Details

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Ministry of International Business and Industry (MIBI), the Barbados Investment & Development Corporation (BIDC) and the Clean Tech Cluster Barbados (BLOOM) are jointly implementing the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project “Strategic platform to promote sustainable energy technology innovation, industrial development and entrepreneurship in Barbados”. The project contributes to the implementation of the National Strategic Plan 2005-2025, which aims at making Barbados a “green circular economy” and the “most environmentally advanced green country in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

The development of a “clean-tech market” in Barbados requires an equilibrium between demand and local supply of green quality products and services. However, currently the capacities of the local private sector to deliver these products and services are limited. Barbadian clean-tech businesses and start-ups face manifold barriers related to policy and regulation, knowledge, capacity, as well as access to R&D, quality infrastructure and finance. Moreover, there exists only a very limited coordination and cooperation within the sector.

Therefore, the GEF Project aims to strengthen the local supplier-side and the creation of an enabling environment for clean-tech entrepreneurship and innovation. Specifically, the project:

  1. establishes a national public-private policy dialogue platform to promote coherent demand and supplier-oriented cross-sectoral policies, regulations and incentives;
  2. establishes the BLOOM – Clean Tech Cluster Barbados, which will act as one-stop shop and provide customer-oriented services to its members (e.g. information exchange, training, applied R&D, entrepreneurial support, shared facilities, matchmaking and networking, lobbying & advocacy, fund raising, joint tendering & sourcing, joint project, product and patent development, market intelligence and export promotion);
  3. promotes joint ventures between the cluster members and entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, financiers in the Caribbean, other SIDS and internationally (incl. the diaspora);
  4. creates an entrepreneurship facility which will provide various financial/insurance products for the commercialisation innovative business ideas and industrial up-grading;
  5. contributes to the creation of qualification and certification frameworks for personal, products and services and provide targeted training to current and future members of the cluster;
  6. supports also the efforts of the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (CCREEE) to establish a regional program on sustainable energy and climate technology innovation and entrepreneurship for the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The CCREEE is situated in Barbados.

 

The GEF project has achieved laudable progress. With support from UNIDO, the Barbados Cleantech Cluster (BLOOM) has become fully operational in 2020. It is hosted by BIDC and has already established a broad range of international partnerships. It has also launched its incubation program, which offers mentoring services to a number of clean-tech businesses and start-ups. The BLOOM website is available at: www.bloomcluster.com. Further information on the GEF-UNIDO project is available at: https://open.unido.org/projects/BB/projects/150123.

In this context, UNIDO seeks external consultancy support to undertake a mid-term project review (MTR) in line with GEF and UNIDO evaluation requirements and guidelines. The purpose of the review is to collect inputs for the second phase of project implementation and the replication/upscaling of achieved results. The MTR will also provide a structure for the more comprehensive final terminal evaluation to be conducted at the end of the project. Further information on the GEF MTR process is available at http://www.gefieo.org/policies and the UNIDO Evaluation Manual: https://www.unido.org/resources-evaluation/evaluation-resources.

The objective of the assignment is to conduct a MTR and assist in the development of two project concept notes in line with international donor requirements. To achieve the MTR objectives, a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods should be applied. The evidence gathering should be based on diverse sources, such as desk studies and literature review, statistical analysis, individual interviews and direct observation. Bidders shall propose a suitable evaluation methodology and an effective implementation strategy for the assignment. A theory of change diagram will be established and a detailed set of evaluation questions will be developed in consultation with UNIDO and BLOOM/BIDC during the inception phase. The MTR should provide evidence-based information that is credible, reliable and useful for the stated objectives.

The assignment includes the following tasks and deliverables:

  1. Develop a mid-term project review (MTR) report in line with the GEF/UNIDO evaluation requirements and the templates provided by the UNIDO Project Manger. The contractor will review the progress in relation to the established indicators in the result framework of the GEF CEO Endorsement Document. The review will consider standard OECD/DAC evaluation criteria (e.g. relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact, cross-cutting issues such as gender). The report will make recommendations for the second phase of project implementation. Moreover, it will propose programmatic approaches to up-scale and replicate the achieved results.

 

  1. Based on the recommendations of the MTR, the contractor will develop one concept note (incl. the draft result framework) for one project proposal linked to the GEF-6 project in line with international climate finance requirements (max. 10 A4 pages each). The concept will be oriented towards the long-term sustainability of the established BLOOM cluster and project results. The concept note will be developed with inputs of the UNIDO/BLOOM team and provided by the contractor fully edited and ready to be submitted.

Applicants are requested to submit their proposals no later than 2nd May, 2021, 23:00 hrs., CET, by registering on the UNIDO procurement page (www.unido.org/procurement). In case of difficulties, applications could exceptionally be sent to procurement@unido.org. The bidder should, however, provide an objective and convincing justification for not having submitted via the procurement system.

https://www.unido.org/resources-procurement/procurement-opportunities