1. Background: The Lao government (through the Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Foretsry) received a financing from Agence Française de Développement ("AFD") to finance the activities under the Green CUP project, and intends to use part of the funds thereof to finance the Implementing Partner for tea (IP tea).

2. Scope of sercice: The Services of the Technical Assistance to the Project Implementing Unit (TA to PMU) consist of:
a) Supporting the PMU on the supervision of project operation and management;
b) Coordinating the annual activity program designed by IPs and technical partners;
c) Implementing the M&E: design the M&E system with stakeholders, capacity building for stakeholders to conduct monitoring of activities and consolidate the data collected;
d) Providing technical assistance (short-term expertise) to ensure the mainstreaming of all cross-cutting topics (nutrition, gender and E&S) in all activities and build the capacity of implementing partners and subproject operators on the cross-cutting topics when needed;
e) Reviewing and consolidating the overall reporting of the project based on the inputs from the different partners.
See more detail in Annex 1.

3. Egibility criteria: This Request for Expressions of Interest is open to: Consulting firms

Consulting firm involved as IP coffee or candidated for the IP tea would not be eligible to the bid.

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.
Evaluation criteria: Interested Applicants must provide information evidencing that they are qualified and experienced to perform those Services. For that purpose, documented evidence of recent and similar services shall be submitted.

Determination of the similarity of the experiences will be based on:
 The contracts size (Indicative inputs): The inputs required to complete the assignment is between 120 to 130 person-months for the estimated budget of 900,000 euros.
 The nature of the Services: Technical Assistance to the Project Implementing Unit (TA to PMU);
 The technical area and expertise: the Applicant shall has at least one experience of each following experiences:
• experience(s) on the implementation of technical assistance for donor-funded projects in the field of agriculture and rural development;
• experiences in setting-up team composition to provide services in technical assisante projects in efficient and effective manner;
• Experience(s) in the tea/coffee sector development.
 The location: The Applicant has at least one experience providing services in Lao PDR.
 Skills and availability of in-house technical back-up experts provided to the on-site experts;
 Local representatives/partners;
An application that does not meet one of these requirements will be rejected.

4. Submission: 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:
 a copy of the JV Agreement entered into by all members, or
 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 other members will be considered as Subconsultants.

Experiences and qualifications of Subconsultants are not taken into account in the evaluation of the applications.

Among the submitted applications, the evaluation commitee will shortlist a maximum of six (6) Applicants, to whom the Request for Proposals to carry out the Services shall be sent. Only the shortlisted appilants will be contacted.

The Expressions of Interest must be submitted to the address below no later than 31 July 2024 (before 17:00 Vientiane Time).

Attention to: Mr. Bounsu Soudmaly
Department of Agriculture
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR.
Phone: +856 20 22246171
Email: sbounsu@yahoo.com (cc to kphasouk@prcclaocoffee.com)

NB: your e-mail response should not exceed 6 MB. If this should be the case, please breaking your answer into multiple emails.

Interested Applicants may obtain further information within five working-days after the publication of the REOI at the address below during office hours: Mr. Bounsu Soudmaly, +856 20 22246171, sbounsu@yahoo.com (cc to kphasouk@prcclaocoffee.com).