The Commission of the Economic Community of West African States ("ECOWAS") has received funding from the European Union (the "EU") and the French Development Agency (the "AFD"), under the Agroecology Program in West Africa and intends to use part of the amount to make payments for the implementation of a "Massive Open Online Course" (MOOC) on Agroecology in West Africa..
The Applicant's Services will aim to adapt and facilitate a "Massive Open Online Course" (MOOC) on Agroecology in West Africa. Part of the service will be carried out in partnership with the Institut Agro of Montpellier (France).
The ECOWAS hereby invites Applicants to show their interest in delivering the Services described above.
This Request for Expressions of Interest is open to: Universities, Higher education schools.
Eligibility criteria to AFD financing are specified in sub-clause 1.3 of the "Procurement Guidelines for AFD Financed Contracts in Foreign Countries", available online on AFD’s website: http://www.afd.fr.
The Applicant shall submit only one application, either in its own name or as a member of a Joint Venture (JV). If an Applicant (including any JV member) submits or participates in more than one application, those applications shall be all rejected. However, the same Subconsultant may participate in several applications.
If the Applicant is a JV, the expression of interest shall include:
o A copy of the JV Agreement entered into by all members,
or
o A letter of intent to execute a JV Agreement, signed by all members together with a copy of the Agreement proposal.
In the absence of this document, the Application will not be considered.
Interested Candidates must provide information demonstrating that they are qualified and experienced to perform these Services. As such, they will justify that they have references of recent and similar services or have plans to develop online courses.
The Client will also examine the relevance of the Expressions of Interest regarding to the following criteria:
- The nature of the Services: previous experience in the management of distance learning, development or animation of skills transfer platforms;
- Domain and technical expertise: agriculture, agronomy, agroecology, sustainable development of territories, environment, reasoned agriculture, sustainable agriculture, zootechnics, social sciences, economy, crop protection, genetics, etc. ;
- History of collaboration: past or current partnerships with other universities or schools at regional or international level; and
- A geographical criterion: the Candidate must imperatively have its headquarters in one of the ECOWAS Member States.
For a JV, its leader and any member that has its registered office outside the Client's country shall fulfil each of these criteria.
An application that does not meet any of these requirements will be rejected.
Among the submitted applications, ECOWAS will shortlist a maximum of sixteen (16) Applicants maximum, preselected on the basis of the applications received, to whom requests for additional information shall be sent. These requests for additional information will be used as a score framework to shortlist a maximum of eight (8) Applicants for the end of the selection process.
The Expressions of Interest must be submitted to the address below no later than February 21st, 2022.

Email : procurement.pae.araa@gmail.com
Email subject : « MI ARAA/PAE/2022/AMI/01 »

Interested Applicants may obtain further information at the same address mentioned above.