Establishment and Management of the Afghan Anti-Corruption Civil Society Fund.

The Royal Danish Embassy in Kabul (RDE) is looking for a Consultant to establish a Management Unit (MU) that will develop a pilot Afghan Anti-Corruption Civil Society Fund (henceforth referred to as The Fund) to help Afghanistan Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and media/journalists to advocate for improved transparency and accountability to fight corruption in Afghanistan. This is a one year pilot project where it is expected that important lessons will be learned to inform a potential future civil society anti-corruption programme with a broader funding base. The overall purpose of The Fund is to strengthen CSOs and the media to advocate and raise awareness on corruption issues. For further information see II.2.4).

Afghanistan.

The final design and management of The Fund is to be developed by the Consultant. The total budget for grant disbursal will be 7 400 000 DKK

The Fund will be aligned and built upon the commitments made by the Government of Afghanistan to the “Open Government Partnership” (OGP)”. In particular, The Fund will target two key commitments made in the OGP: (1) Increased access to information concerning Government activities and, (2) Support civil society participation. The locus of change will be to promote the understanding and implementation of the Access to Information Law. The Fund will be a pilot project that will aim to address the following challenges:

— An Attenuated trust in the Afghan Government’s ability to provide sufficient Access to Information to its citizens;

— Structural barriers that inhibit engagement of the population, CSOs and media to express their opinions on the issues associated with corruption;

The objective of the Fund is to support civil society and journalists to utilise provisions in the Access to Information Law and in Presidential Decree to enhance transparency in service delivery in three provinces in the Afghanistan: Nangahar, Laghman and Kunar (final province selection will be determined in the inception phase).

The objectives of the MU are two-fold:

— The MU will provide quality mentoring support to CSOs and journalists to implement innovative projects that support improved access to information.

— The MU will act as the fund manager with fiduciary oversight for a minimum of 4 grants and a maximum of up to 6 grants.

The MU will provide the following outputs:

— Provide an inception report which will describe the execution of the tasks and responsibilities of the MU as outlined in the Terms of Reference. This will include but not be limited to a final design of the Fund, its functions and administration, requirements for grant proposals and final selection criteria for these, and associated guidelines as well as procedures for the management and administration of the grants. The Inception Report should also define a simple and efficient monitoring and evaluation system, as well as a detailed work plan for the following 11 months.

— Establishing The Fund Steering Committee (SC). The SC will have the mandate of overseeing the MU’s operation and decision making on grants. It will be a five-member SC consisting of members from CSOs, the Government of Afghanistan, opinion leaders, journalists and the RDE representatives. Members of the SC will not be allowed to apply for funds due to conflict of interest issues. The MU will review all grant proposals (and provide recommendations) prior to presenting them for approval at the SC. The SC will convene one time per month. The SC will review the quarterly activity and financial reports but final approval for these reports rests with RDE. The project manager of the MU will act as secretary for the SC, i.e. prepare itinerary and minutes of meetings.

— A lesson learned exercise will be conducted and presented to the RDE in December 2018. The document must take stock of what The Fund has achieved during the 12 months of the project implementation, and to provide the RDE with an opportunity to have feedback and suggestions from the partner organizations on successes and challenges and initiatives that can be capitalized upon in the future.

In particular, the MU will have the following key functions:

— Convener of the SC;

— Efficient management of The Fund and grants;

— Solicitation of proposals from potential grantees;

— Serve as a liaison with the Government, grantees, RDE and SC

— Conducting due-diligence on potential grantees;

— Presentation of project packages to the SC for approval and realization/execution of projects and;

— M&E and quality assurance of the implemented grants.

Re. II.1.6) Rationale for not splitting the contract up into lots: This contract has not been split into lots as the size and character of the services to be provided makes it unsuitable for distributing over several lots.

Establishment and Management of the Afghan Anti-Corruption Civil Society Fund

The procedure is discontinued as no acceptable tenders were received.

Precise information on deadline(s) for review procedures:

The following deadlines apply to the lodging of appeals pursuant to the Danish Act on The Complaints Board for

Public Procurement (Lov om Klagenævnet for Udbud) (the Act is available at www.retsinformation.dk): Appeals for not having been prequalified must be submitted to the Danish Complaints Board for Public Procurement (Klagenævnet for Udbud) within 20 calendar days calculated from the day after the day when the contracting authority has notified the tenderers concerned which tenderers have been prequalified provided that the notification has included a short explanation of the relevant grounds for the decision.

In other situations, appeals regarding tender procedures must be lodged with the Complaints Board for Public Procurement within 45 calendar days after the contracting authority has published a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union that the contracting authority has concluded the contract. The deadline is calculated from the day after the day when the notice was published.

The complainant must no later than at the same time as lodging the appeal with the Complaints Board for Public Procurement notify the contracting authority that an appeal has been lodged with the Danish Complaints Board for Public Procurement and whether the appeal has been lodged within the standstill period, see section 3(1)

of the Act. In the event that the appeal has not been lodged within the standstill period, the complainant must furthermore indicate whether he has requested a suspensory effect of the appeal, see clause 12(1) of the Act. The e-mail address of the Complaints Board for Public Procurement is set out in section VI.4.1).

The Complaints Board's own complaints procedure is available at www.klfu.dk.