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Call for proposals

SELECTION OF STARTUP INCUBATORS / ACCELATORS

About SPARK:

The Dutch Non-Governmental Organization SPARK develops higher education and entrepreneurship to empower young, ambitious people to lead their conflict affected or in transition societies into prosperity. 

SPARK Tunisia is working to counter high unemployment rates amongst Tunisian youth by encouraging the development of Tunisia’s private sector through entrepreneurship training and support to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Background

The Local Employment in Africa for Development (LEAD) is a job creation programme that seeks to foster a culture of entrepreneurship among youth in Tunisia, and Somalia-Somaliland. Through the development of business ideas, the provision of training and coaching, and supporting access to finance, the LEAD programme aims to prevent economic migration and encourage youth to establish domestic enterprises. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs funds the programme.

Mission and support program:

As part of its 2nd objective: Jobs are created for youth, with a focus on women, through SME creation and growth, SPARK, under the LEAD programme, is launching a call for proposals from Tunisia-based organizations with the objective to select local entrepreneurship actors (incubators, accelerators) to source, train and coach young entrepreneurs and startups in innovative fields such as Industry 4.0, Agritech, Fintech, …

By adopting a training-coaching approach, in collaboration with the actors working within the Tunisian entrepreneurial ecosystem, the LEAD programme is seeking to promote entrepreneurship, SMEs development and access to finance through technical expertise. 

Therefore, the selected entity should provide entrepreneurs with the necessary tailored technical assistance, coaching and training in order to guarantee the skills development and scale-up for entrepreneurs, the creation/growth of startups and their access to finance. 

Objectives of the call for proposals

• General Objective

The objective of this call for proposals is to support the development, creation and scale up/acceleration of Tunisian startups launched by young Tunisians aged between 18 and 35 with a special focus on women.

• Specific Objectives 

• Contribute to strengthening the local ecosystem supporting the creation and the scale up of start-ups in Tunisia;
• Accompany young entrepreneurs during the incubation process, the creation startups, business development and access to market;
• Create employment through the creation of SMEs;
• Facilitate access to finance for startups 

• Expected results

The expected results are: 

• SMEs are created
• SMEs are grown
• Jobs are created through the creation or growth of startups
• Business plans are created and access to finance is facilitated for young entrepreneurs 
• Monthly, quarterly and annual monitoring reports are available      

• Work plan

The tenderer is requested to present a concrete and realistic action plan in accordance with the instructions and the duration determined by the SPARK team and the LEAD II project.

However, the partner should include a project work plan comprising at least the following three phases:

• Phase 1: Preparation of the mission         
• Phase 2: Execution of the mission         
• Phase 3: Mission monitoring         

The tenderer must respect in his work plan an implementation period between 8 and 12 months 

Terms of the agreement, provisional budget and financing mechanisms 

As part of this project and to attain expected results, SPARK plans to provide the partner with institutional support in the form of a grant enabling it to absorb certain fixed costs linked to the implementation of activities.

SPARK North Africa and LEAD program management and finance team will provide the selected local partners with specific guidelines for the implementation and the reporting of activities. A specific training will be planned upon signature.

SPARK’s support will be granted as a financial grant linked to the project implementation costs. 

This phasing means that the partner must have the capacity to pre-finance the mission on the different phases concerned. In addition, the financial participation of the partner in the form of an investment is a factor that will be considered in the selection criteria.

The partnership with SPARK within the framework of the LEAD program will be materialized by the signature of a partnership contract, which will be periodically evaluated according to the following areas of support:

• Institutional support         
• Support for the extension or creation of new SMEs
• Support for the access to finance to startups        
• Financial Management, transparency and compliance 

• Area covered by the agreement: The agreement that will be signed between SPARK and the partner will be in the form of a grant award agreement;
• Date of signing of the agreement: The signing of the agreement between the two parties is expected no later than March 1st, 2021.
• Duration of the agreement: The agreement is scheduled for a period between 8 and 12 months.
• Language used: Responses to this call for proposals, the selection process, the agreement, and the execution of the assignment; in short, all communications on this mission will be made in English.

Application documents

The tenderer to this call for proposals must provide the following documents when submitting his application:

Eligibility criteria 

Entrepreneurship actors (Private Sector, incubators, Accelerators, venture builders, CSOs) can apply for one or more regions in Tunisia and must meet the following conditions:

• Have references in the execution of similar donor-funded projects;         
• Have a staff available and qualified for the mission;         
• Have experience in supporting, supervising and building the capacities of women and young people;           
• Have a suitable space for the organization of training & coaching sessions
• At least 36 months of activity is an advantage;
• Present a monitoring and evaluation system for business support activities or monitoring of development activities.
• Not appearing on the lists of financial sanctions, in particular with regard to the fight against the financing of terrorism and against attacks on international peace and security;         

Selection criteria:

The technical and financial offers will be evaluated on 2 stages. 

∙ Technical proposition

The technical proposal will be evaluated according to the criteria below – below:

• General experience in target regions;               
• Understanding of the mission and objectives of the LEAD program;           
• Quality of the Portfolio and partners (if applicable);           
• Methodology of project implementation ;           
• Wok plan and timetable of implementation         
• Curricula vitae of the proposed team including         
• The clarity of the Outputs and Outcomes of the project   

∙ Financial Offer

The evaluation of the financial offer is mainly based on the ‘ value for money’ approach. 

The applicable valuation method will be based on

• Eligibility of costs;
• Clarity of budget lines;         
• The relevance of costs in relation to proposed activities;      

Incomplete offers will be rejected.