ToR: Integrated programme for Women and Youth Agri-Entrepreneurship and Scheme Access for Landscape-Level Scale-Up

Ask Me Anything Session:

May 13, 2026; 3:00-4:00 pm IST

Ask me Anything for Integrated programme for Women and Youth Agri-Entrepreneurship and Scheme Access for Landscape-Level Scale-Up | Meeting-Join | Microsoft Teams

Stichting IDH (“IDH”) accelerates and up-scales sustainable trade by building impact-oriented coalitions of front running companies, civil society, governments, knowledge institutions and other stakeholders in several commodity sectors. We convene the interests, strengths and knowledge of public and private partners in sustainability commodity programs that aim to mainstream international and domestic commodity markets. We jointly formulate strategic intervention plans with public and private partners, and we co-invest with partners in activities that generate public goods.

On the basis of these Terms of Reference (“ToR”), IDH seeks to select a service provider to develop a cadre of Women Agri-Entrepreneurs operating across three co-equal and mutually reinforcing mandates: bio-input enterprise development, agronomy extension, and government scheme facilitation. These three pillars are not ranked in priority each is essential to the programme’s theory of change and must be reflected with equal rigour in the service provider’s design and delivery.

Within the Regenerative Production Landscape Collaborative (RPLC), the transition toward regenerative and resilient farming systems depends as much on what happens at the last mile as it does on policy commitments or market signals. Smallholder farmers — particularly women and socially marginalised groups — face a compounding set of barriers: limited access to quality agri-inputs and technical advice, and chronic under-utilisation of the government schemes, subsidies, and welfare entitlements to which they are already eligible.

This programme addresses both gaps through a single, integrated intervention: the development of a cadre of Women Agri-Entrepreneurs who are equipped to run viable rural enterprises while simultaneously serving as trusted, community-embedded facilitators who connect farming households to public systems.

The agri-entrepreneurship model is grounded in an emerging and well-evidenced approach to rural development in India. Evidence from community-based agri-enterprise programmes has shown that women from farming communities when recruited through rigorous selection, supported through structured training and mentorship, and given the foundation to launch viable agri-businesses become reliable and sustained service providers for their communities. Critically, this model works because women have a financial stake in their own enterprises: the incentive to perform is intrinsic, not contingent on programme continuation. This is what distinguishes an agri-entrepreneur from an extension worker, and it is the model this programme seeks to replicate.

Alongside this enterprise opportunity, a significant and largely untapped public resource exists in the form of central and state government schemes: PM-KISAN, Kisan Credit Card (KCC), crop insurance (PMFBY), soil health cards, input subsidies, PM Kusum, and a range of allied welfare entitlements. Awareness of these schemes among smallholder farmers remains limited, and even where awareness exists, documentation gaps, institutional complexity, and weak follow-through prevent eligible households from converting entitlement into benefit. A community-based facilitator trusted, present, and trained is one of the most effective mechanisms for closing this gap and directing public investment toward the farmers who need it most.

This assignment brings these two elements together: building women as agri-entrepreneurs with sustainable livelihoods and deploying them as frontline facilitators who unlock public funding and services for the farming communities they serve.

The selected service provider will undertake the following phases:

The selected service provider will execute the following phases. Phases 1 and 2 establish the programme foundation; Phases 3 and 4 build the capability of women entrepreneurs; Phases 5 and 6 constitute the sustained operational delivery period; Phase 7 runs throughout.

Phase 1: Inception, Landscape Assessment and Programme Design

• Conduct a rapid landscape assessment across target blocks covering: which could also include existing agri-enterprise activity and infrastructure, current scheme ecosystem and uptake rates, institutional stakeholders and nodal officers, and the profile of potential women entrepreneur candidates.
• Map priority central and state government schemes relevant to the target farmer population, including eligibility criteria, documentation requirements, application channels, and known bottlenecks.
• Review and contextualise a structured incubation lifecycle covering selection, training, mentorship, business launch, and sustained growth for the specific geography and programme objectives.
• Co-develop with IDH and RPLC partners: the operational framework, selection criteria, training curriculum design, performance indicators, and reporting architecture.
• Establish a farmer baseline in target villages: demographic and socio-economic profile, current scheme enrolment, and preliminary mapping of unmet eligibility giving each entrepreneur a defined starting caseload for scheme facilitation on deployment.
• Conduct community mobilisation at village and panchayat level, in coordination with selected IPs, FPOs, and SHGs, to attract eligible women candidates.
• Implement a structured, transparent selection process:  aptitude assessment, screening, and personal interview.
• Conduct home visits to assess household context, family support, and investment capacity.
• Register selected women into the programme with clear, mutual commitments: a minimum two-year mentorship engagement, defined business targets, and scheme facilitation targets.
• Business fundamentals: planning, pricing, margins, break-even, record-keeping, and financial management.
• Agri-enterprise operations relevant to the landscape: agri-input supply, market linkages, farm services, and — where applicable — bio-input production and management at or linked to Bio-input Resource Centres (BRCs).
• Customer acquisition, farmer relationship management, and service delivery.
• Access to credit: KCC facilitation, NABARD and SHG linkages, and working capital management.
• Digital tools for business management: transaction recording, farmer data management, and reporting.
• Agronomy and technical knowledge: regenerative practices, bio-input application, soil health, pest and disease management so that women can provide credible advisory support as part of their service offering.
• Certification: support women to access relevant accreditation (e.g., CCS NIAM or equivalent) to strengthen their professional standing and market access.
• Comprehensive scheme knowledge such as PM-KISAN, KCC, PMFBY (crop insurance), soil health cards, PM Kusum, input subsidies, and applicable state-level schemes in Madhya Pradesh, including welfare entitlements beyond agriculture. Such as Livelihood Schemes, Health & Insurance Schemes, Social Welfare & Cash Assistance, Housing, Employment & Basic Rights, Nutrition, Sanitation & Public Services, Water & Irrigation etc.
• Farmer eligibility screening: structured questionnaire methodology, eligibility decision trees by scheme, and document checklist protocols.
• Application process navigation: form completion, documentation collection and verification, submission through online and offline channels, and departmental interface.
• Conversion tracking: maintaining records from application submission to benefit receipt; identifying stuck applications and escalation pathways.
• Grievance redressal: understanding farmer rights, complaint mechanisms, and how to escalate systemic issues to district and block-level officials.
• Digital tools: beneficiary tracking systems, government portals, and data reporting dashboards.
• Support each woman entrepreneur to finalise and launch her agri-business: legal compliance, necessary licences, formal registration where applicable, and an agreed set of services and products for her village market.
• Where BRCs and Biochar centres exist and are operationally ready, facilitate women’s integration with or anchoring at these centres as a business base to enabling bio-input supply as one revenue stream within a broader enterprise.
• Establish farmer onboarding targets: each entrepreneur to onboard farmers as regular customers and advisory clients within the first operating year.
• Activate scheme facilitation caseloads: using the Phase 1 baseline data, each entrepreneur begins with a defined set of households identified as having unmet scheme eligibility, enabling structured and prioritised outreach from day one.
• Establish coordination mechanisms with local government departments, banks, Panchayat institutions, and FPOs to support both enterprise operations and scheme facilitation.
• Regular supply of agri-inputs such as bio-inputs or nature-based inputs advisory services, and market linkage support to farmer clients.
• Ongoing business management: inventory, transactions, customer relationships, and financial records.
• Expansion of service range and farmer reach to platforms such as ONDC as the business matures.
• Conduct structured awareness and screening camps in assigned villages to identify eligible farmers through socio-economic questionnaires.
• Guide farmers through scheme selection, documentation, and application submission — providing hands-on support rather than referral alone.
• Track application from submission to benefit delivery; follow up regularly with relevant departments to resolve delays and improve conversion rates.
• Ensure coverage extends beyond agricultural schemes to broader welfare entitlements that contribute to household resilience.
• Operate accessible grievance channels and maintain track of outstanding cases.
• Deploy dedicated field mentors for a minimum 2-year period per entrepreneur, covering both enterprise performance and scheme facilitation outcomes.
• Conduct regular field visits, business reviews, and peer learning exchanges.
• Track KPIs across both mandates: revenue, farmer reach, and input volumes for enterprise; applications filed, conversion rates, and grievance turnaround for scheme facilitation.
• Identify high-performing entrepreneurs for expanded roles: additional business lines, mentorship of newer cohorts, or representation in Compact-level governance.
• Maintain integrated data systems capturing enterprise performance, farmer advisory engagement, scheme applications filed, and benefit conversion disaggregated by gender and social group.
• Produce periodic evidence reports for Compact governance and government stakeholder engagement, linking field data to policy recommendations on scheme delivery efficiency.
• Document operational learnings and develop a replication framework for scaling the model across additional RPLC landscapes.
• Both the project partner and extension agent agents need to share the findings during the public meetings organized by the RPLC and program implementation partners.

Phase 2: Recruitment, Selection and Onboarding

• Conduct community mobilisation at village and panchayat level, in coordination with selected IPs, FPOs, and SHGs, to attract eligible women candidates.
• Implement a structured, transparent selection process:  aptitude assessment, screening, and personal interview.
• Conduct home visits to assess household context, family support, and investment capacity.
• Register selected women into the programme with clear, mutual commitments: a minimum two-year mentorship engagement, defined business targets, and scheme facilitation targets.

Phase 3: Training and Capacity Building

Training must equip women across both mandates. The two tracks below should be delivered as an integrated programme, not as separate modules, so that women understand the connections between enterprise viability and scheme facilitation in practice.

Track A — Agri-Entrepreneurship:

• Business fundamentals: planning, pricing, margins, break-even, record-keeping, and financial management.
• Agri-enterprise operations relevant to the landscape: agri-input supply, market linkages, farm services, and — where applicable — bio-input production and management at or linked to Bio-input Resource Centres (BRCs).
• Customer acquisition, farmer relationship management, and service delivery.
• Access to credit: KCC facilitation, NABARD and SHG linkages, and working capital management.
• Digital tools for business management: transaction recording, farmer data management, and reporting.
• Agronomy and technical knowledge: regenerative practices, bio-input application, soil health, pest and disease management so that women can provide credible advisory support as part of their service offering.
• Certification: support women to access relevant accreditation (e.g., CCS NIAM or equivalent) to strengthen their professional standing and market access.
• Comprehensive scheme knowledge such as PM-KISAN, KCC, PMFBY (crop insurance), soil health cards, PM Kusum, input subsidies, and applicable state-level schemes in Madhya Pradesh, including welfare entitlements beyond agriculture. Such as Livelihood Schemes, Health & Insurance Schemes, Social Welfare & Cash Assistance, Housing, Employment & Basic Rights, Nutrition, Sanitation & Public Services, Water & Irrigation etc.
• Farmer eligibility screening: structured questionnaire methodology, eligibility decision trees by scheme, and document checklist protocols.
• Application process navigation: form completion, documentation collection and verification, submission through online and offline channels, and departmental interface.
• Conversion tracking: maintaining records from application submission to benefit receipt; identifying stuck applications and escalation pathways.
• Grievance redressal: understanding farmer rights, complaint mechanisms, and how to escalate systemic issues to district and block-level officials.
• Digital tools: beneficiary tracking systems, government portals, and data reporting dashboards.

Track B — Government Scheme Facilitation:

• Comprehensive scheme knowledge such as PM-KISAN, KCC, PMFBY (crop insurance), soil health cards, PM Kusum, input subsidies, and applicable state-level schemes in Madhya Pradesh, including welfare entitlements beyond agriculture. Such as Livelihood Schemes, Health & Insurance Schemes, Social Welfare & Cash Assistance, Housing, Employment & Basic Rights, Nutrition, Sanitation & Public Services, Water & Irrigation etc.
• Farmer eligibility screening: structured questionnaire methodology, eligibility decision trees by scheme, and document checklist protocols.
• Application process navigation: form completion, documentation collection and verification, submission through online and offline channels, and departmental interface.
• Conversion tracking: maintaining records from application submission to benefit receipt; identifying stuck applications and escalation pathways.
• Grievance redressal: understanding farmer rights, complaint mechanisms, and how to escalate systemic issues to district and block-level officials.
• Digital tools: beneficiary tracking systems, government portals, and data reporting dashboards.

Phase 4: Business Launch and Deployment

• Support each woman entrepreneur to finalise and launch her agri-business: legal compliance, necessary licences, formal registration where applicable, and an agreed set of services and products for her village market.
• Where BRCs and Biochar centres exist and are operationally ready, facilitate women’s integration with or anchoring at these centres as a business base to enabling bio-input supply as one revenue stream within a broader enterprise.
• Establish farmer onboarding targets: each entrepreneur to onboard farmers as regular customers and advisory clients within the first operating year.
• Activate scheme facilitation caseloads: using the Phase 1 baseline data, each entrepreneur begins with a defined set of households identified as having unmet scheme eligibility, enabling structured and prioritised outreach from day one.
• Establish coordination mechanisms with local government departments, banks, Panchayat institutions, and FPOs to support both enterprise operations and scheme facilitation.

Phase 5: Operational Delivery — Enterprise and Scheme Facilitation

This phase constitutes the sustained delivery period and runs concurrently across both mandates. The agri-entrepreneur needs to carry out the following activities on the ground

Enterprise operations:

• Regular supply of agri-inputs such as bio-inputs or nature-based inputs advisory services, and market linkage support to farmer clients.
• Ongoing business management: inventory, transactions, customer relationships, and financial records.
• Expansion of service range and farmer reach to platforms such as ONDC as the business matures.
• Conduct structured awareness and screening camps in assigned villages to identify eligible farmers through socio-economic questionnaires.
• Guide farmers through scheme selection, documentation, and application submission — providing hands-on support rather than referral alone.
• Track application from submission to benefit delivery; follow up regularly with relevant departments to resolve delays and improve conversion rates.
• Ensure coverage extends beyond agricultural schemes to broader welfare entitlements that contribute to household resilience.
• Operate accessible grievance channels and maintain track of outstanding cases.

Scheme facilitation:

• Conduct structured awareness and screening camps in assigned villages to identify eligible farmers through socio-economic questionnaires.
• Guide farmers through scheme selection, documentation, and application submission — providing hands-on support rather than referral alone.
• Track application from submission to benefit delivery; follow up regularly with relevant departments to resolve delays and improve conversion rates.
• Ensure coverage extends beyond agricultural schemes to broader welfare entitlements that contribute to household resilience.
• Operate accessible grievance channels and maintain track of outstanding cases.

Phase 6: Mentorship, Performance Review and Growth

• Deploy dedicated field mentors for a minimum 2-year period per entrepreneur, covering both enterprise performance and scheme facilitation outcomes.
• Conduct regular field visits, business reviews, and peer learning exchanges.
• Track KPIs across both mandates: revenue, farmer reach, and input volumes for enterprise; applications filed, conversion rates, and grievance turnaround for scheme facilitation.
• Identify high-performing entrepreneurs for expanded roles: additional business lines, mentorship of newer cohorts, or representation in Compact-level governance.

Phase 7: Data, Evidence and Learning (Ongoing)

• Maintain integrated data systems capturing enterprise performance, farmer advisory engagement, scheme applications filed, and benefit conversion disaggregated by gender and social group.
• Produce periodic evidence reports for Compact governance and government stakeholder engagement, linking field data to policy recommendations on scheme delivery efficiency.
• Document operational learnings and develop a replication framework for scaling the model across additional RPLC landscapes.
• Both the project partner and extension agent agents need to share the findings during the public meetings organized by the RPLC and program implementation partners.

Objectives

The primary objective of this assignment is to design and operationalise a cadre of Women Agri-Entrepreneurs in selected blocks of Madhya Pradesh, who are equipped to build and sustain viable agri-businesses and to systematically facilitate smallholder farmers’ access to government agricultural schemes and welfare entitlements.

The assignment operates across two integrated mandates:

Mandate 1 — Agri-Entrepreneurship:

• Recruit, incubate, and mentor women from farming communities to establish and grow viable agri-enterprises, providing goods and services that meet genuine demand in their villages.
• Equip women with the business management, financial, and technical skills needed to run self-sustaining operations — with bio-input resource centres serving as one potential anchor site for enterprise activity where they exist.
• Support women to access credit, institutional linkages, supply chains, and government support relevant to agri-entrepreneurs, so that their businesses are viable beyond the programme period.
• Build a hyperlocal, service infrastructure that strengthens the supply of quality agri-inputs and advisory support to smallholder farmers in the landscape.

Mandate 2 — Government Scheme Facilitation:

• Train and deploy women agri-entrepreneurs as frontline facilitators who identify farmer eligibility for priority central and state schemes, support application processes, and follow through until benefits are received.
• Improve the conversion rate from scheme eligibility to benefit receipt among smallholder and marginal farmer households, with particular attention to women and youth farmers and socially disadvantaged groups.
• Generate field-level data on scheme delivery performance — including uptake rates, rejection causes, documentation gaps, and grievance patterns — to inform Compact-level governance and government engagement.
• Strengthen convergence between public support systems and regenerative agriculture adoption, using scheme access as an entry point for building farmer resilience.

Integrated Deliverables (serving both mandates)

D1. Landscape Assessment Report (End of Phase 1) This report will capture findings from the rapid assessment of agri-enterprise infrastructure, including BRC readiness, scheme ecosystem mapping, institutional stakeholder analysis, and the farmer baseline. It will also include a preliminary inventory of scheme eligibility.

D2. Programme Operational Framework (End of Phase 1) This document will serve as the programme design document, covering the structured incubation lifecycle for both mandates, selection criteria, training curriculum outline, mentorship structure, performance indicators, and reporting architecture.

D5. Integrated Training Curriculum (Phase 3) A curriculum developed for both Track A (agri-entrepreneurship) and Track B (scheme facilitation), including field manuals, facilitator guides, and assessment tools.

D8. Quarterly Progress Reports (Throughout Programme) These reports will track KPIs across both mandates, including enterprise revenue, farmer reach, input volumes, scheme applications filed, converted, pending, and rejected, along with trend analysis and notes on mentorship quality.

D10. Baseline, Midline and Endline Impact Reports (Key Programme Milestones) These reports will track outcomes disaggregated by gender and social group, including women entrepreneurs' income and business sustainability, scheme benefit receipt, and household welfare indicators among served farmers.

D11. Replication and Scale-up Framework (End of Programme) This framework will provide an operational guide and evidence base for replicating the integrated women's agri-entrepreneurship and scheme facilitation model across additional RPLC landscapes, including recommendations for embedding the model into government systems.

Track A: Agri-Entrepreneurship

D4. Women Entrepreneur Cohort Report (End of Phase 2) This report will document the selection process, cohort profile, onboarding baseline, and agreed targets for each entrepreneur across both mandates.

D6. Individual Business Plans (Phases 3–4) Each entrepreneur will develop an individual business plan outlining the enterprise model, financial projections, farmer outreach targets, and Year 1 scheme facilitation targets.

D7. Business Launch and Deployment Report (End of Phase 4) This report will document business registrations, BRC linkages where applicable, farmer onboarding progress, and activation of scheme facilitation caseloads.

Track B: Scheme Linkage

D3. Farmer Baseline and Scheme Eligibility Inventory (End of Phase 2) A village-level baseline covering farmer demographics, current scheme enrolment, and mapped unmet eligibility. This will form the starting facilitation caseload for each entrepreneur.

D9. Scheme Delivery and Grievance Analysis Reports (Biannual) These reports will analyse application conversion rates, rejection causes, documentation barriers, and grievance patterns, and provide actionable recommendations for district and state stakeholders.

The procedure will be as follows:

1. Publishing the tender and/or inviting services providers to submit a proposal based on this ToR.
2. IDH will host a ‘Ask me Anything’ session to resolve any queries applicants may have.
3. Evaluation of the proposals by an internal IDH committee. The evaluation committee will evaluate the proposals based on the selection criteria as published in this ToR.
4. Decision on selection of the service provider.
5. Inception meeting with the selected service provider.

The schedule below indicates the timelines for the selection of the service provider: 

• ToR published: 06.05.2026
• Ask me Anything (AMA) session: 12.05.2026
• Deadline for submitted proposals*: 21.05.2026 by 2300Hrs IST
• Selection of service provider: 30.05.2026

* Questions received by IDH after this date will not be answered.

IDH is requesting the service providers to hand in a proposal of maximum 5 [number] pages (excluding company biographies, CVs, sample work and references). The proposal must be handed in a MS Word or PowerPoint version next to a PDF submission to facilitate any copy-and-pasting of content that we may need during evaluation.    Service providers must submit a proposal (max. 5 pages, excluding annexures) including:

• Detailed technical approach and methodology
• Summary of previous relevant assignments
• Proposed team composition with roles and time allocation
• Timeline and deliverable schedule
• Financial proposal (as per Annex 2 template)
• Sample of previous government-oriented documentation work

We are looking for partners with the below mentioned criteria:

IDH is seeking a service provider with the following qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience in agriculture, livelihoods, or rural welfare  programmes• Proven capacity to recruit, train, and manage community-level field cadres• Experience in farmer outreach, mobilisation, and government scheme           facilitation• Ability to implement structured monitoring, reporting, and data-driven systems• Prior engagement with government departments and public delivery systems• Experience using digital tools for beneficiary tracking and reporting• Strong gender and inclusion orientation, especially working with women and vulnerable farmer groups  

The proposal must at least include:

Content:

1. A succinct, well-documented approach addressing the requirements set out this ToR. We request that the proposal structure match the selection criteria as closely as possible
2. Maximum of three client references and a sample of previous work relevant to the deliverables in this ToR,
3. An overview of the project team, including the CVs of the project team members,
4. Budget (as per template in Annex 2), Please note : i. The budget should not include any costs related to asset creation or procurement.
5. Enterprise development support condition involves in case financial support for enterprise development is not being provided under this project, IDH will not cover any business development costs for extension agents. All unit development activities must be undertaken through convergence with existing schemes or through contributions from the extension agents themselves.
6. Description of safeguarding approach[1] (does the service provider have a safeguarding policy in place, and if not, are they able and committed to comply to and implement IDH’s safeguarding policy (to be found here); steps (to be) taken to identify risks in relation to safeguarding in the project at hand and description of approach to mitigate these safeguarding risks (if any),
7. Statement on Ground for exclusion (see Section 6 below).
8. Completed detail request form (Annex 3),
9. Copy of most recent (audited) financial accounts, if available,
10. Statement of acceptance draft contract (Annex 4).

Administrative:

The proposal must be submitted to Subhadra Kaul or Vikramjeet Sharma at kaul@idhtrade.org or vikramjeetsharma@idhtrade.org before 17.05.2026 at 2300 Hrs.

[1] IDH’s safeguarding approach means taking all reasonable steps to identify and minimize the risk of harm caused by sexual exploitation, abuse, harassment (“Harm”) to children and vulnerable adults arising from coming into contact with our staff, partners or our work. In addition, safeguarding means protecting our staff itself from such Harm. For more information, please find IDH’s Safeguarding Policy here.

1. Applicants shall be excluded from participation in this tender procedure if:

• they are bankrupt or being wound up, are having their affairs administered by the courts, have entered into an arrangement with creditors, have suspended business activities, are subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or are in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
• they or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgment which has the force of res judicata;
• they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the IDH can justify;
• they have not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established, or with those of the Netherlands or those of the country where the contract is to be performed;
• they or persons having powers of representation, decision making of control over them have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organization, money laundering or any other illegal activity.
• Optionally: conflict of interest (see below).

Applicants must confirm in writing that they are not in one of the situations as listed above.

1. Applicants shall not make use of child labor or forced labor and/or practice discrimination and they shall respect the right to freedom of association and the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining, in accordance with the core conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Conflict of interest

Applicants shall not have a conflict of interest in submitting a tender application to IDH. Conflict of interest refers to any situation where an Applicant’s application may be compromised or not impartial and objective for reasons involving family, personal life, political or national affinity, economic interest or any other connection or shared interest with another person. Should the Applicant suspect any potential conflicts of interest on its part, it shall submit a written statement setting forth all conditions and circumstances of such potential conflict(s) of interest to IDH together with its application. A conflict of interest that cannot be solved effectively by less restrictive means constitutes an optional exclusion ground to an applicant, pursuant to article 2.87(1)(e) of the Dutch Procurement Act.

The assignment will be awarded to the Applicant with the most economically advantageous tender. The most economically advantageous tender is determined on the basis of the evaluation criteria of Price and Quality.

The evaluation criteria are compared and weighed according to the procedure below. This concerns a general outline of the scoring methodology and an explanation how the service provider can demonstrate compliance with the requirements.

Step 1 - Criterion Quality

Evaluation scores will be awarded for each of the components. The evaluation committee will score each component unanimously.

[IDH values quality highly, therefore a minimum grade of 3 must be scored by the Applicant on each component. If the Applicant scores a grade of 3 or less on one of the components, he/she will be excluded from the tender procedure and awarding the contract.]

The proposal will be assessed based on the following selection criteria:

• Proposal overall: The extent to which the proposal meets the requirements set out in Section 3 above and throughout this document. Can the Applicant deliver the requirement deliverables? Will the Applicant be able to deliver a comprehensive solution: 5
• Design and Development process: The extent to which the Applicant demonstrates that a clear design and development process will be followed and IDH is adequately consulted for input during the design and development. The extent to which it is clear what is required of IDH in terms of human resources, digital assets and other input to deliver the project without being too onerous on our staff—5
• Track record: The extent to which the Applicant presents the required level of expertise and knowledge to fulfil the requirements both at team member and company level. To extent to which the Applicant gives a clear description of the project team, relevant (delivering similar projects) experience of team members and time allocation per team member.[Relevant experience in non-profit sector is advantageous.]5

The evaluation committee will unanimously score each component by assigning scores from 1 to the maximum grading, with the maximum grading representing optimal performance on the component and 1 representing extremely poor performance on the respective component.

Step 2 - Criterion price

The Applicant shall follow the Budget template (attached as Annex 2 to these Terms of Reference).

Please note that a combined price in Euros (excluding VAT) is to be presented. This is to be broken down by team member rate and hours.

Given the non-for-profit nature of IDH, we encourage Applicant to clearly mention if the budget might be positively impacted by partial pro-bono work or reduced rate as a contribution to the successful delivery of the assignment.

The criterion of assessment is “the best price for the proposed level of quality” with a maximum grading of 5.

Step 3 - Weighting

The final score will be weighted 75% on Quality and 25% on Price.

If scores of service providers are equal, priority will be based on the total scores that were given for the Criterion Quality. The assignment will be awarded to the service provider that has received the highest score for the Criterion Quality. If the evaluation of the Criterion Quality does not lead to a distinction, the score for the component “Proposal overall” will be decisive. If this does not lead to a distinction, the ranking will be determined by the drawing of lots.

Award

Once IDH has decided to which Applicant it intends to award the assignment, a written notification thereof is sent to all Applicants participating in the tender procedure.

The Applicant is contracted via a letter of assignment, following IDH’s template (Annex 4).

Please note: the payment schedule set out in the letter of assignment template may be amended, subject to unilateral decision of IDH.

All participants will ensure that all its contacts with IDH, with regards to the tender, during the tender procedure take place exclusively in writing by e-mail  Subhadra Kaul or Vikramjeet Sharma] at kaul@idhtrade.org or vikramjeetsharma@idhtrade.org The participants is thus explicitly prohibited, to prevent discrimination of the other participants and to ensure the diligence of the procedure, to have any contact whatsoever regarding the tender with any other persons of IDH than the person stated in the first sentence of this paragraph.

The documents provided by or on behalf of IDH will be handled confidentiality. The Applicants will also impose a duty of confidentiality on any parties that it engages. Any breach of the duty of confidentiality by the Applicant or its engaged third parties will give IDH grounds for exclusion of the Applicant, without requiring any prior written or verbal warning.

All information, documents and other requested or provided data submitted by the Applicant will be handled with due care and confidentiality by IDH. The provided information will after evaluation by IDH be filed as confidential. The provided information will not be returned to the Applicant.

IDH respects the effort and time that participants are expected to put into this tender procedure. However, IDH has to use its financial means as economically as possible. Therefore, IDH will not remunerate participants for their interest and/or participation in the tender procedure. 

IDH reserves the right to update, change, extend, postpone, withdraw, or suspend the ToR, this tender procedure, or any decision regarding the selection or contract award. IDH is not obliged in this tender procedure to make a contract award decision or to conclude a contract with a participant.

Participants in the tender procedure cannot claim compensation from IDH, any affiliated persons or entities, in any way, in case any of the afore-mentioned situations occur.

By handing in a proposal, participants accept all terms and reservations made in this ToR, and subsequent information and documentation in this tender procedure.

Annex 1: Budget Template

Annex 2: Detail Request Form

Annex 3: Letter of Assignment

Annex 4: IDH General Terms and Conditions for Services

Annex 5: Statement of acceptance