Regional Layers Parent Stock Farm in Cameroon to Support the Development of the Central Africa Regional Priority Poultry-Egg Value Chain

The African Union InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) has received funding from the European Union to support the sustainable development of livestock for livelihood in Africa (Live2Africa). Live2Africa is implementing the continental aspects of the Livestock Development Strategy (LiDeSA) through seven result areas using a value chain approach in 6 selected regional value chains. One of the seven result areas is “To enhance the implementation of breeding and conservation programs for sustainable utilization and management of African livestock.” and intends to use part of these funding towards the establishment of a regional Layer-parent stock farm in the Economic Community for Central Africa States (ECCAS).

Development Objective of the Project

The Poultry-Egg Value Chain (PEVC) was identified as the priority Livestock Value Chain in Central Africa. The main strategic action identified is to improve the poultry egg value chain and the main intervention identified was the establishment of ECCAS Regional Grandparent Stock Farm and strengthening the inter-professionals’ network at national and regional levels. Following feasibility studies, Cameroon was identified as most suitable to host the stock farm.

A parent stock farm is a nucleus for providing superior egg-laying chicken genotype for the ECCAS Member States. The establishment of the farm will support other strata of the value chain including small and medium layers’ commercial producers and customers. Therefore, the Central Africa parent stock farm will support the transformation of the poultry sector and enhance its contribution to environmentally sustainable and climate-resilient socio-economic development and equitable growth in Central Africa.

Objective of the Assignment

The overall objective is to contract an operational private entity to establish and sustainably manage a regional Central African parent stock farm (CA-PSF) based in Cameroon, an initiative based on a Public Private Partnership approach, aimed at supporting ECCAS to strengthen its regional poultry value chain. The operational private entity should be a legal registered entity e.g. a private limited company, co-operatives, partnership etc. This EoI is not open to natural persons/individuals.

The specific objectives of the assignment is to select a private farm to provide the following:

• To host an additional capacity of 20,000 (twenty thousand) hens to produce an average of 1.25 Million female layers chicks and/or the appropriate quantity of fertilised eggs to produce female layers (depends on the hatcheries availability in ECCAS MSs) per production cycle (17 months). The chicks or fertilized eggs should be of an internationally accepted standard (Commercial Laying Hybrid line or specialized Layers breed of an average production of 300 Eggs per production cycle).
• To supply ECCAS Member States with an agreed number (expressed as a percentage of the total per-cycle production from the additional capacity) of commercial laying chicks at a discounted price for supporting small and medium-scale layers’ farms.

The detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) for the assignment can be found below.

The budget available for this activity is USD 500,000 which will be used towards the purchase and installation of equipment and infrastructure for the additional capacity. Should additional funds be made available by the Contracting Authority at a later date, these funds would be utilized to augment the needs of this activity as assessed at that time.

Brief Description of Bidding Process

AU-IBAR has adopted a two-stage process (collectively referred to as the “Bidding Process”) for selection of the bidder for award of the Project. The first stage (the “Qualification Stage”) of the process involves qualification (the “Qualification”) of interested parties who submit an application in accordance with the provisions of this Request for Expression of Interest. At the end of this stage, AU-IBAR expects to announce a short-list of suitable pre-qualified applicants who shall be eligible for participation in the second stage of the Bidding Process (the “Bid Stage”) comprising Request for Proposals (the “Request for Proposals” or “RFP”).

First stage/Qualification Stage

In the Qualification Stage, applicants would be required to furnish all the information specified in this Request for Expression of Interest. Only those Applicants that are pre-qualified and short-listed by AU-IBAR shall be invited to submit bids in the Bid Stage.

AU-IBAR now invites interested parties (“applicants”) to indicate their interest in providing the Services. Interested applicants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications, technical and financial capacity and relevant experience to perform the assignment. This expression of interest will form the basis on which applicants will be shortlisted for participation in the Bid Stage. The attention of interested parties is drawn to Section 5.1.4 and 5.7, of the African Union Commission’s procurement manual setting forth the AUC’s policy on conflict of interest and exclusion criteria available at: https://au.int/en/documents/procurement-manual.