External Audit Services for the Financial Records from June 2024 to December 2025 — Delta State Nigeria for Women Programme-SCALE UP Project

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

(LEAST COST SELECTION -LCS)

NIGERIA

PROJECT: DELTA STATE NIGERIA FOR WOMEN PROGRAMME-SCALE UP PROJECT

CREDIT NUMBER: P179447

ASSIGNMENT TITLE: Request for Expressions of Interest (REOI) for the Engagement of a Consulting Firm to Provide External Audit Services for the Financial Records of Delta NFWP-SU (June 2024 – December 2025)

REFERNENCE NO: NG-DELTA STATE NFWP-SU-528641-CS-LCS

The Nigeria for Women Project – Scale Up (NFWP-SU) is a national initiative of the Government of Nigeria designed to deepen and expand the gains recorded under the original Nigeria for Women Project (NFWP), which was implemented in six states across the country. The original project demonstrated the effectiveness of the Women Affinity Group (WAG) model as a community-driven platform for addressing the structural, social, and economic constraints limiting women’s empowerment at the household and community levels. Building on these lessons, the scale-up operation seeks to institutionalize WAGs and strengthen their role as sustainable vehicles for women’s economic inclusion, social capital development, and livelihood enhancement.

The Project Development Objective (PDO) of the NFWP-SU is to institutionalize Women’s Affinity Groups and other collective platforms for women’s economic empowerment and to enhance the economic opportunities of unbanked and underserved women across Nigeria. Institutionalization in this context involves establishing sustainable systems, governance structures, operational procedures, and capacity frameworks that enable WAGs and their federations to function effectively, access financial services, engage markets, and sustain livelihoods beyond the life of the project.

The project adopts a Community Driven Development (CDD) approach, which promotes participatory planning, local ownership, and bottom-up decision-making. Through this approach, women are mobilized into self-managed WAGs at the community level and federated into higher-level structures such as Village Organizations (VOs) and Cluster Level Federations (CLFs). These platforms leverage economies of scale to facilitate access to finance, markets, technical services, and government programs, while also strengthening women’s voice, leadership, and agency in household and community decision-making processes.

The NFWP-SU is structured around three core components. The first component focuses on building and strengthening community institutions, including the formation, nurturing, and federation of WAGs, alongside interventions aimed at influencing social norms, improving health and WASH behaviors, and promoting climate resilience. The second component supports livelihood enhancement through Community Investment Funds (CIFs) and Livelihood Collectives (LCs), enabling women to expand productive activities, improve income generation, and participate more effectively in value chains using climate-smart and market-oriented approaches. The third component provides for project management, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), knowledge management, and adaptive learning to ensure effective coordination, accountability, and continuous improvement of project delivery.

The primary beneficiaries of the project are poor and vulnerable women aged 18 years and above who are economically active but underserved by formal financial systems, public services, and private sector opportunities. This includes women engaged in informal microenterprises, small-scale trading, subsistence agriculture, and other livelihood activities. The project also prioritizes inclusion of marginalized groups such as women with disabilities, widows, displaced women, and young women who face systemic barriers to participation in economic life. Overall, the project is expected to directly benefit about 3.9 million women organized into approximately 170,500 WAGs nationwide, with significant indirect benefits accruing to their households and communities.

The NFWP-SU also aligns with national priorities on poverty reduction, financial inclusion, gender equality, and climate resilience. It supports the Government’s commitment to building inclusive economic systems and social institutions that enable women to contribute meaningfully to national development. By strengthening women’s access to finance, skills, productive assets, and markets, and by addressing harmful social norms and institutional barriers, the project contributes to improved livelihoods, enhanced resilience to shocks, and increased participation of women in economic and social decision-making.

Implementation of the project is undertaken at federal, state, and local government levels through dedicated Project Coordination Units and implementation structures working in collaboration with relevant ministries, departments, agencies, development partners, and community institutions. A preparatory phase precedes full implementation, focusing on institutional setup, capacity building, procurement, and stakeholder engagement to ensure readiness for effective delivery.

Overall, the NFWP-SU represents a strategic and scalable platform for transforming women’s socioeconomic outcomes in Nigeria by building strong community institutions, expanding livelihood opportunities, and fostering an enabling environment for sustainable and inclusive economic empowerment.

SUBMISSION OF EXPRESSION OF INTERESTS (EOIs)

The International Development Association (IDA) has been providing assistance to the Government of Nigeria through various means including IDA Credits. One of the critical legal covenants between the IDA and Borrower is submission of an Audited Project Financial Statements (PFSs) to the IDA within six months from the end of each financial year. As part of its efforts to meet up with this covenant and also to improve the FM arrangements for projects, the Delta State Nigeria For Women Project Scale-Up (NFWP-SU) wishes to engage the services of an audit firm.

The Delta State Nigeria For Women Project Scale-Up (NFWP-SU), therefore, intends to use part of the Credit facility to engage the services of an external auditor (firm) to audit the project financial statements (PFS) and accompanying statement of expenditures (SOEs)

The Project now invites eligible consulting firms (“Consultants”) to indicate their interests in providing the required Services.

Interested Consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the Services.

The shortlisting criteria are:

• evidence showing the fields of specialty of the firm (Consultant’s profile/brochures);

• evidence showing that the firm is a legal entity (Certificate of Registration);

• evidence of registration with relevant authorities and professional bodies;

• evidence showing the technical and managerial capabilities of the firm in the field of assignment;

• experience of working in a similar geographical region;

• description of similar assignments undertaken in the last five (5) years;

• availability of appropriate skills among staff,

• for each previous projects performed, the consultant shall provide the names and contact addresses of the clients, date(s) of execution, name(s) of lead and associate firms, contract amounts, etc.

The attention of interested Consultants (firms) is drawn to the World Bank Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers (July 2016, revised November 2017, August 2018, November 2020, and September 2023), particularly Section III, paragraphs 3.14 to 3.17, which set forth the World Bank’s policy on conflict of interest.

A Consulting Firm will be selected in accordance with the Least Cost Selection -LCS method set out in the Consultant Guidelines.

Further information can be obtained at the address below during office hours from 0900 to 1700 Monday to Friday.

Expressions of interest must be delivered in a written form to the address below (in person, or by mail, or by email) in three (3) hardcopies (one original and two copies) in an envelop as marked “Expression of Interest – Engagement of a Consulting Firm to Provide External Audit Services for the Financial Records of Delta NFWP-SU (June 2024 – December 2025)- within 7 days from the Date of Publication of this Request for Expression of Interest.

Signed:

The Project Coordinator’s Office:

Delta State Nigeria for Women Programme-Scale up Project (DT-NFWP-SU),

24B, High Court Road, Opp Delta Hawk,

Asaba, Delta State.

E-mail: [email protected],