RFQ_ UNFPA_FJI_2023_004_MHPSS” – Conducting a Scoping Study on Mental Health and Psychosocial Services in the Pacific.

REQUEST FOR QUOTATION

RFQ Nº UNFPA/FJI/RFQ/23/004

Dear Sir/Madam,

UNFPA hereby solicits a quotation for the following service:

Conceptualizing An Initiative for UNFPA Pacific to Respond to the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) Needs of Women and Young People Across the Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories

UNFPA Pacific requires the provision of professional services to conduct on scoping study on the Mental Health and Psychosocial Services (MHPSS) in the Pacific based on the terms of reference provided below. UNFPA Pacific will deploy the findings and recommendations from the study to co-create a MHPSS initiative to respond to the needs and concerns of women and young people across the humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus in the Pacific.

1. About UNFPA

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is an international development agency that works to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.  

UNFPA is the lead UN agency that expands the possibilities for women and young people to lead healthy sexual and reproductive lives. To read more about UNFPA, please go to: UNFPA about us

Terms of Reference

Background

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) embarks on the new 5-year 7th Multi-Country Programme (MCP7) for 14 Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs)^[1] from 2023 till 2027, focusing on the three corporate “Transformative Results” of ending unmet need for family planning, ending preventable maternal deaths, and ending gender-based violence including child marriage. 

Mental health and psychosocial issues have been reported as one of the critical public health concerns in the Pacific region particularly among women and young people. The COVID-19 pandemic heightened the need for psychosocial services amidst high rates of Gender Based Violence and climate change induced disasters. Mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS)^[2] include any support that people receive to protect or promote their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing. One major component of MHPSS is treatment and prevention of psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety. However, there is far more to MHPSS than that. It also includes support for people’s general psychosocial wellbeing. Helping people connect with other family and community members or helping them deal more effectively with personal challenges or practical problems, can have great benefits in reducing their distress and suffering.

MHPSS may come from within or outside people’s communities. It may be provided by professional specialists or social case workers and community support groups such as the church. It can take many forms, depending on people’s needs and on what services are available. A range of service providers, including psychiatrists, psychologists, specialized nurses, general practitioners or other professionals can provide these services. This applies especially to serious mental health conditions. At the same time, with proper training and support, para-medical staff, social and community workers, or other survivors can provide basic support and initiate referrals for more specialized care.

Psychosocial support can be much more than ‘therapy’ and include a variety of activities. These include support groups and self-help groups for women, or youth, or people with disabilities, or elderly, or healthcare service providers and other ‘first responders’ themselves; structured play activities for children; mind-body approaches such as relaxation and breathing exercises; storytelling; music making; sports; and handicraft or vocational courses. Genuine personal relationships and listening ears are ultimately crucial for psychosocial wellbeing. This is why untrained but caring and considerate family members, friends and neighbors, peers and teachers can make a big positive difference. Provision of basic facilities such as lighting, walkways, women and girls’ safe spaces and shelters during emergency disasters can be a significant form of support that can reduce stress levels.  Reliable, valid and understandable information by itself reduces uncertainty and stress.

The following MHPSS intervention pyramid illustrates that the majority of MHPSS concerns can be addressed through basic services and security as well as community and family support systems.

Mental health is a crucial component of health in all life stages and situations. Limited data exists on mental health across the PICTs, but the available data suggests that this is an emerging area for concern. Study found that in Fiji between 2015-17, rates of suicide ideation increased two-fold across all age groups. A 2017 survey in Palau found that 38% middle school students and 25% high school adolescents seriously considered suicide.^[3]

Further, humanitarian crises produce even more accentuated psychological suffering and trauma, which acutely threaten the health and well-being of the affected people, and erode efforts for peace building, recovery, resilience building and sustainable development. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that mental health and psychosocial support is an integral component in public health emergency response that must be addressed across a range of response pillars, including case management, risk communication and community engagement and the maintenance of safe and accessible essential health services.

The Pacific also experiences the highest rates of Gender-Based Violence (GBV), with 1 in 3 women having suffered either physical and/or sexual violence. COVID-19 pandemic worsened the situation, particularly intimate partner violence, due to prolonged confinement to the home, and increased psychological and economic stress. Recent natural disasters such as the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcanic eruption and tsunami, across the Pacific were all a reminder that these disasters increase the GBV incidence, and thereby add to mental and psychological distress not only among the GBV survivors, but also those around them, including other potential victims.  Because of the pre-existing inequalities, discrimination and unequal access to resources and services, women and girls are disproportionately affected, and so are persons with disabilities and those with non-binary sexual identities/orientation. During the COVID pandemic, the increase in GBV incidence was alarming enough to be called a shadow pandemic, underscoring the need for a holistic approach to address the issues, including through MHPSS.

The adolescents and youth are among the core constituencies served by UNFPA in the Pacific MCP7. COVID-19 was a testing time for young people as well. They expressed concerns about engaging with their peers due to movement restrictions. The economic impact of the pandemic led to some young people losing their job, some unprepared to face the school exam due to school closure, and most concerning issues related to their mental health and psychosocial condition (feelings of distress, loneliness, low self-esteem, poor school performance, sleeping problems, alcohol, drug abuse and self-harm).^[4]

The Pacific region faces a significant and growing burden of non-communicable diseases and mental disorders. An emerging issue is the increasing overlap between physical and mental health conditions, which are often the result of interactive effects and lead to more severe consequences. In addition, climate change is amplifying health risks, as it poses physical, psychological and existential threats to Pacific Island communities. ^[5]

MHPSS may have been deployed more commonly in humanitarian situations but there is a growing realization regarding their relevance in all settings and the fact that capacities and infrastructure for these services needs to be enhanced and integrated in the overall scope of services offered through health and social protection sectors.

In this context, UNFPA Pacific aims:

• To understand and respond to the needs for mental health and psycho-social support (MHPSS) for women, girls and young people, persons with disabilities, elderly, as well as the ‘first responders’ in the Pacific across the humanitarian-development-peace continuum.
• To define standards of care for different levels of care providers and invest in enhancing capacities to provide quality integrated mental health services and psycho-social support.
• To integrate MHPSS into national health and social protection policies and plans including those related to climate change, Disaster Risk Reduction, resilience building plans and discourse in the Pacific
• To align the MHPSS programming to contribute towards UNFPA’s three transformative results of zero unmet need for family planning, zero preventable maternal deaths and zero gender-based violence.

Scope of the Services

Locating the Scope of Work for this Assignment within the frame of UNFPA Pacific MCP7 for an initiative on MHPSS in the Region

• To understand the MHPSS needs of women, girls and young people, persons with disabilities, elderly, as well as the ‘first responders’ in the Pacific. (Referred to as the target audience, henceforth)

• To understand the policies and plans for MHPSS programming and response in PICTS.
• To understand the scope of existing initiatives led by Governments (including analyses of the definition of MHPSS by each member state, and which ministry/department is in charge, annual budget. etc.), civil society, academia and/or development partners (including CROP and other regional entities) that address MHPSS needs of the target audience in the Pacific.
• To identify the gaps in the existing initiatives to respond to MHPSS needs of the target audience.
• To identify MHPSS areas that UNFPA Pacific can support with a focus on women and young people, leveraging its comparative advantage in the Pacific and the climate change and resilience discourse.
• To draft a theory of change (with potential costing, overall and/or for UNFPA budgeting/RM purpose) for the selected interventions across the MHPSS intervention pyramid of basic services and security, community and family support, focused non-specialized services and specialized services.

• Outputs / Deliverable(s)

1. Scoping Study with focus on
   
   • Operational definition of MHPSS
   • MHPSS needs of young people and women in the Pacific
   • Mapping of the policy and sectoral plans for MHPSS programming and response Mapping of the existing initiatives that respond to the MPHPSS needs of young people and women in the Pacific
   • Gaps in the existing initiatives
   • Recommendations for UNFPA Pacific programming on MHPSS based on the target audience needs, existing gaps and UNFPA’s comparative advantage

2. Theory of change based on the study (with a PowerPoint presentation prepared) and the discussions within UNFPA and feedback from the team.

3. Suggested Activities

• Desk Review
• Interviews with relevant stakeholders

4. Timing / Schedule

5. Questions

Questions or requests for further clarifications should be submitted in writing to the contact person below:

The deadline for submission of questions is Friday 17^th February 2023 at 5.00pm Fiji Time. Questions will be answered in writing and shared will parties as soon as possible after this deadline.

6. Eligible Bidders

This Request for Quotation is open to all eligible bidders; to be considered an eligible bidder for this solicitation process you must comply with the following:

• A bidder must be a legally constituted company that can provide the requested services and have legal capacity to enter into a contract with UNFPA to perform in the country, or through an authorized representative.
• A bidder must not have a conflict of interest regarding the solicitation process or with the TORs / Technical Specifications. Bidders found to have a conflict of interest shall be disqualified.
• At the time of Bid submission, the bidder, including any JV/Consortium members, is not under procurement prohibitions derived from the Compendium of United Nations Security Council Sanctions Lists and has not been suspended, debarred, sanctioned or otherwise identified as ineligible by any UN Organization or the World Bank Group.
• Bidders must adhere to the UN Supplier Code of Conduct, which may be found by clicking on UN Supplier Code of Conduct.

7. Content of quotations

Quotations should be submitted via a TWO-envelope system. Interested Bidders are requested to submit their Technical Bid separately from their Financial Bid containing the price information. Each envelope shall consist of a single email whenever possible, depending on file size.

1. Technical proposal, in response to the requirements outlined in the service requirements / TORs.
2. Price quotation, to be submitted strictly in accordance with the price quotation form.

Both parts of the quotation must be signed by the bidding company’s relevant authority and submitted in PDF format.

8. Instructions for submission

Proposals should be prepared based on the guidelines set forth in Section III above, along with a properly filled out and signed price quotation form and are to be sent by email to the address indicated below no later than: Friday, 17^th February 2023 at 5:00 PM Fiji Time]^[6].

Please note the following guidelines for electronic submissions to UNFPAs dedicated email address:

• The following reference must be included by the Bidder in the email subject line:
  
  • UNFPA/FJI/RFQ/23/004 – [Company name], Technical Bid
  • UNFPA/FJI/RFQ/23/004 – [Company name], Financial Bid
  • Submissions without this text in the email subject line may be rejected or overlooked and therefore not considered.
• It is the Bidder’s responsibility to assure compliance with the submission process. If the envelopes or emails are not marked / submitted per the instructions, UNFPA will neither assume responsibility for the bid’s misplacement or premature opening nor guarantee the confidentiality of the Bid process.  Incorrect submissions might result in your Bid being declared invalid.
• Please do NOT send the emails containing your offer to any other email address (not even as a copy (CC) or blind copy (BCC)); otherwise UNFPA will not be able to guarantee confidentiality and fair and transparent handling of your bid. UNFPA reserves the right to reject bids sent via the appropriate channel but copied or blind copied to other email addresses.
• The total email size may not exceed 20 MB (including email body, encoded attachments and headers). Where the technical details are in large electronic files, it is recommended that these be sent separately before the deadline.
• When submitting electronic offers, Bidders will receive an autoreply acknowledging receipt of the first email. Should your offer require you to submit more than one email, in the body of this first email, bidders are requested to list the number of messages, which make up their technical offer and the number of messages, which make up their financial offer. If you do not receive any autoreply for the first email from UNFPA’s email system, please inform Salmana Hussein, Programme Finance Associate at: sahussein@unfpa.org
• Any quotation submitted will be regarded as an offer by the bidder and does not constitute or imply the acceptance of any quotation by UNFPA. UNFPA is under no obligation to award a contract to any bidder as a result of this RFQ.

9. Overview of Evaluation Process

The evaluation will be carried out in a two-step process by an ad-hoc evaluation panel. Technical proposals will be evaluated and scored first, prior to the evaluation and scoring of price quotations

Technical Evaluation

Technical proposals will be evaluated based on their responsiveness to the service requirements /TORs listed in Section II and in accordance with the evaluation criteria below.

The following scoring scale will be used to ensure objective evaluation:

Financial Evaluation

Price quotes will be evaluated only for bidders whose technical proposals achieve a minimum score of [50-70] points in the technical evaluation.

Price quotes will be evaluated based on their responsiveness to the price quote form. The maximum number of points for the price quote is 100, which will be allocated to the lowest total price provided in the quotation or based on the specific formula indicated in the TORs. All other price quotes will receive points in inverse proportion according to the following formula:

Total score

The total score for each proposal will be the weighted sum of the technical score and the financial score.  The maximum total score is 100 points.

10. Award Criteria

In case of a satisfactory result from the evaluation process, UNFPA intends to award a Professional Service Contract on a fixed-cost basis/maximum-cost basis with duration of four (4) months to the Bidder(s) that obtain the highest total score.

11. Right to Vary Requirements at Time of Award

UNFPA reserves the right at the time of award of contract to increase or decrease by up to 20% the volume of services specified in this RFQ without any change in unit prices or other terms and conditions.

12. Payment Terms

UNFPA payment terms are net 30 days upon receipt of invoice and delivery/acceptance of the milestone deliverables linked to payment as specified in the contract.

13. Fraud and Corruption

UNFPA is committed to preventing, identifying, and addressing all acts of fraud against UNFPA, as well as against third parties involved in UNFPA activities. UNFPA’s policy regarding fraud and corruption is available here: Fraud Policy. Submission of a proposal implies that the Bidder is aware of this policy.

Suppliers, their subsidiaries, agents, intermediaries and principals must cooperate with the UNFPA Office of Audit and Investigations Services as well as with any other oversight entity authorized by the Executive Director and with the UNFPA Ethics Advisor as and when required.  Such cooperation shall include, but not be limited to, the following: access to all employees, representatives’ agents and assignees of the vendor; as well as production of all documents requested, including financial records.  Failure to fully cooperate with investigations will be considered sufficient grounds to allow UNFPA to repudiate and terminate the Agreement, and to debar and remove the supplier from UNFPA's list of registered suppliers.

A confidential Anti-Fraud Hotline is available to any Bidder to report suspicious fraudulent activities at UNFPA Investigation Hotline.

14. Zero Tolerance

UNFPA has adopted a zero-tolerance policy on gifts and hospitality. Suppliers are therefore requested not to send gifts or offer hospitality to UNFPA personnel. Further details on this policy are available here: Zero Tolerance Policy.

15. RFQ Protest

Bidder(s) perceiving that they have been unjustly or unfairly treated in connection with a solicitation, evaluation, or award of a contract may submit a complaint to the UNFPA Head of the Business Unit, Mr. Iori Kato, Director & Representative at kato@unfpa.org. Should the supplier be unsatisfied with the reply provided by the UNFPA Head of the Business Unit, the supplier may contact the Chief, Supply Chain management Unit at procurement@unfpa.org.

16. Disclaimer

Should any of the links in this RFQ document be unavailable or inaccessible for any reason, bidders can contact the Procurement Officer in charge of the procurement to request for them to share a PDF version of such document(s).

PRICE QUOTATION FORM

I hereby certify that the company mentioned above, which I am duly authorized to sign for, has reviewed RFQ UNFPA/FJI/RFQ/23/004 including all annexes, amendments to the RFQ document (if applicable) and the responses provided by UNFPA on clarification questions from the prospective service providers.  Further, the company accepts the General Conditions of Contract for UNFPA and we will abide by this quotation until it expires.

ANNEX I:

General Conditions of Contracts:

De Minimis Contracts

This Request for Quotation is subject to UNFPA’s General Conditions of Contract: De Minimis Contracts, which are available in: English, Spanish and French

Please note that a PDF version of the Ge