Expressions of Interest: Organization and Human Resource Diagnostic and Advisory Support for Clean Cooking Companies
Summary
The United Nations Foundation’s Clean Cooking Alliance (CCA) is accepting Expressions of Interest (EOI) from firms or individuals capable of delivering support to clean cooking companies in one or more of the areas listed below.
- Diagnostic Assessment – ability to evaluate a company’s organization structure and people and culture while considering gender across the entirety, and diagnose key issues and barriers in at least some of the following areas:
- Prioritization of people, culture and related dimensions, and how that is reflected in the organization’s structure and operations
- Organization structure
- Performance management processes
- Training, learning, growth and development
- Recruitment
- Important structural or functional gaps
- Individuals in key roles or positions
- Organization culture
- Approach to leadership
- Impact of ‘people issues’ on critical company functions, customer value delivery, ability to achieve company goals and ability to reach company potential
- Gender diversity, inclusion, and gender-informed practices
- Ethnic, race, religious, and other dimensions of diversity and inclusiveness
- Support to companies in one or more of the following organization and human resource related areas:
- Prioritizing and sequencing the most important or potentially highest impact ‘people-related’ changes or evolutions in approach
- Designing and implementing the (previously identified) changes and improvements
- Designing and implementing improvements in any of the areas listed above in the ‘Diagnostic Assessment’ subsection
- Leadership development for individuals and teams
- Recruiting
Any firm or individual(s) who have experience in providing support in at least one of the areas identified above may register their interest with CCA as described below.
Background of Organization
CCA works with a global network of partners to build an inclusive industry that makes clean cooking accessible to the three billion people who live each day without it. Established in 2010, CCA is driving consumer demand, mobilizing investment to build a pipeline of scalable businesses, and fostering an enabling environment that allows the sector to thrive. Clean cooking transforms lives by improving health, protecting the climate and the environment, empowering women, and helping families save time and money.
Background of Venture Catalyst
Venture Catalyst is CCA’s flagship program that aims to support entrepreneurs to build innovative and scalable companies that help accelerate clean cooking access. The program is designed to strengthen commercial viability, enhance investment-readiness, and speed up access to growth capital for selected companies across the clean cooking ecosystem.
The Venture Catalyst currently supports approximately 30 leading clean cooking companies, selected for their potential to innovate, scale, drive adoption of clean cooking solutions and grow the clean cooking market.
The Venture Catalyst supports portfolio companies in a variety of ways, including grants and support from exceptional external resources to help them grow in and strengthen areas critical to their transformation. These areas of support include their market offering, their people and organization, and their financing. The focus of this request for Expressions of Interest is in the people and organization area.
Objective
The value to the company will arise from knowing where these key gaps are, but also in co-creating the plan that resolves these identified gaps.
Qualification Requirements
Please outline your technical expertise, skills, tools and methods in the area(s) of proposed support you would like to be considered for (listed under ‘Diagnostic Assessment’ and ‘Support to companies’ (see above in the Summary section)).
You should also outline references and cases where you have demonstrated successful experience working with and supporting:
- Startups, early stage and young growing companies working in sub-Saharan Africa or South-East Asia
- Companies doing business in challenging market environments. Venture Catalyst companies mostly operate in developing countries, and they serve mostly low to moderate income customers, often in rural or challenging urban and peri-urban environments.
- Formal expertise on gender mainstreaming and gender equality with experience of applying these concretely to specific development projects, policies, and processes.
Please submit a brief (no more than 5 pages plus any relevant annexes) summary of:
- Your focus area
- Aspects of this call for which you would like to be considered to support
- Your qualifications and experience
- Types of or examples of companies you have supported and their operating context
- Illustrative anonymized samples of relevant outputs (reports, presentations)
- Any insights or observations on these topics you feel would be useful for us to know
- Anything you would like to share in terms of your usual or preferred approach, process, methods and/or tools
- Backgrounds of key people who would be involved in providing support
- Aspects of the people and organization area that we have not identified
- Budget or cost estimates
Consultant Selection Timeline
This EOI will be open throughout December 6, 2021. We will review submissions on a rolling basis and respond to all submissions of interest.
Intent and Disclaimer
This EOI is made with the intent to identify consultant(s) to deliver results as described in this EOI. UNF/CCA will rely on the consultant’s representations to be truthful and as described. CCA assumes it can be confident in the consultant’s ability to deliver the product(s) and/or service(s) proposed in response to this EOI.
Format for Expressions of Interest
Proposals must include the applicant’s signature as well as the full legal name of the applicant, as well as legal formation and ownership structure (e.g., incorporation certification, tax status and ID, etc.).
Contracting and Compliance
CCA will negotiate contract terms upon selection. A copy of the contract terms and conditions will be provided upon selection. All contracts are subject to review by the UN Foundation’s Business Services and Budget Reporting team. The project will start upon the complete execution of the contract. The contract will outline terms and conditions, scope, budget, and applicable flow down terms. Selected recipient(s) must comply with CCA, United Nations Foundation, and funder compliance requirements. The selected recipient(s) must also undergo detailed legal, financial, and commercial due diligence.
Release
The consultant understands that CCA has chosen to solicit an EOI for consulting services, and that the consultant’s response does not guarantee that CCA will enter into a new contract with the consultant or continue any current contract(s) with the consultant.
The consultant agrees that CCA may, at its sole discretion:
- Amend or cancel the EOI, in whole or in part, at any time
- Extend the deadline for submitting responses
- Determine whether a response does or does not substantially comply with the requirements of the EOI
- Waive any minor irregularity, informality or nonconformance with the provisions or procedures of the EOI
- Negotiate with all consultants UNF deems acceptable
- Issue multiple awards
- Photocopy the responses for evaluation/review
This EOI is not an offer to contract. CCA assumes no responsibility for consultant’s cost to respond to this EOI. All responses become the property of CCA.
The consultant, by submitting a response to this EOI, waives all right to protest or seek any legal remedies whatsoever regarding any aspect of this EOI.
The consultant represents that it has responded to the EOI with complete honesty and accuracy. If facts provided in the consultant’s response change, the consultant agrees to supplement its response in writing with any deletions, additions, or changes within ten (10) days of the changes. The consultant will do this, as necessary, throughout the selection process.
The consultant understands it may receive proprietary and confidential information from CCA during the EOI process (“Confidential Information”). The consultant and CCA agree to not use Confidential Information for any purpose other than the consultant’s participation in the EOI process, and to not reveal Confidential Information directly or indirectly to any other person, entity, or organization without the prior written consent of the other party. The consultant and CCA further agree to exercise all reasonable precautions to maintain the proprietary and confidential nature of Confidential Information where it can best demonstrate its value and capacity to delivery ecosystem-wide, meaningful value.
Grounds for Exclusion
Material misrepresentations, including omissions, may disqualify the consultant from a contract award.
Submissions will be rejected in CCA’s sole discretion if it finds that the consultant has engaged in any illegal or corrupt practices in connection with the award.
The consultant will be excluded from participation for the reasons below. By submitting a proposal in response to the EOI, the consultant confirms that none of the below circumstances apply:
- The consultant is bankrupt or being wound up, is having their affairs administered by the courts, has entered into an arrangement with creditors, has suspended business activities, is subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or is in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations.
- The consultant or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a final judgment.
- The consultant has been found guilty of grave professional misconduct; proven by any means which CCA can justify.
- The consultant has not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established, or within the United States of America, or those of the country where the contract is to be performed.
- The consultant or persons having powers of representation, decision-making or control over them have been convicted for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organization or money laundering by a final judgment.
- The consultant makes use of child labor or forced labor and/or practice discrimination, and/or do not respect the right to freedom of association and the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining pursuant to the core conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Submission details
Please address your submission to: ventures@cleancookingalliance.org
Subject Line: EOI Submission – People & Organization Support
Responses are to be submitted in PDF form.
Deadline: December 6, 2021 by 17.00 EDT
