Call for Proposals for Implementation of Improvement Projects through AID on Delivery (AOD) Programme 2022 – WaterFund

REFERENCE NUMBER: WATERFUND/SWASAP/CFP/01/2021-2022

WATERFUND BACKGROUND
The Water Sector Trust Fund (WaterFund) is a Financing Institution established under the Water Act (2016) with the mandate to assist in financing the development and management of water services in underserved and marginalized areas.

The mandate of the WaterFund is to provide conditional and unconditional grants to counties and to assist in financing water and sanitation services and water resources management to underserved and marginalized areas of Kenya. GOK and various development partners channel financial assistance for this purpose through the WaterFund. WaterFund, through this support, is currently supporting Rural, Urban and Water Resources and Results Based Financing investment programmes to the water and sanitation sector throughout Kenya. The WaterFund’ s purpose is aligned with both the Constitution of Kenya and Kenya’s blueprint for development, Vision 2030, which states that the role of water sector service provision is to endeavor to “reverse the declining trend of water availability per capita, increase access to safe water and sanitation, increase area under irrigation and reclaim arid and semi-arid lands for productive use.” The WaterFund uses different approaches and modalities to achieve its goals:
Rural Investments is an approach applied towards financial support to Implementing Partners in the underserved rural areas to implement and manage community water and sanitation projects. The main stakeholders are the Community Based Organizations, Water Utilities, local and international Nongovernmental Organizations (NGO) and Rural Water Services Providers in collaboration with the County Governments.

Urban Investments is an approach applied towards financial support for improvement of access to underserved Low Income Areas in Urban Areas of Kenya. The key implementing partners in this approach are the Water Service Providers in collaboration with the County Governments.

Water Resources & Climate Change Investments: is a mechanism for financial support to Conservancies and Water Resource Users Association (WRUAs), promoted by the Water Resources Authority, to manage their water resources within sub catchments.

Result Based Financing: This is a mechanism where Water Services Providers and Community Based Organizations obtain project loans from commercial banks against bankable proposals. WaterFund then subsidizes the implementer for the loan at an agreed percentage once deliverables are attained.

SWASAP PROGRAMME DESCRIPTION
With funding from the Government of Kenya and the Royal Danish Embassy, WaterFund is implementing a five-year programme (July, 2021 – June, 2026) titled Sustainable Management and Access to Water and Sanitation in the ASALs (SWASAP). The programme goal is to increase community resilience and adaptation to climate change through sustainable, peaceful use of natural resources including improved access to water and sanitation services in the target ASAL Counties.

The programme will target underserved ASAL communities including both host and refugee communities in Garissa, Isiolo, Lamu, Marsabit, Tana River and Turkana counties. These ASALs are home to the poorest counties in the country. The economy and current land uses of the arid areas of the targeted counties are dominated by mobile pastoralism, while in the semi-arid areas, pastoralism is mixed with rain-fed and irrigated agriculture, and small-scale businesses based on drylands products. Access to water, therefore, plays a crucial and often limiting role in most of the productive activities in the ASALs, and the low coverage level also has serious impacts on disease prevalence and workloads. High vulnerability to climate change and failed consecutive rainfall seasons add further to the challenges in these drylands, as does conflicts over resources, relatively high levels of insecurity and major influxes of refugees. As such, resilience of ASAL communities is seriously threatened.

Local and physical drivers of environmental degradation and poverty have been compounded by other forms of socio-economic marginalization, including: political marginalization; increasing inequality; land fragmentation and loss of access to land and resources; insecurity and resource conflicts; and a lack of human and institutional capacities, basic education, communications and investments. Systems for regulating access to water, land and resources in the ASALs, especially impacting mobile livestock production, have been increasingly eroded, leading to degradation of resources and undermining of the productivity in the sector.

Addressing and improving the access to water and sanitation and the associated management of water resources holds the potential to contribute significantly to building better resilience among the ASAL communities.

The integrated projects comprising water resource management, water services, and sanitation services in the six counties will be selected among proposals that contribute to SWASAP’s overall expected results while also engaging communities and county authorities to build ownership and capacity for maintenance, governance and management of projects post-implementation. This includes involving vulnerable or marginalized groups and incorporating needs, risks and capacities of these sub-groups into the project design and implementation. The County and UNHCR will also endorse the various applicants proposed projects in the host communities and refugee camps.

APPLICATION GUIDELINES
This application guideline form contains all necessary information and requirements to interested and eligible applicants for the above Call for Proposals. Applicants should read carefully and understand the information and prepare their proposals in line with the guidelines provided herewith.

Eligible Applicants
The Implementing Partners who will be eligible to participate in the Call for proposal will include Water Utilities, Water Services Providers (WSPs), Local and International Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Conservancies or a consortium of different partners with Lead Agent clearly stated. The applicant, or in the case of a consortium the Lead Agent, must have been legally registered and operational for at least 3 years prior to the date of responding to this call. The other partners in a consortium must also show proof of registration and operational status. They will also need to have a close collaboration with
respective County Governments.

The applicant, or in the case of a consortium, Lead Agent consortium members must have not less than three years’ experience in the target county, its social, cultural, political and environmental contexts and must have an existing and operational local office.

The institutional capacity of partners must include technical, contract management, financial, procurement, qualified human capital and knowledge management aspects. Please describe how the Consortium members will cooperate during project implementation. See below under “5.

Institutional capacity and management set-up’. Any organization can submit a single proposal per county ranging between Ksh. 70 – 150 million and comprising of 1 to 3 integrated projects each costing between Ksh. 25 – 70 million. The organization can also submit additional proposals in other counties as might be necessary.

Submission of Proposal
Applicants must fill the forms starting with the first one, (Applicant Information) to the last one (Risk & Risk Mitigation).
The applications should be submitted using the SWASAP Application Form as per guidelines below.
The applications should be submitted both in soft copy (pdf) to the email swasap@waterfund.go.ke and a hard copy in an envelope to the physical address given in the advertisement.

Only proposals that will be received by the WaterFund on or before 22nd April 2022, at 5:00 PM EAT shall
be considered for appraisal.

Full information is at: https://waterfund.go.ke/downloads/proposals