1. Background
The GIZ project “Sustainability and Value Added in the Cotton Economy” is a new project to India within the portfolio of the long-lasting development cooperation between India and Germany. With entering India, the GIZ project intends to support the promotion of sustainability and value addition in India’s cotton supply chain (from cotton seed to finished product), in close cooperation with the Ministry of Textiles and other implementation partners from public and private sector. Emphasis is given to the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.

2. Objectives

• Creation of transparency about the prevalence and application of internationally recognized/accepted sustainability standards in India’s cotton supply chain (e.g. BCI, Fairtrade, organic labels etc.) and estimate of volume traded/processed at ginning levels
• Presentation of a schematic sketch about the structure of cotton supply chains in India
• Setting-up a short list of 20 companies currently actively implementing cotton sustainability standards that might be interested in working with the project, including short profiles (one page per company) of each company (main task of assignment).

3. Scope of the assignment:

• Kick-off workshop and preparatory desk study
• Field research and interviews
• Submission of interims report, presentation of questionnaire and definition of evaluation criteria for shortlist
• Field research and interviews
• Finalization of the study

4. Tasks

Specifically, the assignment consists of five interlinking tasks and respective deliverables:

• Contractor’s concept paper on implementing the study
• Interims report summarizing objective A+B
• Draft questionnaire design and longlist of companies as well as a list of 30 companies to be interviewed
• Shortlist of 20 companies including profiles
• Summary report

The detailed documentation with regards to this call for proposals includes –

• Terms of Reference
• Technical Evaluation Grid
• Grid for Assessing the Eligibility of Firms
• Bidding Conditions
• The General Terms & Conditions of Contracts

Timeline

Posting date: 30^th October, 2019
Deadline to receive queries: 9^th November, 2019
Clarifications to the queries: 12^th November, 2019

The deadline for submission of proposal is:: 19^th November, 2019, by 17.30hrs

GIZ reserves the right to cancel/modify this tender and / or reject a bid document including subsequently a technical and financial proposal, without assigning any reasons.