Strengthening Crisis and Pandemic Response in Africa

The epidemiological context in Africa is characterised by ongoing outbreaks of new and recurrent infectious diseases with epidemic potential. The global pandemic of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is playing a major role in exacerbating the epidemiological situation in the African Union (AU) member states. With the founding of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2017 as one of the AU Commission"s specialised agencies and institutions and the subsequent founding of the five related Regional Collaborating Centres (RCCs), health has acquired a high political profile in the AU. As a young institution still in the process of being set up, Africa CDC is faced with high demands in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic on the continent; at the same time, the pandemic shows how important the organisation"s role is in coordinating partners and effectively implementing measures to combat the pandemic The German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) has commissioned the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with the project "Strengthening Crisis and Pandemic Response in Africa". The project aims to enhance the resilience of the Africa CDC by strengthening organisational development and project management capacity as well as partnership management. The project supports Africa CDC to sustainably institutionalise selected organisational functions such as risk management, to establish and mainstream institutional learning and innovation, as well as to introduce a Partnership Management Information System (PMIS). Skills development measures, including coaching and in-service advice, help make Africa CDC more resilient. The implementing partner of the project is the Africa CDC. "Strengthening Crisis and Pandemic Response in Africa" has two outputs Output 1: Organisational development and project management capacity at Africa CDC has been strengthened. This tender is focusing on Output 1 only. Output 2: Partnership management at Africa CDC has been strengthened. Africa CDC still does not have sufficient project management capacity needed to implement the projects and grapples with inadequate guidelines and tools for organisational risk management, transparency, and integrity. Equally, institutional learning and innovation are not sustainably mainstreamed yet at Africa CDC. As a result, the institutional resilience of the Africa CDC is not sufficient for it to remain operational in times of crisis in particular. The tendered project intends to improve the organisational development and project management capacity at Africa CDC with design and implementation of organisational development measures as well as set up of an organisational risk management system. Summary of work packages to be performed under this contract: - Developing and implementing organisational development measures (foremost on integrity, compliance, ethics and transparency) - Setting up an organisational risk management system - Designing capacity development and training measures Target group of the assignment The target group is the entire population of the AU, comprising around 1.3 billion people. The intermediaries at regional level are the staff of the Africa CDC who work as experts and managers at Africa CDC, including the RCCs, through whom the target group is reached. At national level, the intermediaries are experts and managers at the health ministries and public health institutes in the 55 Member States of the African Union.