Strategic Support for Social Protection — COVID-19 Response and Recovery Project in São Tomé and Príncipe

GENERAL PROCUREMENT NOTICE

SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE

Social Protection COVID-19 Response and Recovery Project

SOCIAL PROTECTION

GENERAL PROCUREMENT NOTICE

Grant No. IDA-E015-ST

Project ID No. P178018

The Government of Sao Tome and Principe has received financing in the amount of US$18.000.000,00 (eighteen million USD) equivalent from the World Bank toward the cost of the Social Protection COVID-19 Response and Recovery Project, and it intends to apply part of the proceeds to payments for goods, works, related services and consulting services to be procured under this project.

The project will include the following components:

Component 1 (Institutional strengthening of the social protection sector) aims to address critical institutional needs for implementation of the social protection activities. Thus, the implementation processes, delivery systems, monitoring and capabilities of the DPSSF will be strengthened for the implementation of SP programs. This component will finance activities geared at strengthening the operational capabilities of DPSSF through a technical support unit to enhance their operational and managerial capacities within the context of augmented needs due to the scale up of the programs to be supported. . Procurement activities for this component also include office and IT equipment and vehicles, and as several local firms are capable of providing these items, they will be acquired through national market approach, request for quotation, in separate procurement processes.

Component 2 (Social assistance programs) aims to scale up the social protection programs to mitigate poverty and protect human capital and economic investments; it will support the temporal extension of the VFP-COVID-19 and the coverage expansion of the regular VFP.

There are 3 subcomponents in Component 2 as follows.

Sub-component 2.1. Socio Economic Resilience Program for COVID-19 response (US$4.5 million) that will support the temporal extension of the VFP-COVID-19 program to provide support to the current 15,325 beneficiaries of the program for additional six months, until the end 2022. Beneficiaries of the program will continuously be receiving a monthly cash transfer value of STD 900.00 (approximately US$42). Payments to beneficiaries will continuously be done as originally designed under the SPSDP. Payments will be done bi-monthly (cash transfer value of US$84) through already established payment service provider.

Sub-component 2.2, Vulnerable Families Program (US$ 8.0 million) will expand and strengthen the current Vulnerable Families Program as entry point for poverty mitigation and support human capital formation, scaling up the VFP from 2,543 to 4,500 households.

Component 3 This component will directly finance the costs associated with the fiduciary management of the project and co-finance one procurement specialist, one financial management specialist, one account and one social and environmental specialist. AFAP will have a close coordination with the MLSFPT technical team regarding fiduciary aspects.

Component 4 Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC, Zero allocation). This CERC is included under the project in accordance with Bank Policy Investment Project Financing, paragraph 12, for situations of urgent need of assistance. This will allow for rapid reallocation of project proceeds in the event of a natural or manmade disaster or crisis that has caused or is likely to imminently cause a major adverse economic and/or social impact. To trigger this component, the Government needs to declare an emergency or provide a statement of fact justifying the request for the activation of the use of emergency funding. A specific Emergency Response Operations Manual will apply to this component, detailing financial management (FM), procurement, safeguards, and any other necessary implementation arrangements.

The following Goods, Consulting and Non-Consulting services will be procured under the project:

Goods:

• Acquisition of two 4x4 pickup vehicles
• Acquisition of computers equipment (To include at least 12 PCs, 6 laptops, tablets, printers/scanners, network devices, and IT accessories)
• Acquisition of materials and equipment for the equipping of the new DPSSF space

Consulting Services:

• Project Advisor
• PFV Payment specialist
• Complementary Activities specialist
• Chief Communications consultant
• Communications assistant
• MIS and General IT specialist

Non-Consulting Services:

• Payment Agency for VFP
• Service for maintenance of SIIPS system
• Design and printing of communication materials

Procurement of contracts financed by the World Bank will be conducted through the procedures as specified in the World Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF, dated November 2020 (Procurement Regulations), and is open to all eligible firms and individuals as defined in the Procurement Regulations.[1] After project negotiations, the World Bank shall arrange the publication on its external website of the agreed initial procurement plan and all subsequent updates once it has provided a no objection.

Specific procurement notices for contracts subject to open international competitive procurement will be announced, as they become available in UN Development Business , dg Market and www.telanon.info .

Prequalification/Initial Selection of suppliers and contractors will be required for the following contracts: N/A.

Interested eligible firms and individuals who would wish to be considered for the provision of goods, works, non-consulting services and consulting services for the above mentioned project, or those requiring additional information, should contact the Borrower at the address below:

Agência Fiduciária de Administração de Projetos (AFAP)

Alberto Fernandes Leal, general director

Avenida Kwame Nkrumah, Edifício do Afriland First Bank, 2º andar

Caixa Postalnº1029, S. Tomé, São Tomé e Príncipe

Tel: +239 222 52 05

E-mail: [email protected]

www.afap.st

[1] Occasionally contracts may be financed out of tied trust funds that would further restrict eligibility to a particular group of member countries. When this is the case, it should be mentioned in this paragraph.