RFP Technical Assistance for the Design of ICT and Software Solutions

USAID|PRIVATE
SECTOR DRIVEN

AGRICULTURAL
GROWTH PROJECT (PSDAG)

REQUEST
FOR PROPOSAL # IRG-RFP-17-06
USAID Contract No. AID-696-C-14-00002

For
the provision of Technical Assistance for the Design of ICT and Software
Solutions
Contracting Entity: International Resources Group
KG 684 St, No 19

Kacyiru/Kigali

Contents

List
of Acronyms

Instructions
to
Offerors……………………………………………………………………………………….4

1.1.
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………….4

1.2.
Offer Deadline
…………………………………………………………………………………………………4

1.3.
Submission of
Offers………………………………………………………………………………………….5

1.4.
Requirements……………………………………………………………………………………………………….5

1.4.1. General Requirements
…………………………………………………………………………………….5

1.4.2. Required Documents ………………………………………………………………………………………5

1.4.3. Deadlines and Validity of
Proposal……………………………………………………………………….6

1.4.4. Evaluation and Basis for
Award…………………………………………………………………………..6

Scope
of
Work…………………………………………………………………………………………………….8

2.1.
Background……………………………………………………………………………………………………………8

2.1.1. Partnership with
MINAGRI………………………………………………………………………………….8

2.1.2. Partnership with the Rwandan Chamber of Agriculture and Livestock
(RCAL)…………………..9

2.1.3. Partnerships with the private sector in freight
brokerage……………………………………………..10

2.2.
Scope of Work and Services
Required………………………………………………………………………10

2.2.1.
Objectives………………………………………………………………………………………………………10

2.2.2.
Activities…………………………………………………………………………………………………………11

2.2.3. Specific Scopes of
Work…………………………………………………………………………………….11

2.2.4. Deliverables and Expected
Timeline……………………………………………………………………….12

Annex
1: Cover
Letter……………………………………………………………………………………………………….15

Annex
2: Proprietary Information
Certification………………………………………………………………………….16

Annex
3: Budget Template………………………………………………………………………………………………….17

List
of Acronyms

A2F
Access to Finance

BDS
Business Development Services

CFR
Code of Federal Regulations

CO
USAID Contracting Officer

COP
Chief of Party

COR
USAID Contracting Officer’s Representative

CV
Curriculum Vitae

DCOP
Deputy Chief of Party

DDMS
Digital Data Management System

FAR
Federal Acquisition Regulations

GoR
Government of Rwanda

IRG
International Resources Group

M&E
Monitoring and Evaluation

NICRA
Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreement

NGO
Nongovernmental organization

PSDAG
Private Sector Driven Agriculture Growth

QMS
Quality Management Systems

RTI
Research Triangle Institute

PHH
Post-Harvest Handling

RFP
Request for Proposals

RPT
Regional Potatoes Trading

SAF
Strategic Activities Fund

SME
Small and Medium Enterprise

STTA
Short-Term Technical Assistance

U.S.
United States

USAID
U.S. Agency for International Development

USG
U.S. Government

VAT
Value Added Tax

VCCF
Value Chain Competitiveness Fund

WFP
World Food Program

1.
Instructions to Offerors

1.1. Introduction

International
Resources Group (IRG), a wholly owned subsidiary of RTI International,
implements the USAID-Rwanda Private Sector Driven Agricultural Growth Project
(PSDAG), a 5-year project that increases private sector investment in
agriculture. IRG, the Buyer, is soliciting proposals from companies and
organizations to support IRG in implementing its Cooperative
Professionalization Activity under the USAID-funded Project.

The
objective of the assignment is to identify one or more service providers who
can support PSDAG partners with the design of ICT and Software solutions:

The
Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI): research of
available technologies and design of dynamic tools for a) a farmer
registration system and b) a land (farm) profiling system for commercial
investment, to integrate into existing MINAGRI information systems;
The
Private Sector Federation / Rwanda Chamber of Agriculture and Livestock
(PSF/RCAL) : research of technologies and design of dynamic tools for
a system of member registration and member-to-member information exchange.
Private
transportation broker and Logistics Company: research of available
technologies and design for end-to-end IT/software plan to support
transportation service delivery.

PSDAG
is seeking proposals from service providers who have experience in the
following: assessing the cost and suitability of ICT, software and data
management tools available on the market; identifying operations and efficiency
gaps that can be improved by software; and making recommendations on options to
buy and/or build solutions based on the needs of the partners. The scope
does not include the cost of the acquisition, final design or building of the
solutions. As a result of this support, PSDAG and beneficiary partners
should be able to make procurement and investment decisions and solicit bids
for the work and technologies required. Successful bidders to this RFP may
therefore be precluded from participating in those subsequent bids.

The
assignment is expected to be completed approximately 2 months from August
2017.

This
RFP does not obligate IRG to execute a subcontract nor does it commit IRG to
pay any costs incurred in the preparation and submission of the proposals.
Furthermore, IRG reserves the right to reject any and all offers, if such
action is considered to be in the best interest of IRG.

1.2. Offer Deadline

The
deadline for receiving proposals is 5 pm on Friday July 28 (EST). Proposals
shall be submitted electronically by email only to
procurement@psdag.org.

Offerors
are responsible for ensuring that their offers are received in accordance with
the instructions stated herein. IRG cannot guarantee that late offers will be
considered.

A
bidder’s conference will be held at the PSDAG office in Kigali Rwanda on
Monday July 17, 2017 from 10 am to 12 pm Rwanda time.

An
Online Bidders’ Conference will be held on Monday July 17, 2017 from
3 pm to 5 pm Rwanda time. Requests to join the online meeting must be
received through the procurement@psdag.org by July 13, 5 pm
EST. Please include your email information in the request.

Written
questions may be submitted to procurement@psdag.org through Friday, July
21, 2017, 2017 5pm EST.

1.3.
Submission of Offers

The
Offeror must submit the proposal electronically with up to 3 attachments (5 MB
limit) per email compatible with MS Word, MS Excel, readable format, or Adobe
Portable Document (PDF) format in a Microsoft XP environment. Offerors must not
submit zipped files. Those pages requiring original manual signatures should be
scanned and sent in PDF format as an email attachment.

1.4.
Requirements

To
be determined responsive, an offer must include all of documents and sections
included in 1.4.1 and 1.4.2.

1.4.1.
General Requirements

IRG
anticipates issuing a subcontract to a company that has the ability to
fulfill minimum requirements and submit a complete proposal. While IRG will
provide the Subcontractor with a letter of invitation, it will be the
responsibility of the Subcontractor to obtain all related travel documentation
such as visas, vaccinations, etc.

To
be considered eligible for consideration in response to this solicitation, the
following criteria are considered essential.

Firms
operated as commercial companies or other organizations or enterprises
(including nonprofit organizations) in which foreign governments or their
agents or agencies have a controlling interest are not eligible as
suppliers of services.
Must
be a registered company or NGO.
Having
demonstrated experience with similar assignment;
Must
be able to speak and write English.
Firms
owned by women, youth or people with disability are encouraged to apply.

Additional
qualifications highly preferred:

Demonstrated
experience in with agriculture, farmer and land registration;
Demonstrated
experience with GIS systems and mapping;
Knowledge
of and familiarity with the most current innovative ICT and software
solutions;
Capacity
to price and analyze costs and benefits of technology options both upfront
investment costs and longer term maintenance costs.
Experience
with transportation services and end-to-end service platforms; and
Experience
in Rwanda and/or East Africa trade and business.

1.4.2.
Required Documents

1.
Cover Letter (see Annex 1 for template), which shall include the
following information:

Name
of the company or organization
Type
of company or organization registration
Physical
Address
Telephone
Number
E-mail
Address

Technical
Proposal (see
section 1.4.4): Offerors will respond to the requirements of the technical
proposal using guidelines provided in section 1.4.4. Page limit for the
technical proposal is 12 pages total, not including CVs of proposed personnel.
Offerors should use reasonable font sizes and margins for the technical
proposal, and limit use of non-essential graphics and tables.
Proprietary
Information Certification (see Annex 2): Offerors shall
certify that they have read and accepted the clauses contained therein
that state that the information provided by IRG in this RFP is proprietary
information and cannot be shared with any other entities.
Cost
Proposals (see
section 1.4.4): Offerors should submit a budget in Excel format according
to the template provided in Annex 3.

1.4.3.
Deadlines and Validity of Proposal

The
following calendar summarizes important dates in the solicitation process.
Offerors must strictly follow these deadlines.

RFP
published:
July 7, 2017

Deadline
to RSVP for Online Bidder’s
Conference: July 13, 2017, 5
pm EST

Bidders
Conference:
July 17, 2017 10am Kigali time

Online
Bidder’s Conference:
July 17, 2017 3 pm Kigali time

Deadline
for written
questions:
July 21, 2017 5pm, EST

Proposals
Due:
July 28, 2017 5pm, EST

The
dates above may be modified at the sole discretion of IRG. Any changes will be
published in an amendment to this RFP.

Offerors’
proposals must remain valid for 120 calendar days after the proposal deadline.
1.4.4. Evaluation and Basis for Award

This
solicitation will be judged by an evaluation panel who will use a cost/
technical best-value tradeoff analysis, i.e. the offer that results in the most
appropriate solution for IRG in consideration of technical, cost, and other
factors. The technical proposal is significantly more important than the cost
proposal. IRG will evaluate Offeror’s proposals in accordance with the
following scoring criteria:

Technical
Proposal:

Technical
Proposal25 points
Corporate
Capabilities & Past Performance25 points
Proposed
Personnel50 points

TOTAL:
100 points

Bidders
will receive an initial written review by PSDAG selection committee.
Short-listed bidders will have an opportunity to present their technical
approach, capabilities and experience at an oral interview. Scores from the
oral interview will contribute to the final evaluation of the technical
proposal.

Technical
Proposal (12 pages)

Approach
(6 pages): Offerors
must include an overall approach in implementing the scope of work
outlined in Section 2 that demonstrates their methodology, technical
ability, and experience in implementing detailed work plan. Offerors must
provide evidence of their ability to implement the scope of work with
particular respect to achieving specific tasks and meeting proposed
deadlines, included details of training materials they have previously
developed that could be adapted for this assignment. Do not simply
restate what is in the statement of work of this RFP. This means clearly
outlining how the tasks will be undertaken, with what resources, taking
into consideration anticipated challenges, and may involve making
recommendations for implementation strategies that are not outlined in
this RFP, but are based on the bidder’s best experience in working on
similar projects. Offerors are requested to submit a detailed work
plan demonstrating how they will conduct the training and timeline.
Corporate
Capabilities and Past Performance (4 pages): This
must include a description/profile of the company and organization, with
appropriate reference to any parent company and subsidiaries.
Additionally, offerors must include 3 past performance references and
descriptions of similar work (under contracts or subcontracts) previously
implemented as well as contact information for the companies for which
such work was completed. Contact information must include at a minimum:
name of point of contact who can speak to the offeror’s performance, name
and address of the company for which the work was performance and email and
phone number of the point of contact.

IRG
reserves the right to check additional references not provided by an offeror.

Proposed
Personnel (2 pages): This section must include a short
description of proposed candidates and qualifications. Full Curriculum
Vitaes (CVs) of proposed consultants should be included but do not count
towards the page limit. Personnel will be judged on relevant demonstrated
experience, academic qualifications, and language skills. Candidates who
do not meet the minimum requirements set forth by this RFP will not be
given a score.

Cost
Proposal:

The
cost proposal is not scored, but will serve as part of the best value analysis.
Cost proposals will be evaluated for reasonableness, realism, completeness, and
competitiveness. The overall price will be used as part of the tradeoff
analysis to determine final selection. Offerors must submit daily rates for
team members and estimated days for completion of work (though number of days
may change.)

Please
submit a budget in Excel according to the template provided in Annex 3. The
budget must be accompanied by a narrative that explains the basis for the
estimate of each line item. Supporting information should be provided in
sufficient detail to allow for a complete analysis of each cost element or line
item. IRG reserves the right to request additional cost information if the
evaluation committee has concerns of the reasonableness, realism, or
completeness of an offeror’s proposed cost.

The
budget must be accompanied by a narrative of no more than 2 pages that explains
the basis for the estimate of each line item. Supporting
information should be provided in sufficient detail to allow for a complete
analysis of each cost element or line item. IRG reserves the right to request
additional cost information if the evaluation committee has concerns of the
reasonableness, realism, or completeness of an offeror’s proposed cost.

The
maximum that can be charged for indirect rates (overhead, fringe, G&A,
administrative, or other rate) is 10% of total direct costs. If an offeror’s
proposed daily labor rates exceed published USAID maximum rates, offerors must
explain the rates and the rates’ base of application in the budget narrative.
IRG reserves the right to request additional information to substantiate an
offeror’s indirect and daily labor rates.

Please
note that only international companies legally registered and operating outside
Rwanda will be paid in USD. Companies legally registered and operating in
Rwanda must be paid in RWF. The budget template provided in Excel has both
options.

Please
organize the cost proposal by the three scopes of work described in this RFP.

2.
Scope of Work
2.1. Background

The
Private Sector Driven Agricultural Growth (PSDAG) project is a five-year Feed
the Future project funded by USAID Rwanda implemented by IRG. The goal of the
project is to increase smallholder incomes by promoting private sector
investment. PSDAG has two objectives namely: a) to assist the Government of
Rwanda (GoR) to increase private sector investment, and b) to facilitate
increased private sector investment by upgrading Agricultural Value Chains.

2.1.1.
Partnership with MINAGRI

Rwanda
is a small, landlocked country with a population of 11 million, projected to be
13 million by 2020. Agriculture is a key element of the economy of Rwanda,
accounting for 33.3% of GDP in 2013. Land is a finite constraint, and the
mountainous topography of the country means that there are only 1.5 million ha
of available arable land. Agricultural land plots are very small (80% are less
than 1 ha), and over 70% of agricultural land is either on hills or on the side
of hills. While the overall aim of Vision 2020 is to diversify economic
activities, agriculture is still recognized as the backbone of Rwanda’s
economy. Therefore, it follows that PSTA-3 goals are to transform Rwandan
agriculture from a subsistence sector to a market-orientated, value-creating
sector; and to grow as rapidly as possible in terms of both production and
commercialization to increase rural income and reduce poverty.

The
Rwanda Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) considers private
investment in agriculture as one of the methods to achieve increased
agricultural productivity, food security, and increased agricultural export
production. MINAGRI is the custodian of all public marshlands set aside for
agriculture. The ministry is also mandated to manage and monitor optimal use of
all private land demarcated for agriculture. Over the past few years,
agribusiness investors have found the process for finding both public and
private land available for investment lengthy and therefore costly. At the same
time MINAGRI has found it challenging to efficiently plan and monitor the
progress of nation-wide public agricultural investments such as the Crop
Intensification. Much geospatial information exists regarding publicly funded
projects, but data resides in scattered sources and is not necessarily
consolidated in a manner that makes planning efficient.

PSDAG
partners with MINAGRI to facilitate private investment in agriculture by
working on policy and enabling environment, private sector access to
information, and increased public private dialogue. MINAGRI supports private
farmers to access improved inputs through an input subsidy program. To facilitate
the efficiency and accuracy of this program, MINAGRI has identified the lack of
effective means for tracking distribution and use of subsidized inputs to
small-holder farmers as a key constraint. There are substantial gaps in the
verification process that increased the risk for fraud. This prompted the GoR
to come up with an alternative distribution strategy to track input quantities
from import to agro-dealer, but also highlighted the need to have a more formal
system for tracking and verifying that inputs reach small holder farmers and
are being used. MINAGRI is committed to developing a digital farmer
registration system that can be used to improve the administration and
monitoring of this program and will provide information to MINAGRI on land
under production that can improve Government of Rwanda (GOR) decision making
and investment strategies in agriculture. PSDAG is providing technical
assistance to MINAGRI on the design of the system, including the most
appropriate technologies and systems to use to collect farmer registration
information, profile land use and link this system to other GOR databases.

In
addition to the input distribution system, PSDAG is working with MINAGRI to
address challenges related to land and private sector investment. The inability
to easily identify available land for private sector investment poses a
challenge to both investors and GoR officials. In 2016, the first phase of the
Agriculture Land Information System (ALIS)1 was developed to
begin to address this constraint. While this system provides valuable
information on MINAGRI-owned parcels, there remains several areas where
information and processes can be improved: information on current agriculture
land use, both public and private, is outdated and static; there is a lack of a
cost-effective means to gather this information; and there is an absence of a
mechanism to communicate private land for sale or lease, or consolidated land
available for commercial partnerships.

PSDAG
is supporting MINAGRI on a second phase of ALIS that will incorporate private
land parcels demarcated for agriculture use that will assist the Ministry with
planning. It is important that they system communicates and is compatible with
the farmer registration system used to implement subsidy programs.

2.1.2.
Partnership with the Rwandan Chamber of Agriculture and Livestock (RCAL)

Rwanda’s
Private Sector Federation (PSF) is an umbrella body bringing together private
sector organizations to champion their business interests by advocating for an
improved enabling environment for businesses to thrive. The Rwandan Chamber of
Agriculture and Livestock (RCAL) is one of the chambers of PSF that is tasked
with improving public-private dialogue in agriculture. In 2017, PSDAG signed an
MOU with PSF to support its organization management and technical capacity to
provide support to its member associations. RCAL has identified that improving
member management and communication is key to improve the services it offers.
To this end, PSDAG has agreed to help RCAL identify the types of software and
systems that exist

www.minagri.gov.rw/investorapp; Through this
application, investors can query the database to find parcels that meet minimum
size, location, elevation, and/or land category parameters. A list of matching
parcels is returned and a geospatial map from which layers of information
regarding the parcel such as general soil type, land suitability, current land
use, proximity to roads, water sources, warehouses and other infrastructure,
and general agro-climatic conditions can then be displayed that could help it
consolidate a database of member farmers and agribusinesses, which includes 17
member associations in Rwanda. In addition to member registry, RCAL would like
the system to be able to facilitate improved communications and information
sharing between RCAL and its member associations for advocacy purposes.

2.1.3.
Partnerships with the private sector in freight brokerage

PSDAG’s
Private Sector Engagement Strategy is based on a facilitative, market systems
approach to inclusive agriculture development that catalyzes investment in
productivity-enhancing technologies, builds the capacity of partners to grow
their businesses and contributes to improved livelihoods and economic
opportunities for Rwanda’s farmers. Through its planned activities, the project
is expected to facilitate increased private sector investment in upgrading
agricultural value chains namely maize, beans, Irish potato and horticulture
while creating market opportunities to increase smallholder incomes. In order
to facilitate increased private sector investment, PSDAG partners to increase
investment in agriculture that benefits smallholder farmers.

PSDAG
has partnered with a startup company in transportation, which delivers
commercial transportation services to the agriculture sector. Current
transportation providers in Rwanda are disorganized, fragmented and have
vehicles that are consistently under-utilized, driving up costs to farmers and
wholesale buyers and resulting in poor quality of services. PSDAG’s partner
operates as a freight brokerage focused on making first- and last-mile domestic
freight reliable, affordable, and professional. It launched its first pilot in
September 2016 to distribute seeds and fertilizers directly to smallholder
farmers; subsequently, it developed basic uber-like technology using Microsoft
Excel and a 9-member team to make over 900 pickups and deliveries. Clients
range from individual farmers to coops to EAX, large buyers and input supply
companies. Revenues exceed $150,000 to-date. It intends to expand its services
rapidly to reach all agricultural sectors, as well as support aggregation and
export activities. In order to reach scale, it will need to invest in more
sophisticated and efficient technology and software to manage more jobs per day
and PSDAG is supporting the partner to identify and analyze the kind of
technologies and software that are available on the market, what might need to
be customized to meet its needs specific to Rwanda’s road network and mobile
data network capabilities. In addition, PSDAG is supporting its partner with
business development services in order for it to raise capital for expansion.
Upon raising financing, the company will be able to invest in the technologies
and software solutions recommended by this assignment.

2.2.
Scope of Work and Services Required

There
are three sub sections to the scope of work, reflecting the needs of the three
identified partners. The

following
key services are required as per this solicitation:

2.2.1.
Objectives

The
specific objectives under the Technical Assistance for the Design of ICT and
Software Solutions is

to
provide PSDAG partners with:

Comparative
analysis of available off-the-shelf software, systems and ICT solutions
that could meet all or part of the partners’ needs.
Recommendation
on what would need to be built or designed specifically for the partner’s
needs;
Cost
and tradeoff analysis for the proposed solutions;

Technical
input for the partner to draft a Request for Quotes or Request for
Proposal to solicit bids for the identified technologies and services.

2.2.2.
Activities

The
successful service provider will be required to:

Review
additional documents relevant to each partner’s operations and needs
specific to this RFP;
Meet
with PSDAG and partners to discuss and refine scope of work and
requirements;
Present
an initial report to each partner separately that identifies initial
proposed solutions, estimated costs and trade-offs; discuss the initial
finding and recommendations and identify further research or analysis
required to make final technical recommendations.
Develop
final detailed technical design for each partner for review by PSDAG and
its partners. A final design should consider the following, at a minimum:

System
development – include personnel and roles and responsibilities, system
engineering life cycle activities, technology, support services and
training.
System
maintenance – include personnel and roles and responsibilities, system
engineering life cycle activities, technology, support services and
training.
Interoperability
– the ability of two or more systems (or components of a system) to
communicate and send/receive data via a common set of industrial standards
supported by the interoperating systems without changes.
Integration
– the effort of putting together two or more systems (or components of a
system) to work together as a unit to provide a specified function or
service.
Site/logistics
information.
Capability
– the ability of the procured items to perform or provide the specified
business operation functions to enable attainment of the specified
business goals. It also considers underlying infrastructure dependencies.
Cost
effectiveness, including a bill of quantities
IT
Security.

2.2.3.
Specific Scopes of Work

The
tasks required under the Technical Assistance for the Design of ICT and
Software Solutions RFP are divided into three scopes. PSDAG is seeking
proposals from service providers who can offer services for all or some of the
partners and bidders may apply for all or a subset of the Scope of Work and are
encouraged to apply in partnership with other qualified parties.

Scope
of Work A: Design for MINAGRI Farmer Registration and Land Profiling System

The
successful bidder will provide technical assistance to PSDAG and MINAGRI on how
to design its farmer registration and land profiling system using the most
appropriate technologies and systems that maximize efficiency, ease of use and
minimize cost of data collection. The bidder will need to meet with MINAGRI
planning and IT staff to evaluate its current system and understand its needs.
The successful bidder will identify and discuss how to leverage existing
systems that are already being piloted by private sector and donors for similar
farmer registration systems.

Scope
of Work B: RCAL Member Registry and Management Platform

The
successful bidder will provide technical assistance to RCAL to improve the way
in which it registers, manages and communicates with its member farmers and
agribusinesses. The bidder will need to meet with RCAL and PSF to evaluate its
current system and understand its needs. The objective is to identify a
low-cost solution that is easy to use and manage. The sustainability of the
system will depend on RCALs ability to pay for maintenance of it and
demonstrate its effectiveness to its member farmers and agribusinesses.

At
a minimum, the system should be able to register members, track if membership
dues were paid, communicate with member and facilitate communication between
members on key issues related to private sector investment in agriculture.
Ultimately the system will enable RCAL to improve the way in which it gathers
information from members, improve the services it offers its members in terms
of engagement with government and advocacy, and increase knowledge sharing
among private sector agribusinesses.

Scope
of Work C: Partnerships with the private sector in freight brokerage

PSDAG’s
private partner is looking to scale operations and in order to do so, they need
to improve the efficiency of how it receives and manages transportation jobs
and the paperwork around them. The company needs to be able to receive
requests, identify available vehicles, get quotes for vehicles and deliver
services to its clients. The software should enable the company to reduce the
cost over time by reducing overhead and administrative costs of managing these
jobs. The successful bidder will provide technical assistance to PSDAG’s
freight brokerage partner to:

Review
existing business rules, processes and technology developed internally to
manage service provision and clients.
Assess
suitability of current tools and identify operations and efficiency gaps
that can be improved by software;
Review
existing software solutions/options on the market to fill technology needs
providing examples of freight brokerage platforms used in similar
industries.
Propose
options comparing the costs and benefits of buying off the shelf products
versus building technology needed.
Deliver
end-to-end recommendations of IT/software plan to support company’s
strategy, which can be funded once the company raises capital for
expansion.

2.2.4.
Deliverables and Expected Timeline

The
entire exercise should be completed over 60 days between August and October
2017. All activities will be conducted with supervision, assistance, and
guidance of the Senior Policy and Institutional Development Specialist and the
PSDAG Chief of Party or her designee.

The
timelines included in schedule below are illustrative, meaning
they may change once the firm and consultants arrive and conduct their initial
analysis and interviews. Applicants may propose an alternative timeline
based on prior experience and justification.

The
service provider will be responsible for the following deliverables:

Table
1 Deliverables and Illustrative Timeline

Reporting Requirements (Activities and/or Outputs)	To be Completed by no later than these Due Dates2	Delivery Instructions (# of copies, paper/electronic transmittals, formats, names of reviewers, etc.)
Implementation plan with timeframe for meetings with partners and draft schedule of meetings in country; must include notes from initial desk research.	Within 15 days of signing.	MS Word file submitted electronically to PSDAG and the partner.
Trip report that contains a detailed description of the partner’s goals and objectives, types of technologies, software and systems to be researched and assessed and notes from meetings with partners and stakeholders.	Within 45 days of signing.	MS Word file submitted electronically to PSDAG and the partner.
Presentation to partner on initial findings and proposed solutions to be refined and further researched for the final report and analysis.	Within 2 months of signing	MS PowerPoint presentation, delivered to the partner and PSDAG.
Final report with 2-3 option for proposed solutions, the anticipated costs and benefits of each and the next steps on the work required to adopt the solution.	15 days from receiving feedback from PSDAG and Partner	MS Word file submitted electronically to PSDAG and the partner, including links to resources and any attached quotes and cost analyses in MS Excel

Annex
1: Cover Letter

[Offeror:
Insert date]

Melanie
Bittle
Chief of Party

Private
Sector Driven Agricultural Growth (PSDAG)

International
Resources Group

KG
684 St, No 19

Kacyiru/Kigali

Reference:
# IRG-RFP-17-06: Technical Assistance for the Design of ICT and Software
Solutions

Subject:
[Offeror: Insert name of your organization]’s Proposal
Dear Ms. Bittle:

[Offeror:
Insert name of your organization] is pleased to submit its proposal in regard
to the above- referenced request for proposals. We are applying for [insert
BDS, QMS or both]. For this purpose, we are pleased to provide the information
furnished below:

Name
of Organization’s Representative:

Name
of Offeror:

Type
of Organization:

Address:

Telephone:

Fax:

Email:

As
required by section I, I.7, we confirm that our proposal, including the pricing
information will remain valid for 120 calendar days after the proposal
deadline.

Sincerely
yours,

Signature

[Offeror:
Insert name of your organization’s representative]

[Offeror:
Insert name of your organization]

Annex
2: Proprietary
Information Certification

[Offeror:
Insert date]

Melanie
Bittle
Chief of Party

Private
Sector Driven Agricultural Growth (PSDAG)

International
Resources Group

KG
684 St, No 19

Kacyiru/Kigali

Reference:
# IRG-RFP-17-06: Technical Assistance for the Design of ICT and Software
Solutions

Subject:
[Offeror: Insert name of your organization]’s Proprietary Information
Certification Dear Melanie Bittle:

[Offeror:
Insert name of your organization] certifies that it understands any information
contained in Section II of this RFP (to include the scope of work, required
services, office locations and numbers, and budget template), are considered
proprietary information by International Resources Group and cannot be shared
with any other entities, reproduced in any form, or archived in any form after
the 180 days of validity for this RFP.

Sincerely
yours,

Signature

[Offeror:
Insert name of your organization’s representative]

[Offeror:
Insert name of your organization]

Annex
3: Budget Template

See
attached excel file.