Public procurement notice: Contract Award Notice
Published: 2025-05-13
Buyer: 81314192-Advice on organisational development of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC)
Region: DEA22
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 79000000 | 85100000: Health services
Estimated value: 784304 EUR
Award criteria: price, quality
EU fund: eu-funds

Technical requirements: According to Article 160, Section 3 of the German Act Against Restraint of Competition (GWB), application for review is not permissible insofar as
1. the applicant has identified the claimed infringement of the procurement rules before submitting the application for review and has not submitted a complaint to the contracting authority within a period of 10 calendar days; the expiry of the period pursuant to Article 134, Section 2 remains unaffected,
2. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that are evident in the tender notice are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for the application or by the deadline for the submission of bids, specified in the tender notice.
3. complaints of infringements of procurement rules that first become evident in the tender documents are not submitted to the contracting authority at the latest by the expiry of the deadline for application or by the deadline for the submission of bids,
4. more than 15 calendar days have expired since receipt of notification from the contracting authority that it is unwilling to redress the complaint.
Sentence 1 does not apply in the case of an application to determine the invalidity of the contract in accordance with Article 135, Section 1 (2). Article 134, Section 1, Sentence 2 remains unaffected.
The epidemiological context in Africa is characterised by ongoing outbreaks of new and recurrent infectious diseases with epidemic potential. The ongoing Mpox and Marburg virus disease outbreaks are playing a major role in exacerbating the epidemiological situation in the African Union (AU) member states. As a relatively young institution still in the process of fully developing its systems and processes, Africa CDC as the autonomous health institution of the AU is faced with high expectations in combatting ongoing and emerging health threats on the continent. Therefore, coordinating partners and effectively implementing measures to combat outbreaks are essential.

In 2021, the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has commissioned the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with the project "Strengthening Crisis and Pandemic Response in Africa" (SCPRA). The project's goal is to enhance the resilience of the Africa CDC by strengthening its institutional and programmatic capabilities. This includes bolstering its coordination role with global, regional and national health institutions; strengthening public health institutions, fostering community engagement, particularly young people; and strengthening digital health capacities on the continent.

The project supports Africa CDC to sustainably institutionalise selected organisational functions across Finance and Administration, Human Resource, Procurement, and Partnership Management through standardisation of work processes. Skills development measures, including coaching and in-service advice, help make Africa CDC more resilient. 

The implementing partner of the project is the Africa CDC. The project also assists other continental health institutions such as the African Medicines Agency (AMA) and the Africa Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation (APTF).

The SCPRA project has four outputs
Output 1 strengthens institutional capacities at Africa CDC in relation to selected organisational functions. This tender is focusing on Output 1 only. 
Output 2 strengthens Africa CDC"s coordination role on public health matters on the African continent.
Output 3 strengthens the institutional capacities of AMA and APTF through selected organisational development measures.
Output 4 improves the conditions for strengthening human and institutional capacities for digital health in the Africa CDC and AU member states.

Despite previous support by the project to strengthen organisational development through the mapping of workflows and the development of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and guidelines to standardise work processes, the Africa CDC further requires its enhancement of its institutional and individual capacities to fully fulfil its mandate. Equally, institutional learning and innovation are not sustainably mainstreamed yet. As a result, the institutional resilience of the Africa CDC still requires further technical support to upscale. The tendered project intends to improve the organisational development capacity at Africa CDC.  

Summary of work packages to be performed under this contract:
- Developing SOPs, workflows, guidelines and policies across various Finance and Administration Business Functions 
- Technical advisory service on partnership management
- Technical advisory service on end-to end automation of business processes
- Designing capacity development and training measures

Target group of the assignment
The target group is the entire population of the AU, comprising around 1.3 billion people. The intermediaries at regional level are the Africa CDC staff who work as experts and managers, including at the RCCs, through whom the target group is reached. At national level, the intermediaries are experts and managers at the health ministries and public health institutes in the 55 Member States of the African Union.
In order to determine the most economical bidder, the contracting authority will enter the total number of points achieved after technical evaluation. Only bids with a technical evaluation of over 500 points will be considered. Technical bids with fewer points will be rejected as technically unsuitable.
The assignment contributes to the project"s objective to strengthen the resilience of the Africa CDC. The tender will only focus on Output 1 and represents two of three areas of support under Output 1.

Output 1 aims to strengthen institutional capacities at Africa CDC in relation to selected organisational functions. These include organisational development in the areas of Finance and Admin, Human Resources, Procurement and Partnership Management. The results hypothesis is that the harmonisation and standardisation of work processes will increase the institutional resilience of Africa CDC and thus contribute to improving the protection of the population"s health. A better partnership management will lead to technical and financial inputs by international development partners being geared more effectively towards Africa CDC"s strategic objectives, which directly supports the organisation"s institutional resilience. The introduction of institutional learning and innovation also contributes to this objective. More strategic and targeted internal, external social media as well as risk communication will contribute to the institution"s ability to deliver on its mandate.

The SCPRA has already provided support to Africa CDC through a subcontracted consultancy firm to standardise and harmonise work processes in Finance and Admin, HR and Procurement. The services outlined in this contract will build upon this previous support. The consultancy firm is expected to review and streamline Africa CDC business processes, develop functional and technical specifications to automate business processes, provide technology assessment of applications and software which would meet business needs, and design digitalisation project implementation and roadmap. It is also expected to provide process, structure and organisational development support to Africa CDC in the areas of Finance and Admin, HR and Procurement, Partnership Management and Programme Delivery.
Work package 1: Support to the integration of workflows

a. Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and workflows to support the standardisation and harmonisation of processes. 
b. Develop a SOPs manual for Africa CDC Finance Directorate. 
c. Develop detailed mapping of organisational functions down to individual position Terms of Reference (ToRs) and functional units within Africa CDC.
d. Review and expand current standards, policies, and guidelines for internal use and contracted/outsourced activities.
e. Develop guidelines for associated programs such as leadership fellows and training policies.

Work package 2: Technical advisory service and organisational development support to Partnership Department 

a. Provide advisory services on the optimisation of the structure of the Directorate for External Relations and Strategic Engagement. 
b. Asses available resources (such as SOPs, guidelines, manuals) of the Partnership Department. Based on the assessment and identified missing resources, develop SOPs, guidelines and manuals for the Partnership Department. 
c. Develop an onboarding kit on partnership management and resource mobilisation for Africa CDC staff. 
d. Support the organisational set-up of the PIU. This includes a needs assessment, the development of the organisational structure and work processes. 
e. Support the integration of the PIU into the Africa CDC structures. Develop a roadmap for the integration.
f. Support the set-up of a process to map partnerships internally. 

Work package 3: Technical advisory service on automation process 

a. Review and streamline existing Africa CDC business processes and workflows, including the mapping of business processes for automation and improvement purposes. 
b. Draft Functional Specifications with relevant business rules and Technical Specifications. This includes the development of appropriate forms to capture relevant operational, technical, contractual and financial data from various areas (such as Finance, Admin, HR, Procurement, Partnership and Grant management). 
c. Assess technologies against Africa CDC needs and develop recommendations, including the development of a set of criteria to evaluate and assess solutions (incl. functional aspects, Africa CDC IT environment, long term investment, internal capacity and cost). Followed by a market search of available solutions of ERP or equivalent. 
d. Develop a project roadmap for the Africa CDC Financial and Operational System Implementation, including i) the drafting of ToRs to tender the actual procurement of the IT solution its implementation and configuration, ii) the identification of training needs for all types of users (end users, technical users, and administrators), iii) the development of a communication plan for the project, and iv) the development of a plan to update and/or to produce manuals after automation. 
Work package 4: Designing capacity development and training measures and monitoring of impact 
a. Assess capacity development and training needs at Africa CDC on different levels in the area of organisational development, including Finance and Admin, HR, Procurement, and Partnership Management.
b. Design, organise and conduct trainings for all respective teams and relevant colleagues at RCCs. 
c. Design, organise and conduct trainings targeted on resource mobilisation (using Africa CDC"s Investment Case) and partnership management. 
d. Design, organise and conduct capacity development trainings specifically for the mid- and senior level, e.g. on ethics and compliance, leadership.
e. Conceptualise and implement monitoring formats and/or tools to assess impact of measures implemented by GIZ to support Africa CDC"s organisational development
For the implementation of these tasks, the tenderer is required to provide 1 team leader and 3 expert pools. Individual trips by the international experts to Addis Ababa are necessary; however, a large part of the services provided can be performed home based.
GIZ may optionally commission contract amendments and/or increases based on the criteria in the tender documents to the successful bidder of this tender. For details, please see the terms of reference.


Winner: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Award value: 784304
Number of bids: 4