Third Party Quality Assurance Firm

A. About Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC):

ADPC is an autonomous international organization with a vision to reducing disaster and climate risk impacts on communities and countries in Asia and the Pacific region by working with governments, development partners, international organizations, NGOs, civil society, private sector, media, and other key stakeholders.

Established in 1986 as a technical capacity-building center, ADPC has grown and diversified its expertise across social and physical sciences to support sustainable solutions for risk reduction across a broad range of specialist areas. ADPC has over 100 staff from 19 different nationalities and a wide range of professional expertise - from atmospheric scientists to social scientists with experiences from all levels of engagement typically required for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Resilience (CR) in an effective manner. ADPC is a competent regional resource center and has seven thematic departments: ADPC Academy, Risk Governance, Climate Resilience, Urban Resilience, Health Risk Management, Preparedness for Response and Recovery, Geospatial Information. These are supported by Finance, Human Resources and Administration, and Strategic Planning departments. In addition to the departments, ADPC works on three cross-cutting themes: Gender and Diversity, Poverty and Livelihoods, and Regional and Transboundary Cooperation through permanent working committees.

B. Background:

Disasters take a huge toll on the development agenda of South Asian countries. Between 2000 and 2017, disasters in South Asia incurred estimated damages of US$ 149.27 billion. Public expenditure is under stress by the repeated need to reallocate capital budgets away from long term development planning and towards reconstruction activities in post-disaster environments. For example, since 2005, Pakistan has suffered losses on the order of US$ 16 billion due to natural disasters. In Bangladesh, the 2007 Cyclone Sidr resulted in damages and losses of US$1.7 billion or 2.6 percent of GDP.

To increase resilience and achieve climate commitments, there is a need for a transformational shift toward policies and institutions that enable climate-resilient investments. Investing in more resilient infrastructure is both profitable and urgent as disruptions are extremely costly for governments, households and the private sector and large ongoing investments in infrastructure assets will have long-lasting repercussions as poor maintenance and natural disasters result in a vulnerable stock.

With financial support from the World Bank Group, ADPC is implementing a five-year (2020-2025) project, titled “Climate Adaptation and Resilience Project (CARE) for South Asia”. The Development Objective of the Project is to contribute to an enabling environment for climate resilience policies and investments in select sectors of climate smart agriculture, integrated water resources management, resilient transport infrastructure, and policy & planning and finance across South Asia. This objective will be achieved through enhanced regional cooperation and knowledge exchange for climate resilience and adaptation and mainstreaming of resilience and adaptation in national policies, plans, and investments.

The project's overall objective is to contribute to an enabling environment for climate resilience policies and investments in agriculture, transport, water, policy and planning, and finance sectors in South Asia with an initial focus of activities in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan.

The third-party quality assurance (TPQA) firm will support ADPC with the finalization of the project outputs to effectively achieve the PDO and Results Framework. In this setting, ADPC is in charge of project implementation and production of project outputs, while the TPQA firm is in charge of performing technical review of project outputs, assuring the quality, and copyediting various documents including but not limited to technical reports, guidelines, manuals, handbooks, operational documents, communication materials, and information packs, etc.

C. Duties and Responsibilities:

The TPQA firm will work closely with the Project Implementation Unit (PIU) and the technical specialists of ADPC to provide the following services.

Technical review of project outputs:

1. Preliminary Assessment: involves screening the written material developed by ADPC to verify if it aligns with the project and sectoral objectives, fulfills the intended purpose or function of the sectoral activities, and meets the necessary technical requirements and standards; also conduct a plagiarism check of the draft technical outputs; within 3 working days
2. Technical Review: involves verifying the accuracy of the information presented in the outputs by cross-checking it with reliable sources; pointing out gaps in the validity of data interpretation; and providing specific recommendations to ADPC to improve a specific technical output; within 7 working days
3. Summary Review Report: provide a comprehensive report that summarizes any issues or concerns identified during the review and presents suggestions for improvement. The report should be well-documented, incorporating relevant evidence and references.
4. Evaluation Scoring: evaluate project outputs based on the internal evaluation framework and scoring criteria, and suggest ways to enhance the overall evaluation score and standing. The reviewed and copyedited output, along with the summary review report and evaluation report, should be delivered within 10 working days from the preliminary assessment.
5. Validation of Revision: review the revised outputs shared by the PIU and ensure that the final revised outputs meet the necessary quality standards, as per the internal evaluation framework, with a ‘Satisfactory’ rating.
6. Final review: involves a final check of the written material, including final copy-editing and proofreading to ensure that all technical and formatting requirements have been met and that the content is ready for dissemination or publication, within 3 working days from submission of the revised outputs.

Proofreading and copy-editing of project outputs:

1. Revise and correct errors in the written material, including grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors.
2. Ensure consistency and align the language of content for all publications and/or technical outputs under the project; ensure project branding guidelines are followed and references are complete and accurate.

D. Methodology for Review:

• After the submission of the reports by ADPC to the firm, pre-defined set of indicators based on the OECD categories of relevance, coherence, and effectiveness would be used.
• Each of these categories is already adapted into the following set of questions developed under the project and will be reviewed based upon three defined scorings adapted from JBIC (“not achieved” = 0; “need improvement” = 0.5; and “achieved”=1) with some remarks for improvement along with direct comments and changes suggested in the main report if required.
• The standing of the reports based on the scoring provided would be categorized into the following four levels.

E. Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The following is a general summary of the expected number of project outputs by sectors for each quarter of the project period. Please note that the estimated figures for each quarter are rough and there may be variations between quarters.

F. Qualifications of the Successful Firm

• Field of work: The firm must have experience in providing technical and/or policy advisory on disaster risk management and/or climate change adaptation work. Work experience in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal is preferred.
• Technical Expertise: The firm must have a team of experienced technical experts with relevant qualifications and expertise in the field of reviewing technical reports (such as guidelines, modules, policy briefs/documents, etc. focusing on climate resilient road/transport infrastructure, integrated water resources management, climate-smart agriculture, and public policy & finance sectors in South Asia). The team should be able to understand the technical content and provide meaningful feedback and recommendations. The following is an indicative set of required technical expertise/ human resources to carry out the technical review, copy-editing, and proofreading of the project outputs.
• Quality Control Process: The firm must have a well-established quality control process that includes a review of the report for accuracy, completeness, consistency, and compliance with relevant industry standards and regulations. Certification in International Standard Organization (ISO) 9001 or equivalent not required but preferred.
• Document Management: The firm must have a secure and efficient document management system in place to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the content.
• Clear Scope of Work: The scope of work should be clearly defined to avoid any confusion or misunderstandings between the firm and the client. The scope of work should include specific objectives, timelines, and deliverables.
• Communication: The firm should maintain clear and timely communication with the client throughout the review process. This includes providing regular updates on the progress of the review and any issues or concerns that arise.
• Independence and Impartiality: The firm must be independent and impartial to ensure that the review is unbiased and objective. The firm must not have any conflicts of interest or any financial ties to the client or donor or have any benefit from the outputs being reviewed.
• Compliance with Relevant Standards: The firm should be familiar with relevant industry standards and regulations and ensure that the outputs are in compliance with these standards.

G. Selection Method

The firm will be selected in accordance with ADPC’s procurement process and in compliance with the World Bank Procurement Regulations. Consulting Firm will be selected on Consultant’s Qualification-based Selection (CQS) method.

H. Reporting Relationships:

The firm will report to the Project Director, CARE for South Asia Project. The technical oversight will be provided by the PIU Technical Team.

I. Contract Duration:

The contract duration will be for 1 year starting in June- July 2023 with a possibility of extension. The firm’s performance will be reviewed on an output basis.

How to apply

Interested Firms can submit the Expression of Interest to:

Procurement.care@adpc.net to the attention of Dr. Saswata Sanyal, Project Manager.