Market orientation for CBI's decent jobs for women project in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast

CBI is gathering market information to prepare for a possible tender for a new women's employment project. The project aims to improve the working conditions of seasonal women workers in the dried mango sector in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. During our orientation, we look for interested parties and check if a qualified team can be formed. We also aim to improve the tender process to attract strong applications.

About the project 

The project CBI will help companies to:

• enhance productivity;
• strengthen human resource management practices; and
• explore product diversification.

By improving efficiency and staff management, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can perform better and provide better jobs and working conditions for their employees.

Market orientation objectives

The market orientation helps CBI gather information to help define a possible upcoming tender for this project. This market orientation has the following objectives:

• Identify potential parties interested in this assignment;
• Assess whether interested parties can form a team of international and local experts with the right skills to provide the required services. If this is not feasible, we will identify which parts of the assignment need to be adjusted or removed;
• Gather input on the essential roles and expertise we should include ;
• Learn which measures and requirements we can implement to ensure that local experts are fairly compensated;
• Gather insights to refine the proposed tender contents and process, ensuring higher-quality responses.

Project expertise

We expect to need expertise on and services for the following activities: 

• Improved productivity of mango-drying SMEs. This includes:
  •    coaching SMEs on product monitoring, quality control and optimising production processes;
  •    coaching SMEs on composting and waste management;
  •    EU market entry support for SMEs.
• Human Resources Management. This includes coaching SMEs on:
  •    effective recruitment, training and retention of middle managers;
  •    optimising work schedules for productivity and effective staff planning;
  •    formal contracting, ensuring adequate salaries and secondary benefits.
• Diversification, which includes coaching SMEs on: 
  •    the technical feasibility of drying other products;
  •    developing long-term business planning and production planning skills.
  •    Awareness raising and sharing of best practices. This includes supporting the Business Support
• Organisations (BSOs) in sharing best practices within the sector.
• Waste management – compost: collaborating with local compost companies to implement a technical pilot for composting mango waste.
• Development of a local maintenance service. This includes implementing a pilot for mango-drying equipment by collaborating with equipment suppliers and training local maintenance technicians.

Download the market orientation documents

You can download the market orientation documents via the TenderNed documentation page. Please read these documents carefully.

How to express your interest

We invite interested organisations to submit an expression of interest by completing the questionnaire in the market orientation documents on TenderNed. They email the completed form to jessica.scheffers@rvo.nl of the Procurement Office.

The deadline for responding to this market orientation is 17 March 2025. 
Please note: This market orientation is not a request for proposal. We do not accept proposals.

As a result of the market orientation, CBI may decide to launch a tender. We will announce this tender on www.tenderned.nl, with no preference given to those who participated in the market orientation.