Jobs and Careers

COMPETITION TYPE : 

Call for Proposal

DETAIL DESCRIPTION : 

The “ArmSwissBank” CJSC one of the leading Armenian banks that also seek accreditation with GCF (under direct access modality) has been awarded the contract for implementation of “Scaling up Green Finance Practices in the Republic of Armenia” Project. Within the scope of the Project a consulting firm will be engaged for supporting the international consultant in designing curricula and implementation of training on Environmental and Social Safeguards and Gender for the staff of the central Bank of Armenia, commercial banks and banking non-financial institutions.

Assignment Background
The overall objective of the assignment is to increase capacities of the banks and non-banking financial institutions in application of ESS and Gender Policies, as well as advancing institutionalization of their application through:
- Identifying participants of the training and carry out comprehensive needs assessment exercise to figure out knowledge gaps aimed at informing curricula design process;
- Designing training module that will be targeted to increase capacities of middle management level employees of commercial banks and non-banking financial institution in application of these standards;
- Come up with the recommendations related to advancement of institutionalization of ESS and Gender policies, as well as further professional development opportunities for training participants.

Scope of Work
Most of the banks and non-banking financial institutions has clear regulatory frameworks, including Environmental and Social Standards and Gender Policies, for implementation of the investment projects. However, thorough review of some of the documents suggests that: a) not all aspects of Environmental and Social Safeguards are being addressed by these documents, b) in most of the cases they are relevant to the ones categorised as environmental Category C, c) policies and instruments for mainstreaming gender policies either absent or incomplete, 4) number of important mechanisms (e.g. Grievance Reporting Mechanism) are absent.
While such situation at the current stage of development of green finance practices does not create significant obstacles for the local financial institutions (simple financing schemes with MDBs under tailor-maid on-lending facilities foresees internal requirements and standards), at the meantime, further expansion of the operations and more proactive direct communication with IFIs will bring to the point where internal capacities to comply with ESS standards of the banks and non-banking financial institutions might be evaluated as inadequate. With the purpose of addressing mentioned constraints the services of consulting company are being sought through this RFP. More specifically, the Consultant will provide:
- Identification of training participants and implementation of needs assessment exercise to measure knowledge gap on application of Environmental and Social Standards & Gender Policies with methodological support of (separately contracted) international expert;
- Design training curricula (with the overall duration of 30 hours) for mid-level managers of banks and non-banking financial institutions (30 participants divided into 3 groups) with mentorship support to and supervision of (separately contracted) International consultant;
- Carry out delivery of the trainings with oversight and specific mentorship input to training participants from (separately contracted) international expert;
- Design recommendations related to advancement of institutionalization of ESS and Gender policies, as well as further professional development opportunities for training participants with guidance and peer review from (separately contracted) international expert.

REQUIREMENTS : 

Selection Criteria:
Technical Proposal - 70%
a) Expertise of the Firm - 30%
- 5 years of work experience and at least 5 assignments in the domain of climate change carried out in partnership with international development partners (with minimum 1 assignment of similar nature and scope);
- Institutional track record on successful delivery of high-level expert advice to banks, governments and/ or international organizations in the relevant fields.
b) Description of approach, methodology and work-plan - 40%
c) Qualification of proposed staff - 30%
Prospective bidders are invited to nominate teams, the composition of which from their experience fits the best for the implementation of the Assignment.

Financial Proposal - 30%
Financial proposals should be submitted with clear indication of:
a) daily charge out rates multiplied by number of working days (identified in the RFP);
b) total sum for the assignment, and
c) containing the statement that all applicable taxes are included.

Evaluation of Proposals
Only financial proposals of bidders received 70 and more points for their technical proposal will be considered. The Consultant that achieved the highest combined technical and financial score will be invited for negotiations. Please see the attachment for more details on the procedure for evaluation.

Timeframe, Deliverables and Reporting
The overall duration of the “Scaling up Green Finance Practices in the Republic of Armenia” Project is 24 months. Required services will have to be delivered during October - November 2021.

APPLICATION PROCEDURES : 

Technical Proposal comprised from overview of the expertise of the firm, description of approach, methodology and workplan, as well as qualifications of proposed staff should be submitted to: procurement.gcf@armswissbank.am by the deadline. Financial Proposal should be submitted to: priceoffer.gcf@armswissbank.am by the deadline. Financial proposal should include fee component only, which should be all inclusive. Type of the contract is lump-sum. Financial proposals should include timeline of payments against deliverables. Services proposed shall be reviewed and evaluated based on completeness and compliance of the Proposal and responsiveness with the requirements of this RFP.
The Proposal that complies with all the requirements, meets all the evaluation criteria and offers the best value for money shall be selected and awarded the contract. Any offer that does not meet the requirements shall be rejected.
Please Note: “ArmSwissBank” CJSC will not provide feedback on the evaluation process to unsuccessful candidates.

Please clearly mention in your application letter that you learned of this job opportunity through Career Center and mention the URL of its website - www.careercenter.am, Thanks.

ABOUT : 

Within its strategy to promote enabling framework for introducing environment resilient practices, the Government of Armenia plans to significantly scale up the utilization level of green finance instruments and to secure a more pro-active participation of the private sector in implementing interventions in climate adaptation and mitigation domains. Within that overall strategy, the Government of Armenia through the Ministry of Environment (Designated National Authority) has requested support of Green Climate Fund (GCF) within the framework of “Readiness and Preparatory Support Programme” to implement comprehensive assessment of the constraints for further expansion of “green finance” practices, mapping of available instruments and to come up with comprehensive set of methodological, awareness raising and capacity building interventions. The Readiness Project will design a Green Finance Roadmap, as key political document outlining current state, existing impediments for green finance development and establishing comprehensive vision for green finance strategy contributing to implementation of Armenia’s NDCs and Paris Agreement. The Roadmap and further activities aimed at implementation of the activities proposed will benefit from Repository of “Green Finance Instruments” that will be compiled during project execution stage and further handed over to Central Bank for maintenance and updates upon completion of the Project. The main objective of the Readiness Project is to achieve paradigm shift in design and utilization of “green finance” instruments through incorporating into policies, operational modalities of national banks and non-banking financial institutions the climate-resilient approaches and guidelines, as well as regulatory simplification and introduction of policy incentives for designing respective on-lending facilities. To achieve this objective, interrelated chain of activity clusters, including assessment of baseline, regulatory review and simplification, assessment of best international practices, design of methodological baseline and further capacity building activities will be implemented.

Assignment Background
During the third phase of the Project implementation, the following activities were carried out with the involvement of international and national consultants:
a) Methodological guidance on advancing green finance guidelines and tools based on the standards applied by climate funds and other sources of green finance for partner banking institutions were provided;
b) Model guidelines and tools (including Environmental and Social Safeguards and Gender) that could be utilised by local financial institutions are designed;
c) Awareness of local banks and non-banking financial institutions on the requirements for such policies and advice on potential avenues for advancing respective regulatory framework is increased.

ATTACHMENTS:

RFP_07-002_ESS_Consulting Company.pdf - ToR