Facilitation Consultancy for Institutional Cooperation Projects and Instrument (ICI)

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (hereinafter to as the "Contracting Entity", "Contracting Authority" or "MFA") called for tenders to the following project: Facilitation Consultancy for Institutional Cooperation Projects and Instrument. The MFA shall acquire two (2) Facilitation Consultants for the project. Facilitation Consultants will assist the MFA and ICI actors in the quality assurance of the ICI projects. Facilitation services include support to quality assurance in the project planning, implementation, monitoring and communicating on results. Meetings with relevant units of the Ministry are an integral part of the facilitation service in each phase of the project. The purpose of the facilitation consultancy is also to provide assistance to the projects of the Finnish government agencies or public institutions using the instrument. The goal of the contract is to improve the quality and effectiveness of the ICI projects, reporting results as well as the communication on results of ICI projects. Institutional Cooperation Instrument (ICI) projects refer to the twinning projects between Finnish government agencies or public institutions and peer institutions in the developing countries. The ICI was started in 2008. Since then, approximately 120 projects have been completed or are currently ongoing. The objective of the ICI is to strengthen the capacity of public sector institutions in developing countries by utilizing the expertise that can be found in the Finnish public sector organizations. The idea is that capacity can be best enhanced with the help of colleagues - civil servants from an organization with similar tasks and responsibilities. The ICI provides means for partner countries to cooperate with public sector organisations in Finland. In the ICI programme, the capacity development is understood as enhancing and strengthening existing capacities, not building them from scratch and it has to be based on true needs and institutional priorities of the partner institution.

The contract was awarded through an open procedure. The procurement took place in compliance with the Act on Public Contracts and Concession Contracts (1397/2016). The contract concerns a service procurement exceeding EU threshold. The Contracting Authority selected one (1) service provider and concluded the procurement contract with the selected service provider.