INVITATION FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (EOI) FOR THE PROVISION OF BULK INTERNET CAPACITY FOR SMART AFRICA ALLIANCE MEMBER STATES Re-Advertised

Similar Jobs in Rwanda
Learn more about SMART Africa
SMART Africa jobs in Rwanda

This notice is placed by the Smart Africa Secretariat. The accuracy, reliability, and completeness of the contents of furnished information is the responsibility of the Smart Africa Secretariat.  

1. ABOUT SMART AFRICA 

The Smart Africa Alliance is a Pan-African institution with 36 African Member States. It is a bold and innovative initiative from African Heads of State and Governments who are committed to accelerate sustainable socioeconomic development on the continent, by harmonizing policies, regulations, and ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through affordable access to Broadband and usage of Information and Communications Technologies. 

Held from 28th-31st October 2013, the Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali, Rwanda culminated in the adoption of the Smart Africa Manifesto document in which seven (7) African Heads of States committed to provide leadership in accelerating socio-economic development through ICT’s. 

On 30th-31st January 2014, the SMART Africa Manifesto was endorsed by all Heads of State and Government of the African Union at the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa. This development places the Manifesto at the heart of the ICT agenda in Africa beyond the original signatories at the Summit to all the African countries. 

Currently, the Alliance is a partnership bringing together all African countries adhering to the Manifesto represented by the African Union (AU), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), World Bank, African Development Bank (AfDB), the GSMA, ICANN and the Private Sector. Besides its initial membership, other organizations and countries sharing the same vision, interests and goals will be admitted to the Alliance. 

The Smart Africa Alliance (Smart Africa) is a multi-lateral institution for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Smart Africa Manifesto designed to make it actionable. Smart Africa’s vision is to transform Africa into a single digital market through several carefully selected interventions within the field of ICT and leverage the continental economies of scale, as Africa seeks to develop further. 

This vision is supported by 3 groups of objectives:

• build resilient and sustainable digital Infrastructure for Africa,
• drive agile policy and regulatory harmonization to attract investment to the African digital landscape, and
• leverage technology to accelerate the inclusive uptake of digital public goods and services across Africa. 

THE BULK INTERNET CAPACITY FOR SMART AFRICA MEMBER STATES 

The objective of the Bulk Internet Capacity for Smart Africa Member States project is to provide affordable and sustainable Internet capacity to member states by aggregating international broadband and internet capacity. The project will utilize the principle of economy of scale, where an increase in volume results in a decrease in the cost per GB of data volume. 

The project's main goal is to make broadband more accessible and affordable for member states by securing a long-term agreement with international broadband providers for bulk purchase of internet capacity. The focus will be on rural and unconnected areas to boost the affordability of mobile services in these areas.  This would be based on reliable and aggregated projections of broadband volumes from Smart Africa member states, ensuring a steady level of income for providers over a long period and ultimately reducing costs. 

• DETAILS OF THE REQUIREMENTS 

• Smart Africa Secretariat (SAS) intends to solicit proposals for the provision of Internet capacity (satellite, fiber or through a combination of both) to Smart Africa Alliance member states to stimulate the broadband affordability.
• The project consists of:
• The provision of Internet capacity (fiber or satellite) for Smart Africa Alliance member states to the designated Point of Presence (PoP) in the countries.
• The provision of a fully redundant Internet capacity without any single point of failure (SPoF).
• The offering of an affordable and highly competitive tiered pricing to align with Smart Africa's goals of transforming the continent into a single digital market by 2030.
• The ability to bridge the usage gap to significantly increase the number of people connected on the continent. 

DECLARATION OF COMPLIANCE OF PRE-REQUISITES FOR ELIGIBILITY 

To be eligible for responding to this expression of interest: the company must state the following: 

1. the company has not declared bankruptcy, is not involved in bankruptcy or receivership proceedings, and there is no judgment or pending legal action against the company that could impair the company's operations in the foreseeable future;
2. the company does not employ, or anticipate employing, any person(s) who is, or has been a SAS staff member within the last year, if said SAS staff member has or had prior professional dealings with the Vendor in his/her capacity as SAS staff member within the last three years of service with the SAS (in accordance with SAS post-employment restrictions;
3. the company undertakes not to engage in proscribed practices (including but not limited to : corruption, fraud, coercion, collusion, obstruction, money laundering, or any other unethical practice), with the Smart Africa Secretariat or any other party, and to conduct business in a manner that averts any financial, operational, reputational or other undue risk to the Smart Africa Secretariat. 

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Any false, incomplete, or defective vendor registration may result in the rejection of the application or cancellation of an already existing registration. 

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST EVALUATION PROCESS

The pre-qualification for evaluation of the response to the EOI will be based on the following:

• The submission of administrative documents, including the Company Registration Certificate as well as the Tax Clearance certificates.
• The submission of duly completed and signed Smart Africa Secretariat Vendor Registration Form (Annex 1)
• The submission of duly completed and signed Smart Africa Secretariat Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (Annex 2)
• The signed Declaration of compliance of pre-requisites for eligibility
• Technical proposals as per below requirements in the grid
• Proof of payment of the $10,000 (non-refundable) fees for participation in this expression of interest.

Firms/Companies that are pre-qualified will be evaluated based on the following criteria and weights: 

Note: The companies which will respond to this EOI and subsequently selected will be invited to submit detailed technical and financial proposals based on the Scope of Works (SoW), Bill of Quantities (BoQ), Technical Specifications, General Conditions of Contracts and other related documents which will be provided by SAS.  

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS 

A response to this expression of interest must include the following sections in the order listed: 

• A cover letter confirming the firm’s interest in providing the services and highlighting whether it will do it alone or through partnerships. 

• Administrative documents: Company Registration Certificate as an Internet capacity provider company (including for its sub-contractors, if any), and Tax clearance certificates and proof of tendering fees of $10,000 payment. Failure to submit will lead to automatic disqualification of the offer. 

• The company profile describing the company, its structure, resources, business products and services and present and past customers. 

• Technical proposal containing the following content:
  • Company’s experience with providing wholesale capacity, with similar projects of scope.
  • Demonstration of a minimum of two (02) years’ experience in implementing projects with multi-country wholesale Internet capacity provisioning.
  • List of wholesale Internet capacity provisioning projects with the following details: project names, project short descriptions, project duration, beneficiary country and wholesale capacity provided.
  • Certification of completion of projects listed for at least three (3) different countries with reference details (Name, Phone number, email addresses).
  • Mission team set-up and experience:
    • Core team structure and roles for at least three positions
    • Profiles/bios of key personnel for the roles, highlighting relevant experience and providing concrete references (project names, short descriptions)
  • Proposed implementation approach
  • High-level workplan, milestones and readiness to deliver wholesale capacity. 

• Duly completed and signed forms:
  • Smart Africa Secretariate Vendor Registration Form (Link to the Annex 1)
  • Smart Africa Secretariate Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (Link to the Annex 2) 

• Signed Declaration of compliance of pre-requisites for eligibility 

• Proof of payment of the tender fees $10,000 (non-refundable) fees for participation in this expression of interest.

NOTES:

• Information on tendering for the SAS Procurement System is available free of charge at the following address: http://smartafrica.org
• Vendors interested in this Tender Alert Service are invited to subscribe on http://www.smartafrica.org
• Vendors interested in fulfilling the requirement described above must fill the vendor registration form with the Smart Africa Secretariat to be eligible to participate in any solicitations

• EXPRESSION OF INTEREST SUBMISSION PROCESS

Interested candidates are required to express their interest by submitting the PDF copies of proposals to the email addresses provided on the Cover Page by 14^th August 2023 at 17:00 (Local time, Kigali). The proposal will be submitted with e-mail title: “Expressions of Interest for Bulk Internet Capacity for Smart Africa Alliance Member States”.  

Vendors interested in participating in the planned solicitation process should forward their expression of interest (EOI) to Smart Africa Secretariat, by the closing date set forth in this EOI. 

•  ENQUIRIES: 

Any enquires must be received at least 10 days before the closing date for the submission of any proposal through tenderenquiries@smartafrica.org 

 RIGHTS RESERVED:

• The SAS reserves the right in selecting the invitees for the competitive bidding based on substantial and   proven records of performance in the subject field of activities and mere expressing an interest would not     automatically warrant for tender
• This Request for EoI does not obligate the Smart Africa Secretariat (SAS) to complete the Request for EOI process.
• SAS reserves the right to amend any segment of the Request of EoI prior to the announcement of a selected providers.
• SAS also reserves the right to remove one or more of the services from consideration for this request for EoI should the evaluation show that it is in SAS’s best interest to do so.
• SAS also may, at its discretion, issue a separate contract for any service or groups of services included in this Request of EoI.
• Smart Africa reserves the right to debrief the applicants after the completion of the process due to the expected high volume of applications and avoiding the compromise of the process.