a climate-resilient Blue Economy on the Tanzanian coastal cities and ecosystems. The project implementation is led by IUCN and partnering with WWF, WCS, TNC and ForumCC.

The rampant degradation of coastal and marine ecosystems, weak land-use systems, poor governance of marine and coastal resources, high dependence on marine resources, and climate change are the most significant problems threatening the long-term productivity of Tanzania’s coastal and marine natural capital. Critical issues include coastal development; mangrove destruction; marine pollution from surface runoff and plastic waste; overfishing, damaging fishing practices and weak resources governance; targeting of juvenile and undersize fish and invertebrates (lobsters, crabs and sea cucumber); an uncoordinated and piecemeal approach to biodiversity and ecosystem-based fisheries management at the local level; poor advocacy skills and limited knowledge on environmental legislation for community conservation efforts; and unsustainable financing of coastal and marine resources.

The Bahari Yetu project’s theory of change is that the stewardship of the marine biodiversity and blue economy will be improved if: 1) science based natural resource management and governance at a landscape and seascape scale is improved; 2) economic benefits from conservation-based enterprises are increased for women and youth; 3) new technologies and approaches for increased climate resilience measures by communities are introduced and adopted; 4) knowledge management and capacity building on marine and coastal resources management (including forests) is improved; and 5) natural resource policy development, institutions, evidence-based research and monitoring and implementation are enhanced.

The project will build on the foundation and opportunities established by current and previous programs and projects, increasing focus on the well-being of rural populations, biodiversity conservation and climate action while retaining blue economy strategy implementation as its core goal. The program rationale rests on the linkage between environment and economic growth and poverty alleviation and the challenge of sustainable management of Tanzania’s biodiversity assets.

The project will align management and conservation of marine and coastal resources and demonstrate that addressing conservation and development objectives simultaneously leads to better decisions and more sustainably managed ecosystems under the Blue Economy

2.1. During the course of this procurement, i.e. from the publication of this RfP to the award of a contract, you may not discuss this procurement with any IUCN employee or representative other than the following contact. You must address all correspondence and questions to the contact, including your Proposal.

IUCN Contact: Procurement, tenders.tz@iucn.org

3\. PROCUREMENT TIMETABLE

3.1. This timetable is indicative and may be changed by IUCN at any time. If IUCN decides that changes to any of the deadlines are necessary, we will publish this on our website and contact you directly if you have indicated your interest in this procurement (see Section 3.2).

4.1. Your Proposal must consist of the following four separate documents:

 Signed Declaration of Undertaking (see Attachment 2)

 Pre-Qualification Information (see Section 4.3 below)

 Technical Proposal (see Section 4.4 below)

 Financial Proposal (see Section 4.5 below)

Proposals must be prepared in English.

4.2. Your Proposal must be submitted by email to the IUCN Contact (see Section 2). The subject heading of the email shall be \[RfP Reference – bidder name\]. The bidder’s name is the name of the company/organisation on whose behalf you are submitting the Proposal, or your own surname if you are bidding as a self-employed consultant. Your Proposal must be submitted in PDF format. You may submit multiple emails suitably annotated, e.g. Email 1 of 3, if attached files are too large to suit a single email transmission. You may not submit your Proposal by uploading it to a file-sharing tool.

IUCN will firstly check your Proposal for completeness. Incomplete Proposals will not be considered further.

Only Proposals that meet all of the pre-qualification criteria will be evaluated.

6.1. IUCN is using the Open Procedure for this procurement. This means that the contracting opportunity is published on IUCN’s website and open to all interested parties to take part, subject to the conditions in Section 7 below.

6.2. You are welcome to ask questions or seek clarification regarding this procurement. Please email the IUCN Contact (see Section 2), taking note of the deadline for submission of questions in Section 3.1.

6.3. All Proposals must be received by the submission deadline in Section 3.1 above. Late Proposals will not be considered. All Proposals received by the submission deadline will be evaluated by a team of three or more evaluators in accordance with the evaluation criteria stated in this RfP. No other criteria will be used to evaluate Proposals. The contract will be awarded to the bidder whose Proposal received the highest Total Score. IUCN does, however, reserve the right to cancel the procurement and not award a contract at all.

6.4. IUCN will contact the bidder with the highest-scoring Proposal to finalise the contract. We will contact unsuccessful bidders after the contract has been awarded and provide detailed feedback. The timetable in Section 3.1 gives an estimate of when we expect to have completed the contract award, but this date may change depending on how long the evaluation of Proposals takes.

8.1. IUCN follows the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The information you submit to IUCN as part of this procurement will be treated as confidential and shared only as required to evaluate your Proposal in line with the procedure explained in this RfP, and for the maintenance of a clear audit trail. For audit purposes, IUCN is required to retain your Proposal in its entirety for 10 years after then end of the resulting contract and make this available to internal and external auditors and donors as and when requested.

8.2. In the Declaration of Undertaking (Attachment 2) you need to give IUCN express permission to use the information you submit in this way, including personal data that forms part of your Proposal. Where you include personal data of your employees (e.g. CVs) in your Proposal, you need to have written permission from those individuals to share this information with IUCN, and for IUCN to use this information as indicated in 8.1. Without these permissions, IUCN will not be able to consider your Proposal.

If you have a complaint or concern regarding the propriety of how a competitive process is or has been executed, then please contact procurement@iucn.org. Such complaints or concerns will be treated as confidential and are not considered in breach of the above restrictions on communication (Section 2.1).

The contract will be based on IUCN’s template in Attachment 3, the terms of which are not negotiable. They may, however, be amended by IUCN to reflect particular requirements from the donor funding this particular procurement.

Attachment 1 Specification of Requirements / Terms of Reference

Attachment 2 Declaration of Undertaking (select 2a for companies or 2b for self-employed as applicable to you)

Attachment 3 Contract Template

1.1. A detailed description of the services and/or goods to be provided can be found in Attachment 1.

The consultant must have the following skills, education and experience as a minimum:

5 Understanding of the local context: Knowledge of the Tanzania’s coastal and marine sectors and community economy incubation support and management or sustainable business development, (20 pts)

7.1. To participate in this procurement, you are required to submit a Proposal, which fully complies with the instructions in this RfP and the Attachments.

7.1.1. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have submitted a complete and fully compliant Proposal.

7.1.2. Any incomplete or incorrectly completed Proposal submission may be deemed non-compliant, and as a result you may be unable to proceed further in the procurement process.

7.1.3. IUCN will query any obvious clerical errors in your Proposal and may, at IUCN’s sole discretion, allow you to correct these, but only if doing so could not be perceived as giving you an unfair advantage.

7.2. In order to participate in this procurement, you must meet the following conditions:

7.3. You must complete and sign the Declaration of Undertaking (see Attachment 2).

7.4. If you are participating in this procurement as a member of a joint venture, or are using sub-contractors, submit a separate Declaration of Undertaking for each member of the joint venture and sub-contractor, and be clear in your Proposal which parts of the goods/services are provided by each partner or sub-contractor.

7.5. Each bidder shall submit only one Proposal, either individually or as a partner in a joint venture. In case of joint venture, one company shall not be allowed to participate in two different joint ventures in the same procurement nor shall a company be allowed to submit a Proposal both on its behalf and as part of a joint venture for the same procurement. A bidder who submits or participates in more than one Proposal (other than as a subcontractor or in cases of alternatives that have been permitted or requested) shall cause all the Proposals with the bidder’s participation to be disqualified.

7.6. By taking part in this procurement, you accept the conditions set out in this RfP, including the following:

The Timetable below summarises the chronological order of deliverables and indicates milestones at which IUCN will pay the Consultant.