Consultancy services for the development of Utilities Performance Improvement Action Plans (PIAPS) in participating countries.

_____________________________________________________ REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (CONSULTING SERVICES – FIRMS SELECTION) Country: Multinational Name of Project: Accelerating Access to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region Project Grant No .: P506439 Assignment Title: Procurement of consultancy services for Utility Diagnostics, Performance Improvement Action Plans (PIAPs), Digitalization Maturity Assessment and New IBNET Benchmarking under the AFE WASH MPA Regional Support Project Reference No : 006/AUDA/DITIR/QCBS/2027 Method: Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) Introduction The African Union Development Agency – New Partnership for Africa Development (AUDA-NEPAD) has received financing from the World Bank toward the cost of the “Resilient Irrigation for a Sustainable Economy Project”, and intends to apply part of the proceeds for consulting services. “ Procurement of consultancy services for Utility Diagnostics, Performance Improvement Action Plans (PIAPs), Digitalization Maturity Assessment and New IBNET Benchmarking under the AFE WASH MPA Regional Support Project ” Description of Services The consulting services (“the Services”) include: Task 1: Inception and Utility Prioritization : confirms full alignment of the baseline diagnostic methodology with the AFE WASH MPA PAD (P506439), Component 3 results framework, and World Bank ESF requirements , applies a Utility Prioritization Framework ranking utilities. The consultant will work with a maximum list of 06 proposed utilities by the MPA participating countries, and build a database using, key baseline data on utility characteristics, size and performance, but also considering the characteristics of the enabling environment including criteria related to accountability, transparency, government reform commitment, and climate vulnerability to produce the final utility list and country sequencing for Round 1 (Months 1 to 10) and Round 2 (Months 8 to 20) etc; Task 2: NewIB