Request for Proposal: Terms of Reference for Sudan Communications Partner – June 2025

1. About AECF

The AECF, LLC (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a leading non-profit development organization that supports innovative enterprises in the agribusiness and renewable energy sectors with the aim of reducing rural poverty, promoting climate resilient communities, and creating jobs.

We catalyze the private sector by surfacing and commercializing new ideas, business models and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve resilience to the effects of climate change. We finance high risk businesses that struggle to access commercial funding; we are committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go.

To date, we have supported over 510 businesses in 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacted more than 33million lives and created over 35,000 direct jobs. The AECF is headquartered in Kenya and has offices in Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Nigeria, South Sudan, Benin, and Somalia..

2. About the Role

AECF is implementing a significant programme in Sudan funded by the German government through KfW.  This provides financing to SMEs in the country that are relocating away from areas that are impacted by direct conflict, principally Khartoum, towards safer areas in the east of the country – specifically Red Sea, Gedarif and Kassala States. It also provides financing for companies looking to scale up production capacity to a level where they can compete to provide goods to international humanitarian and other donor funded organisations through procurement competitions.

AECF selects the companies that it invests in through a competitive process followed by a comprehensive due diligence and cogeneration with applicants.  This is largely a novel experience for companies in Sudan who have not been exposed to internationally funded subsidy programmes in the past.  The selection process is necessarily lengthy, which, coupled with information asymmetries and the increased levels of public distrust caused by the lengthy conflict has the potential to generate misinformation and rumour that could undermine the confidence in the market for the funding process, AECF and the donor, KfW. At the same time, we have to be extremely cautious with the information that we do disseminate on the programme to ensure that business in Sudan that receive funding are not targeted by rent seeking actors.

In order to manage the information process with the market and with local stakeholders, our in-house communications team need to be strengthened with specialist advisory support in communications in Sudan. This will involve designing and implementing a comprehensive communication strategy for the programme, until it is concluded in June 2026.

3. Scope of Work

As the Sudan Communication partner, you will be an integral part of our business delivery team and play a pivotal role in ensuring the transparency and effectiveness of AECF’s activities in Sudan. Here’s how you’ll make a difference:

• Create a communication strategy that engages with Sudanese and international partners, including:
  • Identifying key stakeholder groups both in the country and amongst the Sudanese diaspora and the information that they need;
  • crafting a series of messages and regular communication engagements for these different stakeholder groups;
  • identifying media partners both in Sudan and internationally through which to transmit these messages
  • development of feedback mechanisms to elicit opinions from core stakeholders to pre-empt communication crises in the future;
  • comprehensive risk assessment and crisis communication plan in case mitigation measures are not successful.
• Implement the strategy, together with AECF’s communication team
• Liaise with AECF’s communication team to ensure alignment in collaterals and branding as well as approval of communications and messages prior to dissemination
• Design of collaterals in line with AECF’s branding guide
• Media monitoring of Sudanese media outlets
• On-hand to design and deliver crisis communications interventions should such an emergency occur

4. Inputs Required

The assignment requires the provision of a technical consulting input to design the communication strategy coupled with an ongoing operationalisation of this on a part time basis to the current end of the programme in June 2026.  The contractor will work closely with AECF’s in-house communications team who will have overall delivery responsibility for the assignment.

5. Duration of the Assignment

   The assignment is expected to be completed in six months from the commencement date with the option to renew.

6. Reporting to

        The consultant will be reporting to Associate Director Agribusiness

7. Proposal Submission

Qualified consultants are invited to submit a proposal that includes the following:

a) Qualification and experience as indicated in the evaluation criteria.

b) Approach and methodology to undertake this assignment underpinned by a demonstration of value for money.

c) All documents related to the technical proposal must be compiled into a single PDF file, paginated and organized with a clear Table of Content.

d) A detailed financial budget (in USD) and work plan.

e) The technical and financial proposals will need to be submitted as separate documents.

N/B: SUBMITTING THE FINANCIAL AND TECHNICAL DOCUMENT AS ONE DOCUMENT WILL AUTOMATICALLY LEAD TO DISQUALIFICATION OF THE APPLICANT.

8. Qualification and Experience

The selected contractor is expected to be an established communication agency that can offer the breadth of technical competence and flexibility on inputs that the assignment will require. At a corporate level, the contractor is expected to be able to demonstrate extensive experience in crisis communication and specific capacity to operate in Sudan and in the Arabic language.  It is not expected that the company will be physically located in Sudan currently, but preference will be given to companies that have a physical presence in Sudan. It is essential that the company has worked extensively with large international development organisations in crisis and conflict situations.

The core team is expected to demonstrate the following competencies:

• Degree level qualification in Communications, Journalism or similar technical field, with the preference for a professional qualification in communication in conflict and crisis areas
• At least 10 years’ experience in designing and implementing crisis communications and communication strategies for international development partners, with at least 5 years direct experience in conflict scenarios;
• Excellent communication and writing skills, with a keen ability to synthesize and present complex information in a simple, compelling, meaningful way (ability to produce beautiful data visualization is a plus);
• Comprehensive understanding of the Sudanese context, including detailed knowledge of the current conflict;
• Extensive network of communication partners in the Sudanese community, both in country and in the diaspora – journalists, media houses, digital media groups, media and communications officers in international organisations and large Sudanese businesses;
• First language Arabic competence; excellent English language skills

9. Pricing

 The AECF is obliged by the Kenyan tax authorities to withhold taxes on service contract fees as well    as ensure that VAT, is charged where applicable. Applicants are advised to ensure that they have a clear understanding of their tax position with regards to provisions of Kenya tax legislation when developing their proposals.

10. Evaluation Criteria

MANDATORY EVALUATION CRITERIA.

1. Mandatory Requirements for firms: –
2. Company profile.
3. Trading license or Certificate of incorporation or Certificate of Registration and other statutory documents.
4. Valid Tax Compliance certificate (Applicable to firms).
5. Passport/National Identification of the lead consultant and key personnel (Applicable to independent consultants)

N/B: FAILURE TO ATTACH AND ADHERE TO THE ABOVE REQUIREMENTS WILL RESULT IN AUTOMATIC DISQUALIFICATION

An evaluation committee will be formed by the AECF and may include employees of the businesses to be supported. All members will be bound by the same standards of confidentiality. The consultant should ensure that they fully respond to all criteria to be comprehensively evaluated.

The AECF may request and receive clarification from any consultant when evaluating a proposal. The evaluation committee may invite some or all the consultants to appear before the committee to clarify their proposals. In such an event, the evaluation committee may consider such clarifications in evaluating proposals.

In deciding the final selection of qualified bidder, the technical quality of the proposal will be given a weighting of 80% based on the evaluation criteria. Only the financial proposal of those bidders who qualify technically will be opened. The financial proposal will be allocated a weighting of 20% and the proposals will be ranked in terms of total points scored.

The mandatory and desirable criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are identified in the table below.

11.0 Application details

The AECF is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The AECF considers all interested candidates based on merit without regard to race, gender, colour, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

• Interested consultancies are requested to submit their technical and financial proposal to aecfprocurement@aecfafrica.org by 3^rd July 2025
• All questions should be directed to the procurement email by 26^th June 2025, 5pm (EAT).
• The subject of the email should be ‘“SUDAN COMMUNICATIONS PARTNER”. The AECF shall not be liable for not opening proposals that are submitted with a different subject or responding to questions that did not meet the deadline as indicated.

12. Disclaimer

AECF reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party.

The AECF does not charge an application fee for participation in the tendering process and has not appointed any agents or intermediaries to facilitate applications. Applicants are advised to reach out directly to the AECF Procurement Department.