NUTRITION INTERNATIONAL

(Formerly known as “The Micronutrient Initiative”)

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

RFP No: 10-2168

For

Engaging the services of a Consulting Firm/Consultant for Independent Evaluation of

iCheck Connect Beta Testing under Nutrition International’s BMGF funded Digitizing
Pakistan’s Vitamin A/Oil Program to Drive Sustainability

DEADLINE FOR RECEIPT OF PROPOSALS AT NUTRITION INTERNATIONAL:

Sunday, 6th March, 2022 (BY 17:00 HRS, PST)

1.0 Scope

Nutrition International has been working in Pakistan since 2001 to improve the health of
people in need, especially women and children, through better nutrition. Working in
partnership with national and provincial government, Nutrition International focuses on
improving access to much needed micronutrients for the most disadvantaged through existing
health systems.

Large Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) is one of the most cost-effective and successfully proven
interventions to reduce micronutrient deficiencies and associated health risks. Nutrition
International (NI) works across Pakistan to support establishment and strengthening of
enabling environment for the introduction and implementation of staple foods fortification at
national and provincial levels. Under the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth &
Development Office (FCDO) funded Food Fortification Program (FFP), the capacity of oil
producers and government regulatory bodies has been improved to ensure adequate edible
oil fortification and improved QAQC as a result of which most Pakistanis can now access oil
that is adequately fortified with Vitamins A and D.

The iCheck Chroma 3 is a portable photometric device used for quantitative assessment of
vitamin A levels in refined edible oils, produced by BioAnalyt Germany, and being used by a
large number of fortification programs globally. Whereas iCheck Connect is a web-based
application for iCheck Chroma 3 devices to record and report iCheck Testing Data. iCheck
Connect is pilot tested by Nutrition International as part of the BMGF-supported digitization
project in collaboration with BioAnalyt Germany to categorize, visualize, and interpret
transferred data and automatically transfer it to NI’s Fortification Information System (FortIS)
for decision making and course corrective actions by millers and government regulatory
bodies. The overall objective of this digitization work is to introduce efficiency, transparency,
and accountability in the collection and reporting of quality assurance and quality control
practices by industry and food regulatory bodies.

This is important to understand how far the industry and government is willing to adopt
iCheck Connect into their internal and external monitoring system and ready for a scale up to
access readily available real-time information for decision making. This initiative will
strengthen the data collection and reporting system for the millers and the provincial food
authorities around food fortification and ensure the population gets high-quality and fortified
edible oil and ghee. This will also help the government and industry to track total production
of oil/ghee in the country and triangulate that with the rate of fortification.

2.0 Service Requirements

Consulting firm should refer to TOR under Annexure 1.

3.0 General Instructions and Considerations

3.1 Consulting Firms must provide all the information requested below. Proposal that does not
provide the required information, or do not follow the submission requirements may not be
reviewed.
3.2 Consulting Firms are responsible for all costs associated with quotation preparation and
sample submission.
3.3 Requests for further information must be sent by Monday 28th February 2022 (By 14:00 HRS,
PST) on: Email: [email protected]

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3.4 NI reserves the right to accept or reject any proposal in whole or in part and to reject all proposals
at any time without assigning any reason whatsoever before award of Contract.

4.0 Submission of Proposals

The Closing Date for submission of proposals is on or before Sunday, March 6, 2022 by 17:00
HRS, PST. Late or incomplete quotations will not be considered. The Technical and Financial
Proposals must be submitted by e-mail in English at the following Email address:
[email protected] with the reference of “RFP No. 10-2168” in the subject line.
Only complete applications will be reviewed containing the following info.
i. Up-to-date organizational brief with proof of registration and the curriculum vitae (CV) of
the team/crew.
ii. Technical proposal, not exceeding five pages, describing the consultant’s /firm’s
understanding of the assignment, approach and methodology, work plan with
breakdown of activities and outputs.
iii. Financial proposal including daily fee rates (in Pakistani Rupee), suggested number of
trips/days in the field and any other expenses required to fulfill the terms of the
consultancy (meetings, materials, printing, audio visual, voice over, acting, direction,
etc.).

4.1 For any clarification required, please write an email at [email protected]

4.2 Only email bids will be accepted. Only those short-listed will receive an acknowledgment and
will be called for a personal interaction (if required), at their own cost. The interaction will be
held at the NI office in Islamabad or online. Proposals received after the due date and time will
not be considered under any circumstances.

5.0 RECEIPT, EVALUATION AND HANDLING OF PROPOSALS

5.1 Once a proposal is received within the due date and time, NI will:
a) log the receipt of the proposals and record the business information
b) review all proposals and disqualify any non-responsive ones (that fail to meet the terms set
out in these instructions), and retain the business details on file with a note indicating
disqualification
c) evaluate all responsive proposals objectively in line with the criteria specified below
d) Inform Respondents within 10 business days of the evaluation decision being made.

5.2 NI reserves the right:

5.2.1 To accept or reject any and all proposals and/or to annul the RFP process prior to award,
without thereby incurring any liability to the affected Respondents or any obligation to
inform the affected Respondents of the grounds for NI's actions prior to contract award,
and
5.2.2 To negotiate - with Respondent(s) invited to negotiate - the proposed technical approach
and methodology, and the proposed price (management fee) based on the Respondent’s
proposals.
5.2.3 Amend this RFP at any time.
6 SELECTION CRITERIA
6.1 Following criteria will be adopted to short list the proposals and identify suitable agencies for the
assignment. Out of the total scores 50% weights to be assigned to technical and 50% to the financial
proposal.

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 Scoring of Proposals: Selection of Agency
Assessment Category: Technical Proposal Weights
Consulting Firm’s previous experience on undertaking similar assignments 50%
Proposal including team, approach & methodology, work plan, timeframe etc. 50%
Total Score - Technical Proposal 100%
Overall weightage – Technical – 50%
Assessment Category: Financial Proposal
Takes into consideration all potential expenses (i.e. no obvious omissions) 50%
Reasonable estimate for each of the component/activity 50%
Total Score - Financial Proposal 100%
Overall weightage – Financial – 50%
Total Weighted Score (Technical – Financial) 100%

6.2 The Evaluation Team may, in its sole discretion, establish a short-list of Respondents based on the
Technical Scores of the Respondents (the “Short-listed Respondents”) for the purpose of conducting
interviews. If NI short-lists the Respondents, it will short-list the Respondents with the highest scores.

6.3 Only the Short-listed Respondents will be interviewed. The number of Respondents short-listed
for an interview is in the sole discretion of NI.

6.4 Only top 3 highest technically qualified proposals or as decided by NI would be financially
evaluated.

6.5 Interviews of Short-listed Respondents will be carried out by the Evaluation Team or a sub-group
of the Evaluation Team. The Evaluation Team will score each Short-listed Respondent based on the
quality of the Respondent’s interview (the “Interview Score”).

6.6 The successful Respondent will be expected to enter into a Contract with NI for the duration of
the Work. In the event of a Contract award, all the terms and conditions of the RFP, including the
Respondent’s response, will normally form part of the Contract.

7 GUIDELINES FOR PREPARING PROPOSALS

7.1 Language: Proposals must be submitted in English.

7.2 Structure: Proposals must be set out in three main parts:

Part 1: Covering Letter and Declaration

Part 2: General and Technical Proposal
Part 3: Financial Proposal

Part 1: Covering Letter and Declaration

Proposals must be accompanied by a covering letter showing the name(s) of the consultant, address
and contact number of the Respondent. The letter must be signed by a person of suitable authority to

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commit the Respondent to a binding contract. It must quote the RFP number and title, and include the
following declarations:

I. We/I have examined the information provided in your Request for Proposals (RFP) and offer
to undertake the work described in accordance with requirements as set out in the RFP. This
proposal is valid for acceptance for 6 months and we confirm that this proposal will remain
binding upon us and may be accepted by you at any time before this expiry date.
II. We/I accept that any contract that may result will comprise the contract documents issued
with the RFP and be based upon the documents submitted as part of our proposal.
III. Our/My proposal (Technical and Financial) has been arrived at independently and without
consultation, communication, agreement or understanding (for the purpose of restricting
competition) with any other Respondent to or recipient of this RFP from NI.
IV. All statements and responses to this RFP are true and accurate.
V. We/I understand the obligations regarding Disclosure as described in the RFP Guidelines and
have included any necessary declarations.
VI. We/I confirm that the personnel named in the proposal will be available to undertake the
services.
VII. We/I agree to bear all costs incurred by me/us in connection with the preparation and
submission of this proposal and to bear any further pre-contract costs.
VIII. We/I confirm that I have the authority of to submit this proposal and to clarify any details on
its behalf.

Part 2: General and Technical Proposal

The General and Technical section should be structured as follows:

Section 1: Your understanding of the TOR provided with this RFP as Annexure 1. You may also propose
qualifications to the TOR that you consider may enhance the value of the outcome to NI.

Section 2: Technical Response: a concise description of the methodology, tools and approach that are
proposed for the delivery of the TOR and an implementation plan in the form of a work breakdown
analysis. This should describe the activities to be undertaken, the deliverables / outputs and the
milestone and completion dates (grouped by phase where appropriate). The dependency of any
activities and associated results on earlier results needs to be clearly indicated.

Section 3: Consultancy Firm’s Profile:

• Consultant/Consultancy firm should have at least 5 years prior experience of

conducting research and assessment studies and evaluations of similar
digitization/institutional strengthening projects in the public health and nutrition
domain with the team leader of the assignment having post graduate degree in
public health, nutrition or any other related field and good analytical ability to
synthesize and organize of information.
• Prior knowledge and experience of food fortification programs in Pakistan will be
an added advantage.
• Up-to-date organizational brief with proof of registration and the curriculum vitae (CV) of
the team.

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 • Technical proposal, not exceeding five pages, describing the consultant’s /firm’s
understanding of the assignment, approach and methodology, work plan with
breakdown of activities and outputs.
• Financial proposal including daily fee rates (in Pakistani Rupee), suggested number of
trips/days in the field and any other expenses required to fulfill the terms of the
consultancy (meetings, materials, printing, audio visual, voice over, acting, direction,
etc.).
• Having valid National Tax Number
• Kindly mention ‘Digitizing Pakistan's Vitamin A/oil program to drive sustainability’ in the
subject line of the email.

Section 4: Personnel Inputs: include name of personnel, and person days with reference to activity to
be undertaken. Do not include any reference to fees. This will constitute a confirmation that all
personnel will be available to provide the required services for the duration of the contract.

Section 5: Individual Information: Previous experience: documentation demonstrating the

Respondent’s experience in the proposed area of work. This should include contact details for key
clients who may be contacted in respect of the respondent’s relevant prior work.

Part 3: Financial Proposal

I. The Financial proposal must contain the expected budget (template attached as Annexure 2)
for accomplishing the complete work with detailed breakup. All amounts quoted must be in
Pakistani Rupees.
II. Fees should be inclusive of all insurance and standard business overheads (in case of a
firm/organization).

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 ANNEXURE 1.TERMS OF REFERENCE

Introduction & Background

Like many other low- and middle-income countries, Pakistan faces a high burden of
malnutrition including micronutrient deficiencies where women and children bear the brunt
of increased morbidity and mortality. The National Nutrition Survey 2018 (NNS 2018) in
Pakistan found that 27.3% of women of reproductive age are vitamin A deficient and 80% are
vitamin D deficient. Similarly, 51.5% of under-5 children suffer from vitamin A deficiency and
63% of vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of preventable blindness
and results in increased risk and severity of infectious diseases and morbidity possibly by
weakening the immune system. Vitamin D deficiency causes rickets in children (leading to soft
bones and skeletal deformities) and is the single greatest cause of osteoporosis (decreased
bone mineral density and bone mass) and osteomalacia (soft bones) amongst adults.

Large Scale Food Fortification (LSFF) is one of the most cost-effective and successfully proven
interventions to reduce micronutrient deficiencies and associated health risks. Nutrition
International (NI) works across Pakistan to support establishment and strengthening of
enabling environment for the introduction and implementation of staple foods fortification
(oil and flour fortification) at national and provincial levels. As robust internal quality
assurance and external regulatory monitoring are key to the success of food fortification
programs, NI has been working with oil millers to strengthen their internal quality assurance
(QA) through the provision of iCheck Chroma 3 devices for testing of vitamin A levels in
fortified oil and with government food regulatory bodies to strengthen their external quality
control (QC) with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and the iCheck Chroma 3
devices.

The iCheck Chroma 3 is a portable photometric device used for quantitative assessment of
vitamin A levels in refined edible oils, produced by BioAnalyt Germany, and being used by a
large number of fortification programs globally. Whereas iCheck Connect is a web-based
application for iCheck Chroma 3 devices to record and report iCheck Testing Data. iCheck
Connect is pilot tested by Nutrition International as part of the BMGF-supported digitization
project in collaboration with BioAnalyt Germany to categorize, visualize, and interpret
transferred data and automatically transfer it to NI’s Fortification Information System (FortIS)
for decision making and course corrective actions by millers and government regulatory
bodies. The overall objective of this digitization work is to introduce efficiency, transparency,
and accountability in the collection and reporting of quality assurance and quality control
practices by industry and food regulatory bodies.

This is important to understand how far the industry and government is willing to adopt
iCheck Connect into their internal and external monitoring system and ready for a scale up to
access readily available real-time information for decision making. This initiative will
strengthen the data collection and reporting system for the millers and the provincial food
authorities around food fortification and ensure the population gets high-quality and fortified

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edible oil and ghee. This will also help the government and industry to track total production
of oil/ghee in the country and triangulate that with the rate of fortification.

Nutrition International’s Large Scale Food Fortification Programme

With support from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), NI is supporting digitization of
Pakistan's vitamin A/oil program to drive sustainability. Under this initiative, NI is supporting
the scale-up and institutionalization of edible oil fortification in Pakistan. NI is working closely
with and providing support to the National Fortification Alliance at the Ministry of National
Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (MoNHSR&C), Provincial Food Authorities,
Pakistan Vanaspati Manufacturers’ Associations (PVMA), and the oil industries to scale,
institutionalize and sustain oil fortification and its QA/QC.

Objectives of the Assignment:

Conduct an independent third-party evaluation of the NI’s pilot test of iCheck Connect with
mills to collect iCheck Test Data and store on a Centralized Web/Mobile Application based
Fortification Information System of Nutrition International and the Bio Analyt’s iCheck
Connect Software with the following specific objectives.

1. To assess the relevance, acceptability, uptake, scalability, efficacy and sustainability of the
iCheck Connect devices/software produced by BioAnalyt and pilot tested by Nutrition
International under the BMGF-supported digitization of oil fortification QA/QC project.
2. Identify any enabling and inhibiting factors to scale up iCheck Connect to all edible oil mills
to improve quality assurance data for proper reporting and to determine the quality and
adequacy of fortification in relation to total production.
3. Assess and document any resistance in adapting to the digitization of QAQC both by millers
and the food authorities, inform any gaps (technical, financial, human resource, software
utility and acceptance etc.) in scaling up the iCheck Connect by millers and the government
authorities for QA/QC.

Scope of Work / key evaluation questions:

1. How far is the iCheck equipment and the iCheck Connect Database relevant to
improving quality assurance in edible oil fortification at oil mills in Pakistan and for
quality control/monitoring by the provincial food authorities?
2. How far is the current implementation model of beta testing with the selected
number of mills useful to generate evidence on uptake, scalability, and sustainability
of use of iCheck Connect/digitization?
3. How far is pilot testing capable of introducing efficiency, transparency, and
accountability in quality assurance and quality control of oil fortification in the
country including collecting and analyzing data?
4. Was there any significant difference in recording and reporting oil fortification,
production quality assurance testing as a result of iCheck Connect?
5. Can improvement in data collection and analysis be attributed to the BMGF Digitizing
Vitamin A/Oil Program to Drive Sustainability project?
6. Did the pilot project contribute to or lead to greater acceptability, uptake and
sustainability of digitization for data collection and reporting at mills? If yes, do the

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 project component that attempted to introduce digitization for efficiency,
transparency and accountability in QAQC data explain this observation?
7. What were the factors associated with the change in utilization of iChecks and iCheck
Connect by millers and how far the millers/government will continue/sustain this
after the NI’s support through Zonal Managers is withdrawn?
8. What are users’ experiences of iChecks Connect Software and Database? Is there any
resistance to adopt these digital tools at the levels of industry or the food regulatory
bodies?
9. Are there any technical, human resource, financial barriers to adopt and scale up
digitization through iCheck Connect by oil industry and government regulatory
bodies?

Deliverables:

• Inception Report including approach and methodology, work plan, data collection
tools, data collection and analysis plan/methods. This will also include a review and
understanding of NI’s pilot project on beta testing with mills and food authorities.
• Data collection tools/templates before the beginning of the fieldwork. The study
tools could consist of FGD guides, KII and IDI guidelines, observation checklists.
• Debriefing meeting with Nutrition International’s project management team to
share initial findings, conclusions, and recommendations along with their
interpretation.
• A brief of key findings, conclusions, and recommendations for dissemination/
publication to share knowledge with national and international audiences/
stakeholders.
• Draft Evaluation Report.
• Final Evaluation Report with annexures.
• A final draft of a manuscript/research paper on the study findings, conclusions, and
recommendations and its submission to the reputed journal(s) for publication

Reporting and Coordination:

• Consultants/Consultancy firm will closely work in coordination with the Director

Food Fortification, NI Pakistan, and the National Programme Manager (NPM)
Edible Oil Fortification, Pakistan to discuss, share and review progress on activities
under this TOR.
• All documents shall be reviewed and approved by NI before sharing externally.

Logistics:

The consultant/consultancy firm will be responsible for arranging logistics including

transportation for meetings, data collection and field visits, hotel stay, security (if
required) within allowable budget ceiling as per NI policy.

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ANNEXURE- 2: Budget (Please Provide Necessary Details Here)

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