REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (REOI) AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK AFDB GROUP SENIOR LEADERSHIP RETREAT FACILITATOR Corporate Human Resources Department

FIRMS ONLY/Medium Length Consultancy

Abidjan – Cote d’Ivoire.

 

 

 

 

  1. The African Development Bank (the AfDB or the “Bank”) hereby invites Firms only to express interest in the following assignment : AFDB GROUP SENIOR LEADERSHIP RETREAT FACILITATOR ;
  1. The consultant selected for the Assignment will be expected to work on all relevant workstreams associated with the assignment as captured in the TORs ;
  1. Interested Consulting firms must submit a suitability statement indicating qualification to deliver on the assignment, perform the services envisaged under the Assignment (documents or links referencing past relevant experience, etc.) and a brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the work. The statement should not be more the 2 typed A4 single space using font 12Times New Roman ;
  1. The Bank has two official languages English and French, the EOI can be submitted in any of the two languages. However, for the delivery of the assignment, a high degree of proficiency in English is required ;
  1. Eligibility criteria, establishment of the shortlist and the selection procedure shall be in accordance with the “Rules and Procedures for the Use of Consultants”. Please note that interest expressed by a firm does not imply any obligation on the part of the Bank to include the firm in the shortlist ;
  1. Expressions of interest must be communicated electronically to the following addresses: Responses to the Expression of Interest should be sent to: [email protected]; copying [email protected] and [email protected]
  1. All EOIs must be received in electronic format no later than 26th January 2021 at 23:59

GMT and specifically mentioning : “Expression of Interest – AFDB Group Senior Leadership Retreat Facilitator”.

  1. A shortlist of not more than six Consulting firms will be established at the end of the request of expressions of interest. The consulting firms on the shortlist will be judged on the following criteria :
    • General qualifications and adequacy for the assignment to be undertaken (30%) ;
    • Similar experience in the area of expertise of the assignment (50%) ;
    • Experience with the Bank and/or multilateral development organizations (10%) ;
    • Language proficiency (05%) ;
    • Knowledge of the African region (05%)

Expression of Interest – AFDB Group Senior Leadership Retreat Facilitator

  1. The expected duration of the Assignment is 98 days over a one-year period.
  1. For the EOI to be considered, the firm must be registered in the AfDB DACON Consultant Database. Consulting firms that wish to submit n EOI but are not registered in the AfDB DACON Consultant Database should register. Please use this link: https://www.afdb.org/en/projects-and-operations/procurement/consultancy-services-dacon.
  1. If any  firm  encounters  a  problem  during  registration,  contact :  [email protected];

copying: [email protected]

Expression of Interest – AFDB Group Senior Leadership Retreat Facilitator Page 2 of 7

TERMS OF REFERENCE

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

CONSULTANCY SERVICES

AFDB GROUP SENIOR LEADERSHIP RETREAT FACILITATOR

Location: Abidjan (with a probability of four missions’
travel) COTE D’IVOIRE
Application Deadline: 26th Jan-2021 (Midnight Abidjan, COTE
D’IVOIRE)
Type of Contract: Firm Contract
Post Level: International Consultants
Languages Required: English (French ability a bonus)
Expected Duration of 1 year (February 20, 2021– February 20, 2022)
Assignment:

OBJECTIVE :

The Office of The President (PCSC) of the African Development Bank Group (“The Bank” or “AfDB”) seeks to engage the services of a consultant to facilitate a retreat for the Bank’s Senior Leadership Group (SLG) to develop a roadmap for accelerating the achievement of the various objectives of the Bank’s current corporate strategy. In particular, the retreat is aimed at enhancing the communications and teamwork of the SLG to effectively deliver as ‘One Bank’ on the various operational priorities of the President’s second mandate (2020-2025) while addressing issues pertaining to workload, accountability and collective productivity.

The facilitator will be responsible for organizing the various sessions out of which a roadmap will be developed and agreed for accelerating the achievement of the various objectives of the Bank’s current corporate strategy. The facilitator will do this utilizing a creative and dynamic approach in order to raise self-awareness and personal effectiveness, build productive working relationships, build mutual trust and understanding and encourage self- reflection.

ABOUT THE AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK GROUP :

The AfDB Group is the premier pan-African development institution promoting economic growth and social progress across Africa. Established in 1964, it has 82 member states, including 54 from Africa (Regional Member Countries or ‘RMCs’) and 28 Non-Regional Member Countries from the Americas, Europe, Asia and the greater Middle-East. The Group comprises three entities: The African Development Bank (ADB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). The objective of the Bank’s current Ten-Year Strategy (2013-2022) is to assist RMCs achieve more inclusive growth and sustainable development, thereby reducing poverty. The Bank does this by mobilizing resources to deliver financial and technical assistance to support transformative programs and projects across Africa.

Expression of Interest – AFDB Group Senior Leadership Retreat Facilitator

In order to sharpen focus of its corporate strategy as well as to ensure greater development impacts, the Bank has identified five strategic, operational priorities (the ‘High 5s’): Light Up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialize Africa; Integrate Africa and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa. These priorities are aimed at accelerating Bank support for the RMCs accelerate progress towards the attainment of (i) the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); (ii) the African Union’s Agenda 2063; and (iii) the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. The High5s have taken hold on the continent as key accelerators for Africa’s development.

THE LARGER CONTEXT FOR THE CONSULTANCY :

During the President’s first mandate (2015-2020), the Bank implemented the High 5s with speed and rigor to deliver impressive results. It doubled its lending to the African Development Bank (ADB) countries (mostly middle-income RMCs), and increased 17-fold the value of its concessional financing to African Development Fund (ADF) countries (mostly, the least developed countries on the continent). Similarly, it increased non-sovereign (i.e., private sector) lending from $1.5 billion in 2015 to $2.1 billion in 2019, with the highest level of $2.5 billion achieved in 2016. In so doing, the Bank is driving significant development impacts on the ground, including job creation, building resilient and sustainable economies in Africa.

To deliver on the bold targets of the High5s, the Bank sought and obtained an unprecedented Seventh General Capital Increase (GCI-7) of $115 billion (representing 125% increase) and an African Development Fund (ADF-15) replenishment of $7.6 billion in 2019 (up 32% from the previous cycle).

Following the President’s re-election for a second term (2020-2025), the Bank is strengthening its institutional mechanisms to enhance coherence and build synergies in the execution of its High-5 operational priorities’ work programs, as well as the implementation of various flagship initiatives under the High 5s, to ensure strategic alignment with policy commitments under GCI-7 and ADF-15.

The President of the Bank has outlined his vision to effectively position the Bank over the next 5-10 years as Africa’s partner of choice by leveraging the Bank’s AAA rating and deploying a suite of innovative instruments to mobilize increased funding to accelerate Africa’s development. Part of that vision includes enhanced policy dialogue to support RMCs build resilience to address unanticipated exogenous shocks (such as COVID-19) as well as both long-standing and emerging development challenges, including the substantial infrastructure deficit, ineffective economic governance, challenging private sector development environments, climate change, and inequality across gender, geography and income.

The ongoing COVID19 pandemic has exposed the continent’s vulnerabilities, meaning that priority should be enabling the Bank Group’s RMCs build back boldly and smartly, and with greater emphasis on the quality of growth. Urgent attention will focus on assisting the Bank’s RMCs to build economic resilience, improve quality infrastructure, foster greater regional integration, promote gender equality, reduce youth unemployment, promote sustainable environmental management, as well as support climate change adaptation and mitigation. The Bank is also exploring how it can assist RMCs to (i) build manufacturing capacity; (ii) develop agro-industrial and regional value chains; (iii) support quality health infrastructure; and (iv) strengthen financial markets to support the expansion of intra-regional trade and boost competitiveness by leveraging the new African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Expression of Interest – AFDB Group Senior Leadership Retreat Facilitator

Strengthened partnerships with other development partners, the private sector and civil society will be necessary to achieve these objectives.

In this regard, the Bank’s senior leadership also seeks to reflect deeply on how to collectively increase the Bank’s development impact and improve its organizational efficiency through the consolidation of the ‘Delivering as One’ model, which seeks to ensure that regions, sectors and operational support staff operate seamlessly as One Bank. The ‘Delivering as One’ model is the culmination of structural reforms introduced in 2016 as part of a new Development and Business Delivery Model (DBDM) that changed the Bank’s structure and operating model with the objective of increasing the Bank’s proximity to clients and improving its cost-efficiency and its development impact. Since 2016, the Bank has implemented the key structural reforms required by the DBDM. It has established five Business Delivery Units each headed by a Director General. The Business Delivery Units have been resourced with sector staff and administrative and executional capabilities. In addition to the regional restructuring, the Bank has reconfigured the four sector Complexes and has made structural changes at HQ so that it can operate more effectively and reduce its costs.

THE CONSULTANCY :

The Consultant will facilitate a retreat of the Senior Leadership Group to brainstorm and reflect on innovative ways of scaling up of Bank delivery on the High 5s and on preparing a Roadmap/Action plan to implement the decisions of the Retreat, detailing key activities and milestones that will leverage the Bank’s brand value, knowledge and resources to accelerate delivery of support to RMCs. Since strategic repositioning will require sharp focus on execution, the Consultant will assist the SLG to prepare monitorable action plans to implement and execute on all agreed actions.

Duties and Responsibilities :

Reporting to the President through his designated representative and working with the SLG and a Core Working Group, the Consultant’s team will include a Lead Consultant who is expected to be available and at the full disposal of the Bank for the duration of the assignment. The Lead Consultant will be assisted by a team of experts with skills in corporate strategic management, performance monitoring and reporting, all of whom are expected to interact and work with various Bank teams in the execution of the assignment.

The consultant will work closely with the Senior Leadership Group and Core Working Group in preparing for the retreat. The Lead Consultant and his/her team will be expected to also actively seek the inputs from the Senior Leadership Group, the President’s cabinet as well as various Bank teams, as relevant, in order to ensure that the retreat is reflects best methods for engagement and empowerment of the Senior Leadership Group.

Scope of Work :

The assignment includes preparatory work, facilitation during the retreat, and follow-up post-retreat. The facilitator is expected to follow an agreed timetable to ensure the on-time delivery of the expected outputs.

The following tasks are assigned :

Expression of Interest – AFDB Group Senior Leadership Retreat Facilitator

  1. Conducting preparatory meetings with the President’s cabinet and other Bank Senior Management (1 day)
  1. Developing retreat agenda, including team building exercises etc. with Bank Senior Management (2 days)
  1. Developing presentations as necessary for the various sessions of the retreat (1 day)
  2. Facilitating the first Bank Senior Leadership retreat (2 days)
  1. Preparing the final report, detailing agreements and outcomes of the Bank Senior Leadership retreat (2 days)
  1. Planning, coordinating, monitoring organization, implementation of agreed Action Plan and rendering any other on-call business (90 days) for the duration of the contract.
  1. The entire assignment will not exceed 98 days.

Expected Retreat Outcomes :

By the end of the retreat, participants will have :

  1. A shared understanding of the President’s strategic priorities during his second mandate, including building a stronger institution, strengthening the Bank’s human capacity, enhancing institutional effectiveness, ensuring accelerated and quality impact, and maintaining the Bank’s financial sustainability ;
  1. A shared and strengthened understanding of roles and responsibilities under the ‘Delivering as One’ Bank approach in advancing the implementation of the High-5s as well as the various cross-cutting themes and special initiatives to ensure accelerated results and greater development impact ;
  1. A shared understanding of, and agreement on the various associated milestones, KPIs/metrics for delivering on the Bank’s strategic priorities, including policy and institutional reforms under GCI-7 and ADF-15.

Follow-Up Actions, post-Retreat :

The Consultant is also expected to synthesize lessons from the retreat, prepare a final report, detailing agreements and outcomes of the retreat, and subsequently plan, coordinate and monitor the implementation of the agreed Action Plan.

The Consultant’s report will also facilitate three (03) other Quarterly Retreats of Senior Leadership Group to: review progress on implementation of the Action Plan, take stock of opportunities and emerging challenges, and agree on adjustments to the work plan where necessary.

DURATION OF ASSIGNMENT AND ACTIVITY SCHEDULE :

The assignment will last for one year, starting February 2020. Summarized below is the Consultant’s tentative main activities.

Item Start End Days
Consultation and 08/02/2021 02/12/2021 5 days
preparation sessions
1st Retreat 15/02/2020 16/02/2020 2 days
2nd Retreat on progress 17/05/2021 18/05/2021 2 days
3rd Retreat on progress 16/08/2021 17/08/2021 2 days
4th Retreat on progress 15/11/2021 16/1212021 2 days

Expression of Interest – AFDB Group Senior Leadership Retreat Facilitator

Drafting Reports, 85 days
Planning, coordinating,
monitoring organization,
implementation of agreed
Action Plan and rendering
any other on-call business
Total number of Days 98 days

LOCATION OF ASSIGNMENT :

The services will be rendered at the Bank’s Headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, virtually or as might be decided by Senior Management.

QUALIFICATION OF CONSULTANTS TEAM MEMBERS :

Firms that express interest in this assignment must have team members that have:

  • At least a Master’s degree in Economics, Business, Public Finance, Public Administration, Organizational Behavior, or other fields related to the tasks to be performed under this assignment. Additional academic qualifications in leadership studies is desired ;
  • Diverse and extensive experience on African development issues ;
  • Deep understanding of multilateral development banks ; 
  • Minimum of 10 years’ experience in executive leadership training, coaching and development, preferably in an international environment ; 
  • Extensive experience in designing and facilitating executive leadership retreats especially for senior leaders in the public sector and in international development organizations ; 
  • Vast experience in guiding senior leaders in undertaking transformative organizational change ;
  • Experience in facilitating corporate strategic planning and development of strategy documents for international organizations ; 
  • Demonstrated skills in consensus-building among multiple partners around complex and sensitive issues, and in identifying innovative solutions to complex and systemic challenges ; 
  • Excellent English language skills; French ability a plus ; 
  • Excellent facilitation skills, experience in facilitating leadership group work, brainstorming sessions in multicultural teams ; 
  • The Consultant’s team will be comprised of individuals with demonstrable relevant qualifications related to the tasks to be performed under this assignment ; 
  • Capacity to work in both English and French languages will be an advantage.

SUBMISSION OF EXPRESSION OF INTEREST :

Documents to be included when submitting the EOI. Interested firms’ must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate the qualifications of their team members :

  • A suitability statement (approx. 2-3 pages) providing a brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the work ;
  • A draft agenda for the first retreat ;
  • Most recent CVs of team members demonstrating experience in similar assignments.