Date: June 20, 2024

Tender Notice: Business Development Services Consultancy for Market Development Facilitation Funds | Cohort-II for BDS firm 2^nd cohort for PROSPECTS IV

Mercy Corps is a leading global humanitarian agency saving and improving lives in the world’s toughest places. With a network of experienced professionals in more than 40 countries, we partner with local communities to put bold ideas into action to help people recover, overcome hardship, and build better lives now and for the future. In these places, Mercy Corps listens to local voices to prioritize people’s most urgent needs, taking a long-term view and promoting innovative solutions that drive true change. Mercy Corps Liberia has been working in Liberia since 2002, focusing on youth, agriculture, livelihoods, conflict resolution, and emergency response.

PROSPECTS IV will be implemented in four defined urban and peri-urban areas – Monrovia (Montserrado County), Ganta (Nimba County), Buchanan (Grand Bassa), and pilot in Gbarnga (Bong County) – with potential expansion to secondary locations and counties contingent on the results of the first year’s inception phase activities. These expansions will be determined based on the pilots’ relevance, opportunity, feasibility, and findings from pilots.

The Market Development Facilitation (Innovation) Funds provide business grants to qualified micro, small, or medium-sized enterprises that meet specific criteria. This special facility is a co-financing mechanism utilized by PROSPECTS IV and carefully applied to ensure market distortion does not happen. Funding provided to businesses is generally based on the following considerations:

• Support through this activity is demand-driven and competitive, requiring innovative businesses to determine their own market development needs. Multiple businesses with the right capacities and incentives can submit concepts and applications for funding, as profiled during market assessments, call for-proposal workshops, or partnership scoping exercises.
• Support is provided for one-off “soft-touch” activities to demonstrate value to the business partner, and these are activities that other market actors are likely to adopt for their own business growth
• Apply a quid pro quo mechanism. Getting tangible contributions from the partners for activities that require financial support demonstrates commitment and ownership. Cost-sharing enables actors to apply promotional tactics, test new sales/engagement mechanisms, provide staff training, etc.
• The business partner must be willing to continue moving forward with the initiative following any removal of financial support from PROSPECTS IV, including continuing to dedicate their financial and nonfinancial resources to implementation, should the activity show potential for market transformation. The Business Development Firm will work with businesses to develop their solution/innovation into viable business solutions, facilitate acceleration and ensure adequate advisory support to expand, scale, and create a sustainable business mode

If you are interested in the abovementioned services, in that case, applicants should complete the Intent to Bid form, the link is attached, or request an email to obtain it and submit it according to the guidelines below. The forms are attached:

The suppliers can download the Intent to Bid Form using the link mentioned

INTENT TO BID

You can also go to https://liberiahrjobs.com/ to access the information or The New Newspaper Monday, June 24, 2024, edition.

1. Completed Intent to Bid Forms must be submitted to Mercy Corps lr-tenders@mercycorps.org email address by [June 24, 2024, till July 2, 2024, at 4:30 p.m.] using one of the methods below.
2. Email the completed Intent to Bid Form to lr-tenders@mercycorps.org with the Tender Reference number in the email subject line. “INTEND TO BID.

3. After the closing date of this Tender Notice, the Tender package (Request for Proposal) will be sent to all suppliers who submitted Intent to Bid Forms. We value your participation and want to ensure a fair process for all.