Training of R

SADC SECRETARIAT REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST (CONSULTANT QUALIFICATIONS-BASED SELECTION- CQS) SHORTLISTING COUNTRY: Botswana NAME OF PROJECT: REGIONAL STATISTICS PROJECT (RSP) PROJECT ID: P175731 ASSIGNMENT TITLE: CONSULTANCY TO HIRE A FIRM FOR UNDERTAKING OF NATIONAL TRAININGS ON R IN TEN (10) SADC MEMBER STATES REFERENCE NUMBER: SADC/3/5/2/463 DATE OF ISSUE: 11th September 2026 Background The SADC Secretariat through the Regional Statistics Project has received a grant. The aim of this grant is to strengthen the institutional capacity of SADC and participating countries to produce, disseminate and use quality statistics while increasing regional harmonization and collaboration. The main guiding frameworks are SADC Vision 20250 and the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan 2020-2030 (RISDP 2020-2030). The Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan (RIDMP), the SADC Regional Agricultural Policy (RAP), the Industrialisation Strategy and the Roadmap, among others, are complementary guiding frameworks for achieving the regional integration agenda. SADC has also developed various Protocols for domestication and implementation by Member States including the most recent one, the Protocol on Statistics, to enhance harmonization of statistics. The operating framework for implementing statistical activities as priorities for the region is the Regional Strategy for Development of Statistics (RSDS) and is aligned to SADC Vision 2050 and RISDP 2020-30. Demand for quality and harmonized statistics has been on the rise to monitor progress in developmental agendas at national, regional, continental, and global level. The scope of data demand cuts across economic, social, and on emerging issues such as climate change, disaster-risk, environment and others related. The SADC Secretariate intends to apply part of the proceeds of this financing to eligible payments under the contract for hiring a FIRM FOR UNDERTAKING OF NATIONAL TRAININGS ON R IN TEN (10) SADC MEMBER STATES The SADC Secretariat invites submissions from suitably qualified and interested firms to conduct the trainings, recruited following World Bank Procurement Regulations dated September 2023. Title : CONSULTANCY TO HIRE A FIRM FOR UNDERTAKING OF NATIONAL TRAININGS ON R IN TEN (10) SADC MEMBER STATES Accountable : Senior Officer, Research and Statistics Duration of Assignment: 20 months • The Objectives of the Assignment: The overall objective of this exercise is to train Member States on the use of statistical software for management of large databases and analysis of complex surveys. With Specific objectives: to provide participants with basic knowledge about the syntax and basis of the R programming language and to provide an overview of the main packages of R which are important for the statistical production process; and to provide participants with intermediate level knowledge on R for production and dissemination of official statistics. The detailed scope of work can be obtained from the terms of reference below. • The SADC Secretariat now invites eligible consulting firms to indicate their interest in providing these services. Interested consulting firms must provide information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services (i.e., Company profile detailing alignment to the assignment, description of similar assignments undertaken, experience in similar conditions and availability of appropriate skills among staff). • The consulting firm should have significant in-depth expertise and knowledge in R with experienced master trainers on Python in statistical data processing and analysis, spatial data analysis, big data, quantitative and quantitative data analysis, modelling and data visualization, especially for official statistics. The consultancy firm should also have in depth experience in design and implementation of training materials for official statistics Training and capacity building conducted under this assignment must align with the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) and its applicable Environmental and Social Standards (ESSs). Work under this consultancy is also expected to incorporate gender-sensitive approaches in all project activities and conduct a GBV/SEA/SH risk assessment. • Establishment of the short-list and the selection procedure shall be in accordance with the attention of interested Consultants is drawn to Section III, paragraphs, 3.14, 3.16, and 3.17 of the World Bank’s “Procurement Regulations for IPF Borrowers” dated September 2023 (“Procurement Regulations”), setting forth the World Bank’s policy on conflict of interest. which is available on the Bank’s website at https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/Procurement-Regulations-September-2023.pdf . The Consultant will be selected under the Consultants Qualifications-based Selection. The firms will be shortlisted using the following criteria: Evaluation Criteria Points Firm specific experience related to the assignment 40 Availability of Qualified and Experienced Experts 60 Total 100 • Interested consultants may obtain further information and detailed terms of reference at the address below during office hours 08h00hours to 16h30hours Botswana time. • Expressions of interest must be submitted electronically in PDF format and dully signed via this LINK: https://collab.sadc.int/s/8RpqPdNA5ZfZLa5 by 00.00 hours midnight Botswana time on 25 September 2026 and should mention the name of the consultancy assignment . CONSULTANCY TO HIRE A FIRM FOR UNDERTAKING OF NATIONAL TRAININGS ON R IN TEN (10) SADC MEMBER STATES Firms are advised to submit their proposals during working hours for support in case of any technical problems. Expressions of Interest must be submitted as one PDF file or zipped folder bearing the name of the applicant. • Below is the address for obtaining further information: The Procuring entity: SADC Secretariat Head of Procurement Unit Telephone: +267 364 1989 / 3951863 Fax: 3972848 E-mail: mmikuwa@sadc.int Copy to: djagai@sadc.int; tchabwera@sadc.int Annex 2 Detailed TORs TERMS OF REFERENCE CONSULTANCY TO HIRE A FIRM FOR UNDERTAKING OF NATIONAL TRAININGS ON R IN TEN (10) SADC MEMBER STATES Table of Contents 1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION.. 3 1.1 Partner country. 3 1.2 Contract authority. 4 1.3 Background. 4 1.4 Current situation in the sector 4 1.5 Needs assessment 5 2. OBJECTIVES, PURPOSE AND EXPECTED RESULTS.. 5 2.1 Overall objective. 5 2.2 Specific objectives (Purpose) 5 2.3 Results to be achieved by the Consultancy Firm.. 5 3. SCOPE OF WORK FOR TRAINING ON R.. 5 3.1 Scope of work. 5 3.2 Geographical area to be covered. 6 3.3 Target groups. 6 3.4 Specific work. 6 3.5 Reserve for continuation of contract 7 3.6 Eligible entities. 7 4. QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS.. 7 5. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS AND TIME SCHEDULED FOR DELIVERABLES.. 9 5.1 Reporting requirements. 9 5.2 Submission and approval of report 10 5.3 Project management 10 5.4 Management structure. 10 6. LOGISTICS AND START DATE.. 10 6.1 Location. 10 6.2 Office accommodation. 10 6.3 Facilities to be provided by the contracting authority. 10 6.4 Facilities to be provided by the contractor 10 6.5 Equipment 10 6.6 Start date and period of implementation. 10 7. MONITORING AND EVALUATION.. 11 7.1 Definition of indicators. 11 .Special requirements. 11 8. ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS.. 11 8.1 Assumptions underlying the project 11 8.2 Risks. 11 • BACKGROUND INFORMATION • Partner country The Southern African Development Community (SADC). • • Contract authority The Contracting Authority is SADC Secretariat, represented by its Executive Secretary. • • Background The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is a Regional Economic Community comprising 16 Member States, namely; Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Established in 1992, SADC is committed to Regional Integration and poverty eradication within Southern Africa through economic development and ensuring peace and security. Article 14 of the SADC Treaty establishes the SADC Secretariat as the principal executive institution of SADC. The Secretariat performs its mandate and functions within the policy, strategic and programme provisions outlined in the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) and the Vision 2050. The SADC Vision 2050 earmarks Statistics a priority cross-cutting sector whereby by 2050, the region strategic objective in statistics is to realize a robust and responsive regional statistical system to underpin regional integration processes, including measurement of progress and impact. • • Current situation in the sector In the discipline of Official Statistics there is an absolute necessity of evolving towards programming languages oriented to modern data science to face new challenges such as fast prototyping innovative ideas, standardizing production processes and automatizing manual tasks. The implementation of statistical techniques, methods and methodologies can be done with R functions, scripts and packages in a proper manner following the principles of modularity. Secretariat is prioritizing statistical capacity building as part of its implementation plan guided by the Regional Strategy for Development of Statistics (RSDS) 2020-30. With the Regional Statistics Project funded by the World Bank, capacity building shall basically come in the form of development of practical guidelines in specific domains; rolling out national and regional training programmes and; assisting Member States through technical assistance. Data management and processing is within the sub-component 1.1 on improving capacity for data production, management and dissemination of the World Bank project. With the growing need of analysing voluminous and complex survey data on a timely basis, open-source statistical software play a significant role. Thus, Secretariat is recruiting a consultancy firm which may include but not limited to research centres or universities to train SADC Member States statisticians on R for beginners and intermediate level. • • Needs assessment SADC Member States requested training on R for Statisticians handling data on daily basis for production of official statistics. • OBJECTIVES, PURPOSE AND EXPECTED RESULTS • Overall objective The overall objective of this exercise is to train Member States on the use of statistical software for management of large database and analysis of complex surveys. • • Specific objectives (Purpose) The specific objective of the assignment is to undertake a national training on R for processing of data for official statistics, especially: • to provide participants with basic knowledge about the syntax and basis of the R programming language and to provide an overview of the main packages of R which are important for the statistical production process; and • to provide participants with intermediate level knowledge on R for production and dissemination of official statistics • Results to be achieved by the Consultancy Firm The Consultancy Firm is expected to achieve the following result on R training: • Strengthened technical capacity of Statisticians from National Statistics Offices with the ability to develop R code and use R packages to perform data management and processing, data analysis and visualization carried out in the National Statistics Offices for official statistics. • SCOPE OF WORK FOR TRAINING ON R • Scope of work The selected service provider is expected to deliver for respective Member State for 10 working days over two weeks (5 working days for Beginners and 5 working days for Intermediate levels) in-person technical training workshop on R to process and analyze official statistics for data producers of official statistics at national level. The training must provide for theoretical and practical sessions on data management, statistical analysis, tabulations, graphics and maps and how to process, compile and analyze official statistics from surveys and censuses, large database and complex surveys, big data using R and R-Studio. The training report should contain summary of topics covered during training week. Training materials should also be shared to all participants and annexed to be training report. It is expected that the training to be done with real anonymized data obtained from censuses, survey and administrative data undertaken by National Statistics Offices. • • Geographical area to be covered The assignment will be carried out in 10 selected Member States of SADC Region. • • Target groups This consultancy is expected to target the National Statistics Office and other stakeholders, in particular, statisticians involved in processing and analysis of official statistics, large data and complex surveys. Specific work • • Specific work The assignment will be carried out through a national training in selected Member States of SADC Region. In particular, the consultant will be required to: • Inception report detailing approach, methods, assumptions, risks, timelines and content of topics covered and training programme • Develop a generic training programme to cater for practical training on R. • To tailor the programme to the needs of each Member State for intermediate level. • To deliver the training at mutually agreed dates • To give training on application of R in data processing, management and analysis in survey data and census and other complex data and to cover at least the following topics for beginners level: • Essentials of R environment and RStudio • Importing data in R • Merging data in R • Programming with R, object-oriented • Data manipulation with R: data mining, computing new variables, recoding variables, treatment of missing values, …. • R and data cleaning • Descriptive statistics with R • Crosstabulation and overview of statistical tests • R Graphics, data visualization with R • R packages: practical applications for daily production of official statistics • R in production: data analysis • To give training on application of R in data processing, management and analysis in survey data and census and other complex data and to cover at least the following topics for intermediate level: • Sampling (and sampling packages) and estimation • Weighting (and weighting packages) • Association Tests (when and how to use and interpret the different tests of association with R: Pearson, Spearman and Kendall, Chi-Square,) • Mean difference tests: independent sample-T test, paired-sample T test, one way ANOVA, two way ANOVA, one-way MANOVA, Mann-Whitney test, Wilcoxon, Kruskal-Walis.) • Modelling and predictive techniques with R • Use of R to carry out correlation and linear regression analysis • Bivariate analysis • Reliability analysis • Time series visualisation and analysis • Maps • Text analysis • Data reporting with R - tables, markdown, LaTeX • R in production: data analysis • R in production: automation • Data manipulation with R • Any other statistical packages useful for official statistics • Produce well documented Training Materials to be shared with participants with step-by-step indication for all the topics covered • Produce a Training Report for each Member State with a summary of topics covered during the training and recommendations for implementation. • To do a pre- and Post-Training Surveys assessment of participants knowledge and identifying areas of improvement • Reserve for continuation of contract The assignment is for training in 10 SADC Member States. The Firm shall be subject to evaluation after each training in a Member State. Continuation of contract is upon satisfactory completion and quality of the previous assignment. • • Eligible entities Eligible entities for the current assignment are consultancy firm which may include but not limited to research centres or universities. • QUALIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS This assignment is expected to be carried out by experienced Master Trainers from the Consultancy Firm and there should be evidence of in-depth knowledge with the open-source software (R among others) and trainings at national, regional and international level. The specific profile of Experts is provided below: Profiles of Experts Qualifications and Skills General Experience Specific Experience TWO (2) Expert Trainers • A minimum Masters Degree in statistics, economics, IT, Data Science or related field. PhD degree in the above mentioned field shall be an advantage Written and oral fluency in the English language is essential. • Excellent oral and written communication, analytical, presentation and report writing skills in English Language. • Excellent time management and organizational skills to prioritize workload and deliver needful during the training week. • French and Portuguese fluency shall be highly desired for undertaking training in French and Portuguese speaking countries The Expert Trainers Must have at least fifteen (15) years of experience using R • Demonstrated experience in statistical data processing and analysis, spatial analysis, modelling and data visualization using R for at least 10 years continuous and for at least 3 surveys for Official Statistics; • 7 years experience in data analysis and data visualization for both quantitative and qualitative data and Big Data; • 5 years experience in using R to analyse geospatial data/satellite imagery required; • Experience in the design and implementation of training materials during at least 3 trainings for the conduct of statistical data analysis training in Official Statistics using R; • Extensive experience in as a resource person in delivering at least 5 training on R at national/regional/international stages, particularly using household and census data. • Experience in working with national statistics agencies, and other government institutions The expert must be independent and free from conflicts of interest in the responsibilities they take on. Note that civil servants and other staff of the public administration, of the partner country or of international/regional organizations based in the country, shall only be approved to work as experts if well justified. The justification should be submitted with the tender and shall include information on the added value the expert will bring as well as proof that the expert is seconded or on personal leave. • REPORTING REQUIREMENTS AND TIME SCHEDULED FOR DELIVERABLES • Reporting requirements The consultant shall operate under the guidance of the Senior Officer – Research & Statistics and direct supervision of Officer – Research and Statistics. All the deliverables shall be delivered to the Officer – Research and Statistics who shall assess and review the deliverables in line with the requirement of the Term of the References; and approved by the Senior Officer- Research and Statistics. All reports / training materials shall be in electronic format in MS Word, Excel or PowerPoint format as the case may be. Scripts and commands for R should be shared with SADC Secretariat and the participants. The training materials including power point presentations and R scripts will be the property of SADC Secretariat and will be used for additional training if required. The Expert shall work with the Secretariat up to the end of the assignment, shall have delivered the following in electronic format as per specified timeline in the table below: Name of report Content Time of submission Inception report The inception should demonstrate how the training will be organised and its effectiveness towards impactful results. It should have include the objectives, expected outcome, methods, assumptions, risks, timelines of the training as well as topics to be covered and training programme No later than 7 calendar days after the signing of the contract. Training reports For each Member State trained, each report should cover: - summary of topics covered during training week; - Pre and post-assessment of participants and - Final Training Materials No later than 10 calendar days after the completion of the national training workshop for each Member State. • • Submission and approval of report The reports referred to above must be submitted to the project manager identified in the contract. The reports must be written in English. The project manager is responsible for approving the reports. • • Project management Overall responsibility for supervision of the Consultancy will lie with the Senior Officer – Research and Statistics. The Consultant shall be responsible for the operational day-to-day management and coordination of the consultancy work. • • Management structure The Consultant shall report to the Senior Officer – Research and Statistics and perform the assigned tasks. • LOGISTICS AND START DATE • Location The assignment will involve traveling to selected SADC Member States. • • Office accommodation None required • • Facilities to be provided by the contracting authority For the expert working on this consultancy, the Contracting Authority shall facilitate for visa entry in SADC Member States, if required. • • Facilities to be provided by the contractor The contractor must ensure he/she is adequately prepared and equipped for delivery of the training and drafting of deliverables. Moreover, the Firm is expected to be fully self- sufficient in terms of international travel associated expenses, laptop and related device connectivity for projector for this consultancy. • • Equipment No equipment is to be purchased on behalf of the contracting authority / procuring entity as part of this service contract or transferred to the contracting authority / procuring entity at the end of this contract. Any equipment related to this contract that is to be acquired by the procuring entity must be purchased by means of a separate supply tender procedure. • • Start date and period of implementation The intended start date is as soon as both parties have signed the contract agreement and the period of implementation of the contract will be 20 months from the date of signing the agreement. Please see Article 3 of the specific contract for the actual start date and period of implementation. • MONITORING AND EVALUATION • Definition of indicators The indicators to be used are timeliness, technical coverage and analytical quality of the Reports as detailed in 5 above. In addition, assessment of the effectiveness of the training to be done using pre and post test surveys with recipients of the capacity building activity. .Special requirements The Consultant must declare any potential conflict of interest between the provision of the requested services, and other activities in which, a member of their consortium of group (s), or any expert proposed in their offer is engaged. • ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS • Assumptions underlying the project It assumed that the consultant would be procured within the reasonable timeframe and activities implemented within 20 months. • • Risks The nature of the assignment presents negligible risks associated with the consultancy. Some of the foreseen risks are the following: Possible risks Risk Level Mitigation Measures • • • • • • • Unavailability of key stakeholders to provide relevant information due to change in the working environment Medium Plan and communicate ahead with key stakeholders; have more than one communication means 9. FINANCIAL PROPOSAL 9.1 Financial proposal The financial proposal should be a lump sum that includes professional fees, travel costs and any other cost for conduct of the trainings in 10 countries with the split of fees individually for the 10 countries. 9.2 Schedule of payment Payments for the assignment shall be related to the reports and their approval as follows: 10% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the inception report and training materials 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the first Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the second Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the third Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the fourth Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the fifth Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the sixth Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the seventh Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the eight Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the ninth Member State trained 9% of the contract price shall be paid upon submission and approval of the Training Report for the tenth Member State trained