Denmark – Foreign economic-aid-related services – Consultancy framework agreement for formulation, appraisal and review of Danish development cooperation programmes and projects

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (MFA) is in the process of streamlining the management of its development cooperation. Part of this effort concerns the simplification of the procurement process of key consultancy services relating to development cooperation. Consultancy contracts are currently procured individually by the case worker responsible for the programme or project. Case workers are MFA staff from MFA Services at Home and Services Abroad. They are responsible for the procurement process of individual contracts which is often lengthy, and can have implications on programme and project implementation timelines. Moreover, the fragmentation of the process makes it difficult to use the feedback from case workers on the fulfilment of the assignments. This makes it challenging to harvest learning from past performance and ensure a sustained quality of services. It is in this context that the MFA wishes to consolidate the procurement of consultancy services through a framework agreement with multiple contractors. The streamlining of the management of Danish development cooperation entailed a revision of the Danida – Aid Management Guidelines (AMG). This foresees a delegation of key tasks to external consultants, primarily appraisals, and thereby an expected rise in the number of consultancy services to be requested. It is therefore an opportune time to seek a more streamlined procurement process of consultancy services. The AMG’s Bilateral Guidelines (https://amg.um.dk/bilateral-cooperation/guidelines-for-programmes-projects-country-strategic-frameworks-and-hard-earmarked-multilat-support) and Financial Management Guidelines (https://amg.um.dk/bilateral-cooperation/financial-management) constitute the basic set of procedures for all Danish bilateral development cooperation. The guidelines outline the processes and requirements for the preparation, formulation, quality assurance, approval, implementation, completion and closure of Danish bilateral program