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Procurement Notice Details

Results oriented monitoring (rom) system for external aid interventions financed by the european union [may cover nuclear safety and security etc]
Various

30/10/2018 S209 External aid programmes - Services - Contract notice - Restricted procedure
Belgium-Brussels: Results Oriented Monitoring (ROM) System for External Aid Interventions Financed by the European Union

2018/S 209-476271

Location: DG NEAR Headquarters and Enlargement and Neighbourhood regions

Service Contract Notice



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Please note that the award of the contracts is subject to the condition of the prior adoption of a financing decision which does not modify the elements of the procurement procedure (this will be the case, for instance, if the budget initially foreseen is different or if the timeframe, the nature or the conditions of the implementation are altered). If the precedent condition is not met, the contracting authority will either abandon the procurement or cancel the award procedure without the candidates or tenderers being entitled to claim any compensation.
1.
Publication reference
EuropeAid/139806/DH/SER/Multi
2.
Procedure
Restricted
3.
Programme title
Operational expenditure programme 2018 for evaluation and monitoring for the enlargement and neighbourhood regions.
4.
Financing
Budget line 21.08.01
5.
European Union, represented by the European Commission on behalf of and for the account of IPA II(1) beneficiaries and ENI partner countries(2), Brussels, BELGIUM.

(1) Beneficiaries in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No. 231/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11.3.2014 establishing an Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II).
(2) Partner countries in Annex I to Regulation (EU) No. 232/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11.3.2014 establishing a European Neighbourhood Instrument. Please note that cooperation with Syria is temporarily suspended until notice from the European Commission.

Contract specification

6.
Nature of contract
Fee-based
7.
Contract description
The Results Oriented Monitoring (ROM) system aims at improving the performance of EU funded interventions by strengthening monitoring system at intervention and corporate level. The ROM system is part of the overall European Commission's quality assurance cycle, starting with the design of EU-funded interventions and ending with their evaluation.
The services to cover by this contract include the following aspects:
1) ROM reviews: provision of external, objective and impartial assessment on the performance of selected NEAR interventions under implementation on the basis of a methodology provided by the European Commission;
2) Quality assurance and support at design stage: provision of technical support to EC services in the formulation of logical framework (logframe) as well as design of monitoring and reporting systems at intervention level;
3) Support to results reporting at institutional and intervention level: provision of quality control based on a methodology provided by the European Commission on results data reported by NEAR-funded interventions;
4) Assistance in ensuring adequate linkages between monitoring, evaluation and lessons learning: analysis and consolidation of the information collected in order to feed evaluations and improve lessons learning.
The European Commission will sign one service contract per lot:
— Lot 1 will cover NEAR-funded interventions in the Neighbourhood region. The working languages for this lot are English and French,
— Lot 2 will cover NEAR-funded interventions in the Western Balkans and Turkey (IPA II region). The working language for this lot is English.
8.
Number and titles of lots
— Lot 1: Neighbourhood region,
— Lot 2: IPA II region.
9.
Maximum budget
— Lot 1: 3 700 000 EUR,
— Lot 2: 4 000 000 EUR.
10.
Scope for additional services
The Contracting Authority may, at its own discretion, extend the project in duration and/or scope subject to the availability of funding up to the estimated amount of approximately 3 700 000 EUR for lot 1 and 4 000 000 EUR for lot 2.
Any extension of the contract would be subject to satisfactory performance by the Contractor.

Conditions of participation

11.
Eligibility
Participation is open to all natural persons who are nationals of and legal persons (participating either individually or in a grouping – consortium – of tenderers) which are effectively established in a Member State of the European Union or in an eligible country or territory as defined under Regulation (EU) No. 236/2014 establishing common rules and procedures for the implementation of the Union's instruments for external action (CIR) for the applicable Instrument under which the contract is financed (see also heading 29 below). Participation is also open to international organisations.

Please be aware that after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU, the rules of access to EU procurement procedures of economic operators established in third countries will apply to candidates or tenderers from the United Kingdom depending on the outcome of negotiations. In case such access is not provided by legal provisions in force at the time of contract award, candidates or tenderers from the United Kingdom could be rejected from the procurement procedure.
12.
Candidature
All eligible natural and legal persons (as per item 11 above) or groupings of such persons (consortia) may apply.
A consortium may be a permanent, legally-established grouping or a grouping which has been constituted informally for a specific tender procedure. All members of a consortium (i.e., the leader and all other members) are jointly and severally liable to the Contracting Authority.
The participation of an ineligible natural or legal person (as per item 11) will result in the automatic exclusion of that person. In particular, if that ineligible person belongs to a consortium, the whole consortium will be excluded.
13.
Number of applications
No more than one application can be submitted by a natural or legal person whatever the form of participation (as an individual legal entity or as leader or member of a consortium submitting an application). In the event that a natural or legal person submits more than one application, all applications in which that person has participated will be excluded.
The candidates may submit an application for one lot only or for all of the lots, but only one application per lot. Contracts will be awarded lot by lot and each lot will form a separate contract.
14.
Shortlist alliances prohibited
Any tenders received from tenderers comprising firms other than those mentioned in the shortlisted application forms will be excluded from this restricted tender procedure unless prior approval from the Contracting Authority has been obtained (see Practical Guide — PRAG — 2.6.3.). Short-listed candidates may not form alliances or subcontract to each other for the contract in question.
15.
Grounds for exclusion
As part of the application form, candidates must submit a signed declaration, included in the standard application form, to the effect that they are not in any of the exclusion situations listed in Section 2.6.10.1. of the PRAG.
Candidates included in the lists of EU restrictive measures (see Section 2.4. of the PRAG) at the moment of the award decision cannot be awarded the contract.
16.
Sub-contracting
Subcontracting is allowed.
17.
Number of candidates to be short-listed
On the basis of the applications received, between 4 and 8 candidates will be invited to submit detailed tenders for this contract. If the number of eligible candidates meeting the selection criteria is less than the minimum of 4, the Contracting Authority may invite the candidates who satisfy the criteria to submit a tender.

Provisional timetable

18.
Provisional date of invitation to tender
7.1.2019
19.
Provisional commencement date of the contract
1.5.2019
20.
Initial period of implementation of tasks
— Lot 1: 12 months,
— Lot 2: 24 months.

Selection and award criteria

21.
Selection criteria
The following selection criteria will be applied to candidates. In the case of applications submitted by a consortium, these selection criteria will be applied to the consortium as a whole unless specified otherwise. The selection criteria will not be applied to natural persons and single-member companies when they are sub-contractors.
1) Economic and financial capacity of candidate (based on item 3 of the application form). In case of candidate being a public body, equivalent information should be provided. The reference period which will be taken into account will be the last 3 years for which accounts have been closed.
Criteria:
— the average annual turnover of the candidate during the last 3 financial years must exceed 3 700 000 EUR for lot 1, and 2 000 000 EUR for lot 2,
— current ratio (current assets/current liabilities) in the last year for which accounts have been closed must at least be 1. In case of a consortium this criterion must be fulfilled by each member;
2) Professional capacity of candidate (based on items 4 and 5 of the application form). The reference period which will be taken into account will be the last 3 years from submission deadline.
Criterion:
At least 15 permanent staff currently working (permanent experts on the pay-roll) for the candidate in fields related to these contracts;
3) Technical capacity of candidate (based on items 5 and 6 of the application form). The reference period which will be taken into account will be the last 5 years from submission deadline.
Criterion:
The candidate has provided services under at least six contracts referring to external assistance interventions in third countries and in fields referred to under point iv below.
Each contract must have a budget of at least 300 000 EUR, and must have been implemented at any time during the reference period of 5 years. The contracts could have been started or completed at any time during the indicated period but it does not necessarily have to be started and completed during that period, nor implemented during the entire period. Candidates/tenderers are allowed to refer either to contracts completed within the reference period (although started earlier) or to contracts not yet completed. In the first case the contract will be considered in its whole if proper evidence of performance is provided (statement or certificate from the entity which awarded the contract, proof of final payment). In case of contracts still on-going only the portion satisfactorily completed during the reference period although started earlier will be taken into consideration. This portion will have to be supported by documentary evidence (similarly to contracts completed) also detailing its value. If a candidate/tenderer has implemented the contract in a consortium, the percentage that the candidate/tenderer has successfully completed must be clear from the documentary evidence, together with a description of the nature of the services provided if the selection criteria relating to the pertinence of the experience have been used. In the latter case, only references where the candidate provided a minimum of 30 % in both financial value and in man-days of expertise will be considered.
The number of contracts presented by the candidate must not exceed 12. References above this maximum number will be disregarded in the order as they appear on the application form. Domains/sectors covered by a given reference must be identified. One reference may cover a maximum of 2 domains/sectors listed under i. to iii. and a. to n. under point iv below.
A sector is considered as covered if at least one of the references given is accepted by the selection committee. When the sector description contains several sub-sectors, covering one of the sub-sectors is sufficient for the sector to be considered as covered.
The contract references submitted by the candidate must comply with the requirements below:
(i) At least four contracts have as the main objective monitoring or evaluation of external assistance interventions financed by donors in third countries. The contracts can be exclusively in the area of monitoring or exclusively in the area of evaluation or any combination of the 2;
(ii) At least one contract is related to providing support to identification, formulation, or implementation of international cooperation interventions financed by donors in third countries;
(iii) At least one contract must cover multi-country external assistance interventions;
(iv) At least ten of the sectors of intervention listed below must be covered:
(a) Democracy and rule of law;
(b) Fundamental rights (gender equality, minorities, etc.);
(c) Public administration reform including public financial management;
(d) Investment climate, private sector development, international trade, innovation and digitalisation;
(e) Education and culture, health, employment and social protection;
(f) Agriculture and rural development;
(g) Migration;
(h) Border management, conflict prevention and security;
(i) Water and sanitation, environment and natural resources;
(j) Energy;
(k) Climate change;
(l) Civil society, local authorities;
(m) Sustainable cities and transport;
(n) Nuclear safety;
(v) At least 2 contracts must have a budget of at least 1 000 000 EUR.
The capacity of the candidate to work in the working languages indicated in section 7 above will be assessed as satisfactory if each of the working languages is covered in at least one of the contract references above.
Previous experience which caused breach of contract and termination by a Contracting Authority shall not be used as reference.
An economic operator may, where appropriate and for a particular contract, rely on the capacities of other entities, regardless of the legal nature of the links which it has with them. Some examples of when it may not be considered appropriate by the Contracting Authority are when the tender rely in majority on the capacities of other entities or when they rely on key criteria. If the tender relies on other entities it must prove to the Contracting Authority that it will have at its disposal the resources necessary for performance of the contract, for example by producing a commitment on the part of those entities to place those resources at its disposal. Such entities, for instance the parent company of the economic operator, must respect the same rules of eligibility — notably that of nationality — and must comply with the selection criteria for which the economic operator relies on them. Furthermore, the data for this third entity for the relevant selection criterion should be included in the tender in a separate document. Proof of the capacity will also have to be furnished when requested by the Contracting Authority.
With regard to technical and professional criteria, an economic operator may only rely on the capacities of other entities where the latter will perform the works or services for which these capacities are required.
With regard to economic and financial criteria, the entities upon whose capacity the candidate/tenderer relies, become jointly and severally liable for the performance of the contract.
If more than 8 eligible candidates for each lot meet the above selection criteria, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the applications of these candidates must be reexamined to identify the eight best candidates. The only additional comparative criteria which will be taken into consideration during this re-examination, in the order that they appear below, are:
1) The highest number of contracts projects in the field of monitoring and evaluation (ref. point i above);
2) In case of ex-aequo, the total amount of the 5 highest contracts referred by the candidate.
22.
Award criteria
Best price-quality ratio.

Application

23.
Deadline for receipt of applications
The candidate/tenderer's attention is drawn to the fact that there are 2 different systems for sending applications/tenders: by post or private mail service, or by hand delivery.
In the first case, the application/tender must be sent before the date and time limit for submission, as evidenced by the postmark or deposit slip(3). In the second case, it is the acknowledgment of receipt given at the time of the delivery of the application/tender which will serve as proof.
The deadline for receipt of applications is:
3.12.2018 at 16:00 Central European Time.
Any application received by the Contracting Authority after this deadline will not be considered.
The Contracting Authority may, for reasons of administrative efficiency, reject any application submitted on time to the postal service but received, for any reason beyond the Contracting Authority's control, after the effective date of approval of the short-list report or of the evaluation report, if accepting applications that were submitted on time but arrived late would considerably delay the evaluation procedure (for instance when applications are received after the evaluation committee has finished its works and evaluating them would imply re-calling the evaluation committee) or jeopardise decisions already taken and notified.
(3) It is recommended to use registered mail to avoid possible problems with the legibility of the postmark.
24.
Application format and details to be provided
Applications must be submitted using the standard application form, the format and instructions of which must be strictly observed. The application form is available from the following Internet address:
http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/prag/annexes.do?chapterTitleCode=B

The application must be accompanied by a declaration of honour on exclusion and selection criteria using the template available from the following Internet address:
http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/prag/annexes.do?chapterTitleCode=A

Any additional documentation (brochure, letter, etc.) sent with an application will not be taken into consideration.
25.
How applications may be submitted
Applications must be submitted in English exclusively to the Contracting Authority in a sealed envelope:
— either by post or by courier service, in which case the evidence shall be constituted by the postmark or the date of the deposit slip, to:
European Commission,
Service du Courrier Central
DG Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations
Unit Near R4 (Contracts and Finance ENI)
Office J-54 05/205
Avenue du Bourget, 1
BE-1049 Brussels
In this case, the delivery record makes proof of compliance with the time-limit for receipt.
— Or hand delivered by the participant in person or by an agent directly to the premises of the Contracting Authority in return for a signed and dated receipt, in which case the evidence shall be constituted by this acknowledgement of receipt, to:
European Commission,
Service du Courrier Central
DG Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations
Unit NEAR R4 (Contracts and Finance ENI)
Office J-54 05/205
Avenue du Bourget, 1
BE-1049 Brussels
In this case, the acknowledgment of receipt provides proof of compliance with the time-limit for receipt.
NB: this department is open from 8:00 to 17:00 from Monday to Thursday and from 8:00 to 16:00 on Friday. It is closed on Saturdays, Sundays and Commission holidays.
The contract title and the Publication reference (see item 1 above) as well as the lot number must be clearly marked on the envelope containing the application and must always be mentioned in all subsequent correspondence with the Contracting Authority.
Applications submitted by any other means will not be considered.
By submitting an application candidates accept to receive notification of the outcome of the procedure by electronic means. Such notification shall be deemed to have been received on the date upon which the Contracting Authority sends it to the electronic address referred to in the application.
26.
Alteration or withdrawal of applications
Candidates may alter or withdraw their applications by written notification prior to the deadline for submission of applications. No application may be altered after this deadline.
Any such notification of alteration or withdrawal shall be prepared and submitted in accordance with Item 25. The outer envelope (and the relevant inner envelope if used) must be marked “Alteration” or “Withdrawal” as appropriate.
27.
Operational language
All written communications for this tender procedure and contract must be in English.
28.
Date of publication of prior information notice
31.7.2018
Notice number in OJ: 2018/S 145-330812

29.
Legal basis
Regulation (EU) No. 236/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11.3.2014 laying down common rules and procedures for the implementation of the Union's instruments for financing external action, Regulation (EU) No. 232/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11.3.2014 establishing a European Neighbourhood Instrument and Regulation (EU) No. 231/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11.3.2014 establishing an Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II).

30.
Additional information
a) The contract entails a significant amount of incidental expenditure for travel and training/seminars organisation;
b) Under EuropeAid reference EuropeAid/139798/DH/SER/MULTI and in Official Journal S140 under reference 319274-2018, DG DEVCO has launched a similar project for countries falling under DG DEVCO’s responsibility;
c) An individual or company that has or had a key role in the inception, preparation or execution of a project or program is in conflict of interest for performing the review of the same project and program. The question of conflict of interest is important and will be specified in the tender dossier;
d) Requests for clarification can be sent to the following mailbox: near-eni-southtenders@ec.europa.eu at the latest 21 days before the deadline for submission of applications stated in section 23 above.

Clarifications will be published on https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/europeaid/onlineservices/index.cfm?ADSSChck=1533032631588&do=publi.welcome&nbPubliList=15&aofr=139806&searchtype=RS&orderby=upd&orderbyad=Desc&userlanguage=en at the latest 5 days before the deadline.



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