Strengthening of the MARD's capacity (including policy analysis and evaluation system)

Project: Climate Resilience and Agriculture Development Project

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (REOI)

(CONSULTING SERVICES)

Firms Selection

Climate Resilience and Agriculture Development Project in Albania

Project ID Number: P178715

IBRD Loan Number: 94890

Assignment Title: “Technical Assistance for Strengthening of the MARD's capacity (including policy analysis and evaluation system)”

Reference: AL-MARD-521807-CS-QCBS

The World Bank is assisting the Government of Albania (GoA) with the financing of the Climate Resilience and Agriculture Development project (CRAD). This project aims to increase competitiveness and climate resilience of priority agri-food value chains focusing on (i) promoting climate smart and resilient value chains, (ii) promoting typical products and value addition (iii) developing Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) IT Platform (iv) modernizing selected irrigation and drainage schemes for high-value agricultural production (v) enhancing compliance with food safety and quality standards and (vi) strengthening evidence-based decision making for resilience and sustainable agri-food systems.

The services required to be contracted aim to support the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in ensuring successful implementation of the contract “Technical Assistance for Strengthening of the MARD's capacity (including policy analysis and evaluation system)”.

The MoARD seeks the Consulting Services of a qualified consulting firm/consortium with the objective to assist MoARD with the Technical Assistance for Strengthening of the MARD's capacity (including policy analysis and evaluation system).

The Consultant will be responsible for providing qualified professional and supporting staff and all necessary services required for the efficient cost effective and timely execution of the Consultancy Services.

Scope of Work

The Climate Resilience and Agriculture Development (CRAD) Project foresees the implementation of an integrated, on-premises Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Warehouse (DWH) platform to support evidence-based decision-making in the agricultural and rural development sector. The platform will centralize the collection, integration, analysis and visualization of agricultural, environmental, financial and rural development data, serving a wide range of users including decision-makers, analysts, program managers, field officers and external stakeholders such as EU institutions and development partners.

The BI platform is conceived as a multi-layer, Microsoft-based architecture comprising:

• multiple source systems (operational databases, files, external datasets and APIs)
• a data ingestion and ETL layer
• a centralized enterprise Data Warehouse with subject-area data marts and staging areas
• a semantic / data modelling layer
• an analytics and reporting layer.

The database backbone is Microsoft SQL Server using advanced features such as column store indexes, table partitioning, materialized views and high availability / disaster recovery options to handle large-scale, historical and current data in fact–dimension schemas optimized for analytical queries.

On top of the DWH, the solution uses Power BI technologies to provide both standardized and self-service analytics. An on-premises Power BI Report Server will host interactive dashboards and paginated reports with unlimited internal users, while a set of Power BI Pro cloud licenses enables collaboration, sharing and modern self-service analytics scenarios where appropriate. Users will access rich, interactive visualizations (charts, KPIs, maps, matrices, trend lines), with support for drill-down/drill-through, cross-highlighting, conditional formatting, bookmarks and export to common formats (Excel, CSV, PDF, images).

The platform is designed to connect to a broad spectrum of internal and external data sources-including relational databases, Excel/CSV files, XML/JSON feeds and web APIs-combining imported (cached) datasets with Direct Query/real-time access where needed. Comprehensive data transformation and preparation capabilities (profiling, deduplication, pivot/unpivot, type conversions, business rules, conditional logic) ensure that data entering the warehouse is clean, consistent and analytically ready. Data quality, data lineage and master data management (e.g. harmonized definitions for farms, crops, administrative zones) are explicitly required, as well as robust governance, logging and audit trails at every stage of the data lifecycle.

From a non-functional perspective, the BI/DWH platform must deliver high performance, scalability, security and availability. Standard dashboards and reports are expected to load in a few seconds under concurrent load; the solution must support vertical and horizontal scaling to accommodate growing data volumes and new thematic domains (e.g. climate, market prices), and must achieve high availability with redundancy across servers, storage and network components. Security is managed end-to-end, including encryption of data at rest and in transit, role-based access control at database and BI layers, row-level security in the semantic models and full compliance with national and EU data protection regulations, supported by detailed audit logs.

To ensure sustainability, the technical solution also foresees structured training and testing regimes: differentiated training tracks for executives, analysts, report creators, data engineers/modelers and system administrators, alongside comprehensive functional, performance, security and data accuracy testing in a dedicated test environment prior to go-live.

On this basis, the present consultancy will design and implement the detailed DWH models, ETL processes, semantic models and Power BI reports/dashboards, and will build internal capacity within the Client to operate and evolve the platform over time.

Qualifications of the firms

The contract shall be awarded following a Quality and Cost-Based Selection (QCBS) procedure, in accordance with the World Bank’s Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers: "Procurement in Investment Project Financing – Goods, Works, Non-Consulting and Consulting Services" (July 2016, revised November 2017, August 2018, and November 2020).

The Consultant may associate with other entities in the form of a joint venture or sub-consultancy to complement respective areas of expertise, enhance technical responsiveness, provide a broader expert pool, and strengthen methodological approaches.

The Consultant shall be a firm or group of firms with the following minimum qualifications:

General Experience

At least 7 years of professional experience in the design, implementation, integration, and support of Data Warehouse (DWH), Business Intelligence (BI), system integration, and supporting infrastructure platforms.

Demonstrated experience in the delivery of end-to-end software platform projects, including requirements analysis, architecture design, data modelling, ETL/ELT development, reporting, dashboarding, testing, deployment, and knowledge transfer.

Proven experience in the design and/or implementation of on-premises and/or cloud-based data platforms, including secure environments, role-based access control, backup, recovery, and operational support arrangements.

Specific Experience

At least three (3) contracts of similar scope and complexity completed during the last seven (7) years, with a budget of minimum 300,000 USD for each of them, involving one or more of the following: Data Warehouse and BI platform implementation; data integration and interoperability between multiple source systems; analytical dashboards and management reporting platforms; database architecture and reporting environments; or IT infrastructure supporting DWH/BI workloads.

At least two (2) assignments in the public sector, or in sectors with comparable data governance and reporting requirements, such as agriculture, rural development, public finance, statistics, or e-government solutions.

At least one (1) assignment involving multi-source data consolidation, including integration with operational databases, external systems, or other heterogeneous data sources including on prem and cloud integration.

Experience in BI applied in Agriculture will be an advantage

Submission of Similar Experience

For each reference project, the Consultant shall provide at least: client name and country; contract title and brief description of scope; contract value; start and completion dates; description of services performed by the Consultant; technologies/platforms used; and contact details for client reference, where available. The specific experience shall be proved by submitting description of the relevant projects, client`s acceptance or operational certificates, or relevant invoices stating clearly the description of goods and services as required for similar experience together with proof of received payments.

Consortium members may combine their experience to meet the qualification requirements; however, the lead member shall demonstrate substantial experience in managing and delivering assignments of similar scope and complexity.

Firms will be shortlisted based on the following evaluation criteria:

• Core business and years of operation – 30 points
• Relevant experience in similar assignments – 60 points
• Availability of qualified in-house staff – 10 points

The CVs of Key experts will not be evaluated during the shortlisting process.

The attention of interested Consultants is drawn to Section III, paragraphs, 3.14, 3.16, and 3.17 of the World Bank’s “Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers” July 2016 revised November 2020 (“Procurement Regulations”), setting forth the World Bank’s policy on conflict of interest.

Consultants may associate with other firms to enhance their qualifications but should indicate clearly whether the association is in the form of a joint venture and/or a sub-consultancy. In the case of a joint venture, all the partners in the joint venture shall be jointly and severally liable for the entire contract, if selected.

The Consultant will be selected in accordance with the World Bank Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers: "Procurement in Investment Project Financing of Goods, Works, Non-Consulting and Consulting Services" (November 2020), using the Quality and Cost-Based Selection (QCBS) method.

Interested Consultants may obtain further information concerning the Terms of Reference at the official website of MARD: https://bujqesia.gov.al/projekti-qendrueshmeria-ndaj-klimes-dhe-zhvillimit-ne-bujqesi/, or at the address below, during office hours 09:00 to 15:00 (Monday to Thursday) and 09:00 to 13:00 on Friday.

Expressions of Interest (EoI) in English language must be delivered no later than June 03, 2026 hardcopy (in person or by mail) to the address below, within office hours, and/or electronically at the below e-mail address.

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

Adr: Blv. "Dëshmorët e Kombit", Nr. 2, 1001, Tirana, Albania

E-mail: arben.molla@bujqesia.gov.al

Attn: Mr. Arben Molla

Project Manager