The Unit for Eastern and Southern Africa (hereinafter referred to as “Contracting Authority”) calls for this Invitation to Tender (ITT) with a purpose of requesting tenders on Technical Assistance service for the Implementation of the project Technical Assistance for Teacher Education for Inclusion and Quality in Ethiopia (project code 23816985). Technical Assistance competitive component includes one international and two national long-term experts. In addition, three Regional Experts and a pool of international and national short-term experts will support implementation of the project (detailed description in the Project Document, Contract Annex 3). The project will be implemented in coordination with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education. It will support Ethiopia’s sector programme for basic education Ethiopia Education Transformation Operation for Learning (ETOL). The estimated maximum value of the procurement is 3,638,550 euros (including fees and reimbursable costs, VAT excluded) + an option 500,000 euros. Duration of the contract will be four years with an option of one year extension. Other funds to be channelled through the Consultant according to the Project Document are operational costs of 1,361,450 euros. The total amount of channelled funds is therefore maximum of 5,000,000 euros. With an option of 500,000 euros, the total amount of channelled funds would be 5,500,000 euros. Contract Annex 3 Programme Document includes a more detailed description of the object of the contract. Information on the previous technical assistance project can be found in the Annex 11. The contract will be awarded through an open procedure. The procurement will take place in compliance with the Act on Public Contracts and Concession Contracts (1397/2016). The contract concerns a service procurement exceeding EU threshold which is based on a development cooperation agreement between the contracting authority and the partner country (on grounds 8 § paragraph 2 of the Act on Public Contracts and Concession Contracts 1397/2016 the procurement will be conducted through National Procedures). The processing of Tenders will progress in the following steps: 1. Publishing the call for tenders 2. Opening of tenders 3. Evaluation of the suitability of the tenderers 4. Verifying that the tenders of the suitable tenderers and the services tendered fulfil the requirements. 5. Quality comparison of tenders that fulfil the requirements 6. Interview 7. Price comparison 8. Contract award decision and notification. Appeal period two (2) weeks from the notification. 9. Verifying the fulfilment of the suitability requirements of the selected tenderer 10. Signing the Contract with the selected service provider The Contracting Authority may wholly or partially interrupt the procurement procedure for a justified reason. The signing of the contract with the selected Tenderer and the commencement and continuation of the implementation of the Programme are subject to the intergovernmental agreement on the project being in force. No compensation will be payable to tenderers for preparing a tender, presenting it or otherwise taking part in the procedure. The tender documents are available in English language and the tender shall also be submitted in English language. Should the tenderer wish to obtain the tender documents in another language, they shall themselves arrange for their translation and bear the costs thus incurred. The Contracting Authority selects one (1) service provider and concludes a contract with that service provider. The amount of Services to be supplied is an estimate and does not form an obligation for the Contracting Authority to buy that amount of Services. The contract does not give an exclusive right to the service provider to supply the Contracting Authority. Should several tenderers have appointed the same expert for their tender, tenderers remain responsible for making an agreement on how they will possibly protect their own trade secrets or ensure the effective availability of the appointed expert resource during the contract period if one appointed expert was working for several different tenderers. Additionally, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs requires that the expert commit to confidentiality as regards the content of the interviews. To promote the equal and non-discriminatory treatment of tenderers, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs also tries to schedule the interviews of these tenderers [or project teams] on the same day.