MARD/UNDP: REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL CONDUCTING A BASELINE SURVEY FOR THE RURAL TELECENTRE PILOT PROJECT

PROJECT NUMBER: VIE/02/016 “Support to Public Administration
Reform in Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development”

NATIONAL EXECUTING AGENCY: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development

IMPLEMENTING AGENCY: Office of the Ministry

Project “Support to Public Administration Reform in Ministry
of Agriculture and Rural Development” - VIE/02/016 would
like to hold a competitive and open tender to select the
Training Consultant as per the attached Request for Proposal
and detailed Term of Reference.

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

CONDUCTING A BASELINE SURVEY

FOR THE RURAL TELECENTRE PILOT PROJECT

To: Whom It May Concern

Dear Sir/Madam,

1. You are requested to submit in the English and Vietnamese
a proposal for services in respect of the project identified
above. Your proposal could form the basis for a contract
between your company/organization and the National Executing
Agency (NEA)

2. Your proposal should address the Terms of References
(TOR) attached to this letter, which describe the
requirements to be met. These TOR will be used in the
preparation of any contract arising out of this request.
This letter is not to be construed in any way as an offer to
contract with your company/organization.

3. A two-stage procedure will be utilized in evaluating the
proposals: 1) evaluation of technical proposals, and 2)
evaluation of financial proposals.

Technical proposal

4. Your technical proposal should include, but not
necessarily be limited to, the following information:

a) A brief description of your firm/institution and an
outline of recent experience on projects of a similar nature
in Viet Nam. You should also provide any other information
that will facilitate our evaluation of your
company/organization’s reliability and capacity to meet our
requirements (not limit to following information: business
license, similar project implemented, etc)

b) Any comments or suggestions on the TOR or on the data,
support services and facilities to be provided by the NEA.

c) Your detailed description of the manner in which your
company/organization would respond to the TOR (from
documents, materials, equipments for training courses, and
trainers). Training materials should be included in the
technical proposal to support your bid. Kindly include the
number of person-months in each specialization that you
consider necessary to carry out all work required.

d) The curriculum vitae of the professional members of the
team.

5. Technical proposals will be evaluated using the following
criteria:

a) The company/organization’s general reliability as well as
experience and capacity in the specific field of the
assignment (200 points)

b) The approach in responding to the TOR (from documents,
materials, equipments for training courses, and trainers),
the detailed work plan (300 points);

c) The qualifications and competence of the personnel
proposed for the assignment for a total of (500 points).

6. Only technical proposals which obtain from 70% of the
total technical points, are technically qualified for
financial evaluation

7. If you consider that your company/organization does not
have all the expertise for the assignment, there is no
objection to your company/organization associating with
another company/organization to enable a full range of
expertise to be proposed. However, your company/organization
may participate in only one such joint proposal.

Financial Proposal

8. Your financial proposal must contain an overall quotation
in Vietnamese dong for all services to be provided and must
itemize the following:

a) An all-inclusive day rate for each team member
(professional and administrative);

b) Other costs, if any (indicating nature and breakdown);

c) Summary of total cost for the services proposed.

Also propose a schedule of payments.

9. Please note that the cost of preparing a proposal and of
negotiating a contract, including any related travel, is not
reimbursable as a direct cost of the assignment.

Submission of Technical and Financial Proposals

10. Your proposal is to be divided into a technical and a
financial proposal, both submitted in two copies
simultaneously and in separate and sealed envelopes with the
contents of each marked. It should be delivered to project
office address in item 14 no later than 16:30, 25 April
2006. All proposals submitted after that date or proposals
not in conformity with the requirements specified above will
not be considered.

11. You are requested to hold your proposal valid for 30
working days from the deadline for submission. The NEA will
make its best effort to select a company/organization within
this period.

12. Please note that the NEA in not bound to select any of
the companies/organizations submitting proposals. A contract
will be awarded in respect of the proposal which is
considered most responsive to the needs of the project
concerned with due consideration being given to economy and
efficiency i.e. the proposal with the lowest cost per
technical point (financial offer/total technical points
obtained). NEA does not bind itself in any way to select the
company/organization offering the lowest price.

13. Assuming that a contract can be satisfactorily
concluded, the assignment is expected to commence on or
about 10 May 2006. .

14. Project Office:

The Office of Project "Support to the Public Administration
Reform Programming in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development (MARD)"
Room 202, B4 Building, MARD
02 Ngoc Ha Str, Ba Dinh Dist, Hanoi
Tel: 0804 3097/8 — Fax: 02 733 9117
Email: vie02016.vn@undp.org

15. Any questions during the bidding time should be sent to
project office address in item 14 in written paper.

Yours sincerely,

Nguyen Quang Minh
Director of OMARD
National Project Director

Project Support Public Administration Reform

In Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development -VIE/02/016

TERMS OF REFERENCE

RURAL TELECENTRE BASELINE SURVEY

A. PROJECT BACKGROUD

The UNDP Project VIE/02/016 in the Ministry of Agriculture
and Rural Development (MARD) Phase 2 aims at supporting the
ministry to strengthen its organizational, institutional
capabilities for HR development, information exchange and
experience sharing in project management and public
administration reforms. One major project component is to
support IT application in MARD and DARDs. This component
encompasses five key outputs with more than 20 activities.
The five key outputs are:

ÿ Output 3.1: An Informatics Division for public
administration management within OMARD is strengthened and
operated with the support of the project

ÿ Output 3.2: IT Resources for extended pilot to all MARD
Departments and DARDs implementation are developed.

ÿ Output 3.3: IT related administrative processes and work
procedures are redesigned and piloted following MARD PAR
Action Plan 2005

ÿ Output 3.4: The State Administration Management
information communication with local levels via Intranet,
Internet and Email is standardized

ÿ Output 3.5: Development of rural telecentres pilot for
farming households is supported.

The propose development goal for the Output 3.5 (Rural
Telecentre Pilot) is to improve the lives of the rural
community through providing them with better access to
information. Over the next 24 months, the RTP component is
to pilot 13 Telecentres in farming communes to identify
appropriate and financially sustainable Telecentre model/s
that can best provide information to enhance income
generation capacity of farmers. The immediate objective of
the output is to deliver and exchange useful and useable
information services to farmers based on their needs,
priorities, aspirations and identified opportunities for
improved agricultural production, leading to increased
incomes, and within a tested and replicable mechanism that
makes effective and sustainable use of ICT.

An ICT Study Tour has been conducted in October 2005 and the
visit to telecentres in India where the study group report
recommended sustainable models (refer to the ICT Study Tour
Report).

The activities of RTP according to the telecentre logframe
over the next 36 months are to achieve five outputs with 19
activities:

Output 1: 13 pilot telecentres established

Activity 1.1: Conducting the Baseline Survey

Activity 1.2: Recruiting operators for the 13 pilot
telecentres

Activity 1.3: Leasing premise for the telecentres

Activity 1.4: Procuring equipment for the 13 pilot
telecentres

Output 2: Capacity of telecentres’ operators improved

Activity 2.1: Preparing a manual of running a telecentre,
including procedures for monitoring its operation

Activity 2.2: Conducting a training course on (i) the use
of computers; (ii) searching for information; (iii) running
telecentres

Activity 2.3: Organizing experience exchanging workshop

Output 3: Information supply channels developed

Activity 3.1: Establishing a central information help
desk

Activity 3.2: Establishing a library of books,
videos/VCDs in the central information coordination unit and
pilot telecentres

Activity 3.3: Developing a list of information
sources

Activity 3.4: Contacting and studying information sources

Activity 3.5: Establishing cooperation mechanisms with
information sources

Output 4: Information distribution channels developed

Activity 4.1: Strengthening common interest
groups/extension clubs

Activity 4.2: Developing forms of bulletins

Activity 4.3: Issuing bulletins regularly

Activity 4.4: Developing a form to receive
queries/requests from farmers

Activity 4.5: Processing queries/requests from farmers

Activity 4.6: Developing a mechanism to support the
development of demonstration models

Output 5: Impact Study of Telecentre Pilot

Activity 5.1: Contracting an external consultant to
conduct impact studies

B. NEEDS AND OBJECTIVE

The Baseline Survey (Activity 1.1) in the 13 target
communes, selected by a study conducted in 2004, is the
first step to initiate the RTP. The Project proposes that a
Consulting Firm be deployed to conduct the Survey. The
objective of the survey is to set a baseline on the
socio-economic conditions of each selected commune in
general and of farming housefholds in particular, to allow
for the measurement and assessment of potential impacts of
the project on the improvement of the lives of the
beneficiaries.

C. EXPECTED OUTPUT

The Baseline Survey is expected to produce a report that
informs the Project on the following indicators for the 13
locations:

a) Current availability of information locally/information
channels

b) Information needs of the pilot communes;

c) Main crops produced in the communes;

d) Farm income levels;

e) Farm productivity levels;

f) Population and number of households;

g) Number of telephone lines per household;

h) Level of education;

i) IT capacity/readiness of the commune;

j) Telecommunication infrastructure;

k) Main forms of livelihoods, current situation of
economical & social infrastructure;

l) Percentage of women participation in farming;

m) Attitudes and skills of commune and agricultural
officials

n) Role and strength of social organisations

o) Strategic development plan of the communes, relevant
rural agriculture development models at communes;

p) Recommendations on required IT equipment, information
needs, sources of channels of information, and strength and
cooperation with social organisations for each commune.

The data/information should be whenever relevant
dissagregated by gender and by ethnicity (in communes
including ethnic minorities). In other words, the survey
should inform on the specific socio-economic situation and
needs (in terms of information e.g.) of women and of ethnic
minorities.

A lot of information is already available in the feasibility
study conducted in April 2004. The survey shall help refine,
update and complement the information on the communes
contained in the feasibility study.

The report should include (among others) the following
necessary sections:

1) Introduction; 2) Methodology used and limitations of the
survey; 3) a survey report for each of the 13 pilot commune,
including summary tables; 3) Recommendations. Annexes should
include among others the full survey questionnaire, and
relevant summary data for each commune so that the project
can use it for future monitoring and evaluation purposes.

The consulting firm shall submit a draft report to the
project for comments, as well as a final report addressing
the comments of the project/MARD and UNDP. The consulting
firm shall also submit a detailed outline (table of content)
of the report in the bidding proposal and at the beginning
of the assignment.

D. PARTICIPANTS

The target participants of the survey will be drawn from

- Farm communities;

- Peoples Councils / CPC (Commune People Committee);

- School teachers / PSPs in commune level;

- Socio – political organizations at commune level

- District staffs.

E. APPROACH

The Consulting Firm shall be recruited in an open bidding
process and will:

- Provide the Survey questionnaire;

- Engage in data collection using quantitative and
qualitative research methods;

- Process the data and information in the pre-selected
communes;

- Suggest recommendations on required IT equipment,
information needs and channels of information for each
commune.

The data collection is done through face-to-face interviews
and focus groups.

F. DURATION

It is expected that the Consulting firm shall take about two
months to complete the Baseline Survey, starting in May
2006.

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

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