The Unit for the Horn of Africa and Eastern 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 Forestry, Land Use and Value Chains Development in Tanzania (FORLAND) (project code 28235974). The FORLAND project will be implemented in coordination with the Tanzanian Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT). The project is implemented in 19 Districts in Iringa, Njombe, Ruvuma and Lindi Regions. FORLAND will build on the results of the previous forestry projects, namely Participatory Plantation Forestry Programme (PFP2) and Forestry and Value Chains Programme (FORVAC). The estimated value of the procurement is 5,942,200 euros (including Technical Assistance fees and reimbursable costs, VAT excluded) + an option of 3,000,000 euros. The option includes technical assistance fees and reimbursable costs. Duration of the contract will be four years with an option period of two years. Other funds to be channeled through the Consultant according to the Project Document are operational costs of 13,657,800 euros and contingency of 400,000 euros. The total amount of channeled funds is therefore 20,000,000 euros. Project Document ("PD FORLAND May 2024") includes a more detailed description of the object of the contract. Information on the previous projects can be found in the annexes and on the Embassy of Finland in Dar es Salaam website (https://finlandabroad.fi/web/tza/). 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, 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. Interviews 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 suspend 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 Project 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 tenderers. Additionally, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs requires that the expert commits to confidentiality as regards the content of the interviews. If same person is appointed in several tenders (and thus would participate in the interview several times), that person will only participate in the first interview. The tenders, in which that person has been appointed, will be given the same number of points. Additionally, in order to ensure that tenderers will be treated in an equitable and non-discriminatory manner, the interviews in which the person does not participate will be proportionally shorter. If this is the case, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs will provide more detailed information and instructions before the interviews.