Public procurement notice: Contract Award Notice
Published: 2024-11-26
Region: DEA22
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 79411100 | 85000000
Estimated value:  EUR
Submission deadline: 2027-08-31
Award criteria: price, quality

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 "Improving Social Protection and Health II" (ISPH II) project is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ. The project has a duration of 3 years and will run from October 2024 to September 2027. It has a budget of EUR 9.7 million and it builds on the experience and work done by previous technical assistance projects. 
The objective of ISPH II is to improve the conditions for better access to social protection and quality-assured health services in Cambodia in terms of climate adaptation, inclusion and gender equality. By improving the conditions for better access to social protection and quality-assured health services in Cambodia, the project hence contributes to the Cambodian Sustainable Development Goals (CSDG), in particular CSDGs 1.3.1 (social protection), 3.9 (social protection in the event of illness) and 3.c.1 (training of health workers). 
The project works actively with the General Secretariat of the National Social Protection Council (GS-NSPC) as its main counterpart. It also works with other actors of the social protection and health system, e.g. Ministry of Planning (IDPoor), National Social Assistance Fund, National Social Security Fund, Social Security Regulator, Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Women Affairs, National Committee for Disaster Management, Ministry of Health, National Payment and Certification Agency, Health Science Institute of the Cambodian Armed Forces, Khmer-Soviet-Friendship-Hospital, Cambodian-Chinese-Friendship-Hospital. The project focuses on policy and capacity development.
The project works on two intervention areas, social protection and health. Output 1 aims to strengthen the technical prerequisites for the further development of the social protection system, taking into account gender responsiveness and resilience to crises, in particular related to climate change. The aim of Output 2 is to strengthen institutional capacities for the implementation of social protection programmes, for example with regard to the introduction of mechanisms to review and/or optimise the climate and crisis response capacity. Output 3 aims to create selected technical prerequisites for improving access to social health protection, taking into account the needs of women and people with disabilities. This includes generation of evidence for policy decision as well as institutional strengthening. Output 4 aims to improve institutional capacities for quality-assured competence-based training of health professionals. This includes the development of competency-based curricula, the development of necessary individual competencies and the adaptation of training processes according to the standards and framework curricula provided for the competence-based training of medical professionals. In addition, the Ministry of Health will be advised on the development of a national quality assurance system for these new training courses and their accreditation. 
The project follows a multi-level approach. At the policy and network level, the project promotes the ability of the actors represented in the NSPC to engage in dialogue, cooperation and learning, e.g. in the context of the discussion of policy recommendations developed by GS-NSPC with the support of the project. At the organisational level, the project supports (i) (GS) NSPC on overarching strategic issues, (ii) social protection institutions to improve the provision of services, modalities of service delivery and/or targeting mechanisms as well as to strengthen their overall organisational capacity, (iii) the Ministry of Health and training institutions in the health sector to implement and accredit a competence-based training of health professionals. At the individual level, the competencies and capacities of the institutional implementation partners and the staff to implement the reform processes are strengthened.
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.
ISPH II requires the services of a contractor who can provide short-term social protection and health experts to support the GIZ project team (Experts Pool). The support provided by the international short-term experts will contribute to the implementation of project activities and will help to achieve the outputs, objectives and target indicators described in the Terms of Reference. 
The contractor will be responsible for selecting, preparing, training and steering the short-term experts assigned to carry out the advisory services related to 3 work packages (see below). Collaboration with the GIZ technical team is essential for carrying out the assignment.  
Work package 1 (Experts Pool 1): Universal Social Protection (USP) (part of output 1 or 2 of the project)
ISPH II requires experts to support the advisory services related to following thematic areas: 
- Adaptive social protection: The starting point for this work stream is the Social Protection sector"s Shock Responsive Social Protection (SRSP) Framework which was adopted by the Government in late 2023. ISPH II will be helping the relevant actors implement the SRSP framework, while looking into ways of further expanding the coordination and cooperation between relevant actors.  Concretely, technical assistance will be provided to build in climate sensitive elements into existing programmes and to further develop a Cash-for-Work program where one of the targets may be to help attain climate change goals by including work such as constructing irrigation and dykes, climate change awareness raising, maintaining biodiversity, and reforestation. 
- Gender-responsive social protection: Gender in social protection advocacy work is planned with social protection implementers. The project intends to explore how women´s voices and needs could be better captured and addressed by the social protection programs and various stakeholder of the social protection system. A situational analysis which also provides recommendations for improvement is being finalized. Policy development and implementation support will be provided by the project to advance the recommendations outlined in this report.
Work package 2 (Experts Pool 2): Universal Health Coverage (UHC) (part of output 3 or 4 of the project)
ISPH II requires experts to support the advisory services related to following areas: 
- In the overall health sector reform agenda, the National Payment and Certification Agency (NPCA) is a central actor as it is tasked with claims processing for the 2 national social health protection schemes. The project provides policy advice to NPCA on its key processes, i.e. claims management and the verification of quality assessments of health care providers. In addition, the project will support NPCA in its task to explore and propose strategic purchasing related improvements based on intelligence gained from its claims processing business and data. 
- The project also supports MoH on improving the quality of health services provision through strengthening human resources development for health. Concretely, the project provides technical assistance to MoH on the development of a national accreditation system for newly updated health training programmes. At the training service provider level, the project supports three training institutions to further institutionalise competency-based training. The supported activities include faculty development, implementation of clinical based teaching tools, etc. 
Work package 3 (Experts Pool 3): Digitalisation, Research, and Organisational Development (part of output 1, 2, 3 or 4 of the project)
Work Package 3 entails three cross-cutting topics which are relevant for both USP and UHC. 
- Digitalisation efforts of ISPH II are grounded on the Digital Social Protection Strategy 2024 - 2028 which was adopted by the NSPC in March 2024. ISPH II supports the GS-NSPC as the policy coordinator to drive the strategy"s implementation. Focus will be primarily on capacity development, strengthening policy and legal frameworks and strengthening stakeholder coordination. Activities envisioned include trainings, facilitating networking, backstopping to enhance IT departments" capacity, technical support to draft and implement IT policies, and facilitating joint efforts between various social protection actors and development partners.
- Organisation development efforts entail supporting various social protection actors to look into how their organisational set up can be upgraded to better fit their purpose. Activities include drafting organisational development strategies, updating unit and individual roles and responsibilities, developing human resources policies, and training on foundational skills such as leadership, management, monitoring and evaluation, etc.  
- In USP and UHC research, the project requires external expertise to support the efforts and further build the capacity of the GS-NSPC research unit within the work context briefly described in work package 1 and 2.


Winner: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Award value: 1
Number of bids: 3