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

1. A propos de l'AECF

L'AECF, LLC (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) est une organisation de développement à but non lucratif qui soutient des entreprises innovantes dans les secteurs de l'agroalimentaire et des énergies renouvelables dans le but de réduire la pauvreté rurale, de promouvoir des communautés résilientes au changement climatique et de créer des emplois.

Nous catalysons le secteur privé en faisant émerger et en commercialisant de nouvelles idées, de nouveaux modèles d'entreprise et de nouvelles technologies conçus pour accroître la productivité agricole, améliorer les revenus des agriculteurs, élargir l'accès à l'énergie propre, réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre et améliorer la résilience aux effets du changement climatique. Nous finançons des entreprises à haut risque qui ont du mal à accéder aux financements commerciaux ; nous nous engageons à travailler dans des marchés frontières, des contextes fragiles et des économies à haut risque où peu d'institutions financières traditionnelles osent aller.

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. Durée de la mission

   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. Soumission de la proposition

Les consultants qualifiés sont invités à soumettre une proposition comprenant les éléments suivants :

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 : LA SOUMISSION DU DOCUMENT FINANCIER ET DU DOCUMENT TECHNIQUE EN UN SEUL DOCUMENT ENTRAÎNERA AUTOMATIQUEMENT LA DISQUALIFICATION DU DEMANDEUR.

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. Tarification

 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. Critères d'évaluation

MANDATORY EVALUATION CRITERIA.

1. Exigences obligatoires pour les entreprises
2. Profil de l'entreprise.
3. Licence commerciale ou certificat d'incorporation ou certificat d'enregistrement et autres documents statutaires.
4. Certificat de conformité fiscale valide (applicable aux entreprises).
5. Passeport/National Identification du consultant principal et du personnel clé (applicable aux consultants indépendants)

N/B : LE FAIT DE NE PAS JOINDRE ET DE NE PAS RESPECTER LES EXIGENCES CI-DESSUS ENTRAÎNERA UNE DISQUALIFICATION AUTOMATIQUE.

Un comité d'évaluation sera constitué par l'AECF et pourra inclure des employés des entreprises à soutenir. Tous les membres seront soumis aux mêmes normes de confidentialité. Le consultant doit s'assurer qu'il répond pleinement à tous les critères afin d'être évalué de manière exhaustive.

L'AECF peut demander et recevoir des éclaircissements de la part de tout consultant lors de l'évaluation d'une proposition. Le comité d'évaluation peut inviter certains ou tous les consultants à se présenter devant le comité pour clarifier leurs propositions. Dans ce cas, le comité d'évaluation peut tenir compte de ces éclaircissements lors de l'évaluation des propositions.

Lors de la sélection finale du soumissionnaire qualifié, la qualité technique de la proposition sera pondérée à 80 % sur la base des critères d'évaluation. Seule la proposition financière des soumissionnaires qualifiés sur le plan technique sera ouverte. La proposition financière sera pondérée à hauteur de 20 % et les propositions seront classées en fonction du nombre total de points obtenus.

Les critères obligatoires et souhaitables sur la base desquels les propositions seront évaluées sont indiqués dans le tableau ci-dessous.

11.0 Application details

L'AECF est un employeur qui souscrit au principe de l'égalité des chances. L'AECF examine tous les candidats intéressés en fonction de leur mérite, sans tenir compte de la race, du sexe, de la couleur, de l'origine nationale, de la religion, de l'orientation sexuelle, de l'âge, de l'état civil, du statut d'ancien combattant, du handicap ou de toute autre caractéristique protégée par la législation en vigueur.

• 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. Clause de non-responsabilité

L'AECF se réserve le droit de déterminer la structure du processus, le nombre de participants présélectionnés, le droit de se retirer du processus de proposition, le droit de modifier ce calendrier à tout moment sans préavis et se réserve le droit de retirer cet appel d'offres à tout moment, sans préavis et sans obligation de dédommagement et/ou de remboursement à l'égard de toute partie.

L'AECF ne demande pas de frais de candidature pour participer à la procédure d'appel d'offres et n'a pas désigné d'agents ou d'intermédiaires pour faciliter les candidatures. Il est conseillé aux candidats de s'adresser directement au département des achats de l'AECF..