Reporter Saturday March 28, 2026
REQUEST
FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (REOI)
Country: Ethiopia
Program: Rural Financial
Intermediation
Program III
Assignment: Institutional
design for the National Agri-Finance Implementation
Roadmap (NAFIR) Implementation Arrangements
Selection Method: Quality
and Cost Based Selection (QCBS)
IFAD Grant No. 2000002344
Reference No.
IFAD/RUFIPIII/NBE/ICB/CS/05/2025/26
The Federal Democratic Republic
of Ethiopia has received financing from the
International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD) for the rural financial intermediation program III (RUFIP-III), under which a portion of the
funding will be utilized towards
qualified payments on assignments for the consultancy services.
The National Bank of Ethiopia
(NBE) is a central bank engaged in maintaining
safe and sound financial institutions (banks, microfinance institutions, and insurers) to support the country's
overall economic development.
NBE has received finance from the
International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD)
towards the cost of RUFIP III (project
year three) and intends to apply part of the proceeds for the requirement of consulting service, for which this
REOI is issued.
NBE would like to receive
expressions of interest (EOIs) from a team of experts,
or a consulting firm, with relevant expertise to perform institutional design and establish an independent
institution for the National Agri-Finance
Implementation Roadmap (NAFIR)
including its three pillars. The terms of reference contain additional information about these consulting
services.
Objective of the Consultancy:
Agricultural financing is constrained by high costs and risks, small loan sizes, limited financial infrastructure, low financial
literacy, lack of specialized
agri-finance products, exposure to climate and market volatility, and limited access to acceptable
collateral. A national Agri-Finance
Implementation Roadmap (NAFIR) has been
developed to address remaining constraints and scaling up agricultural finance
in a coordinated and sustainable manner through
three pillars:
Pillar I: National Agri-Finance
Accelerator (NAFA), a wholesale financing and
credit guarantee mechanism that provides financial
incentives to qualifying financial institutions (Fls) extending eligible loans to agriculture, overcoming
constraints in loanable funds
availability and high real or perceived levels of risk lending to agriculture
Pillar II: Farmer Access to
Streamlined Financial Services (FAST), a digital
public infrastructure that integrates borrower data and streamlines through digitalization and automation key
loan lifecycle management process interactions with
the agri- finance enabling ecosystem in
order to overcome the high costs, timeliness
and complexity faced by Fls in onboarding agricultural producers and managing agricultural loan lifecycle processes
Pillar III: Centre of Excellence
(CoE), a hub for strategic stakeholder coordination,
problem-solving, and technical assistance delivery on key thematic enablers of agri-finance, including agro-
insurance, financial literacy, rural-urban linkages
and financial institution
capacity-building, in order to overcome prior fragmentation of efforts that have failed to scale up.
NAFIR is planned to be fully
implemented in a standalone institutional
framework constituting the full implementation of the above pillars. The objective of this consultancy is
to develop the end to end institutional
design for the effective implementation
of NAFIR. The consultant is expected to assess and develop integrated legal, regulatory, governance,
financial, risk, and operational
frameworks, including systems and procedures
towards NAFIR's independent establishment taking into account relevant regional and global experiences as
well as anchored in the specific
context of Ethiopia.
The Consultant will be selected
in accordance with the procedures set out in the
IFAD Procurement Handbook for consulting services,
which shall prevail in case of any inconsistency, and the National Bank of Ethiopia Procurement Manual
The Expressions of Interest will
be evaluated based on the firm's or team's
demonstrated expertise in institutional design and establishment of independent entities, proven experience in
developing integrated legal, regulatory, governance,
financial, risk, and operational
frameworks, and a strong track record in comparable
agri-finance and development finance ecosystems or financial sector assignments. High consideration will be
given to familiarity with agri-finance and
development finance ecosystems, as well
as experience in regional and international contexts relevant to
Ethiopia.
|
No.
|
Description
|
Weight (100%)
|
|
1
|
Specific experience
|
60%
|
|
1.1
|
Bidders must have a clean
record, absent
criminal conviction, bankruptcy or sanction,
or a consulting firm, legally incorporated
for at least 5 years, with good financial
standing and reputation.
|
10
|
|
1.2
|
Bidders must provide evidence
of at least
two similar assignments successfully delivered over the last 10 years in African or comparable jurisdictions
|
20
|
|
1.3
|
Consulting team members must
have at
least 10 years' demonstrable expertise
in African or comparable jurisdictions,
including a financial institution design
expert, a legal regulatory expert, agri-finance
specialist, IT/Digital systems architect,
and capacity building expert
|
15
|
|
1.4
|
Bidders must provide proof of
capacity
in managing and administering complex
projects in line with good practices,
including contract and financial management, reporting, and evaluation
|
10
|
|
1.5
|
Bidders must have a local team
member
to ensure the work is anchored in the
Ethiopian Context
|
5
|
|
2
|
General experience
|
30%
|
|
2.1
|
>15 year experience
|
30
|
|
2.2
|
>10 years experience
|
25
|
|
2.3
|
<10 years experience
|
15
|
|
3
|
Clarity of the proposal/EOIs
|
10%
|
At the Expressions of Interest
(EOI) stage, applicants are required to demonstrate
relevant experience, technical capacity, and qualifications. Detailed technical proposals, work plans,
and financial proposals will be
requested only from shortlisted firms at
the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage, in accordance with IFAD Procurement Guidelines.
Applicants shall comply with
IFAD's policies on fraud, corruption, and conflict of
interest. Shortlisted firms will be required, at the RFP stage, to submit signed Declarations of Impartiality and
Confidentiality for all proposed key experts
a) Certified copy of valid
registered VAT or equivalent;
b) Certified copy of valid tax identification Number (TIN);
c) Renewed trade license for fiscal year;
d) Valid Tax clearance certificate;
e) Certificate of incorporation for foreign applicants
The evaluation of Expressions of Interest will focus primarily on the firm's specific experience relevant to the assignment.
General experience will be assessed as
supporting evidence and shall not substitute
for demonstrated experience in similar institutional design assignments.
The final selection of the
organization to conduct the study shall be based on
a quality-and cost based selection (QCBS) method through request for proposals.
All consultants shall be required
to comply with IFAD's policies on conflict of
interest, ethics, and prevention of fraud and corruption. Shortlisted applicants will be required to
submit a signed
Declaration of Impartiality and
Confidentiality prior to engagement
On all pages of the EOI proposal
document, the organization's stamp should be
sealed near the authorized signatory and all
pages should be numbered, dated, signed, and stamped. The application must be signed by an authorized individual.
Additional sheets that the applicant must attach
should be numbered and submitted as a
package with a signed letter. The
applicant may provide any additional information they believe is necessary to demonstrate their ability to
perform the proposed consultancy
service.
The level of detail provided at
the EOI stage shall be commensurate with the
objective of shortlisting qualified firms and shall not constitute a full technical proposal.
The Expressions of interest
(EOIs) and all documentations shall be submitted in
English, one original and one copy (in hard and softcopy) having been signed on each page by authorized
personnel and delivered to the address below on or
before April 15, 2026 until 10:00 Am in
the morning. The Applications will be
opened on April 15, 2026 at 10:30 Am in the morning at the Office of the National Bank of Ethiopia. Documents
received after the deadline will not be
considered valid and will be returned
unopened.
The Employer reserves the right
to accept any part of or all applications and
the right to reject any part or all applications.
Late submissions shall be
rejected.
The following addresses is for processing activities such as for issuance of documents and/or for clarification regarding the
invitation.
Attention: Director: Procurement Services Management Directorate
National Bank of Ethiopia
Procurement Services Management Directorate
P.O. Box. 5550
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Interested and eligible applicants may obtain further information from the Procurement Services Management Directorate with
the following telephone and e-mail addresses.
Tel.
+251-11-517-5167,
+251-11-517-5165/ +251-11-517-5161
E-mail: psmd@nbe.gov.et
The applicants shall submit EOIs as per the below format. The applicants can obtain these forms from NBE website.
NBE reserves the right to accept
or reject a part/all the entire bid.
National
Bank of Ethiopia