Liberia Mission Report - Streamlining Procurement, Engaging the Private Sector
Greg Benchwick
Liberia Mission Report
Streamlining Procurement, Sharing New Technologies and Engaging the Private Sector
By Joost Hoedjes
During the civil war, most of Liberia's hydrological and meteorological observation infrastructure was destroyed. On a recent two-day support mission by the UNDP’s Programme on Climate Information for Resilient Development (CIRDA), we came across plenty of silent witnesses to the conflict. And, obviously, very few serviceable meteorological and hydrological observation systems.
In fact, there is no real meteorological observing system in place, with only two existing meteorological stations up and running. The country plans to add 11 to 13 new Automatic Weather Stations, ideally deploying the observation equipment on cell-phone towers that will ensure consistent security, communications and power. They also plan to install six hydrology stations through the UNDP-supported Climate Information and Early Warning Systems Project, as part of a larger monitoring system that will be constructing using diverse donor funds.
The principle objective of our mission was to finalize the terms of reference and the ordering template for the procurement exercise. This is the first step of the Long Term Agreement (LTA) procurement process. The Terms of Reference serve to give the LTA suppliers a comprehensive overview of the current situation, the specific needs and the requirements of the requesting country. Under the LTA, the supplier gives a broad outline of the type of system he can provide, but using the terms of reference (and the completed ordering template) he can tailor the system to suit the local situation.
And this is where advantages of the LTA procurement process stand out. Working with the project office and the respective implementing agencies, finalizing the Terms of Reference and the Ordering Template took us about one full week. After that, the completed documents were forwarded to the UNDP Procurement Support Office (UNDP-PSO) in Copenhagen, who sent out the secondary bidding request. From that moment, the UNDP-PSO received the proposals in under two weeks. Currently, these proposals are undergoing review by the CIRDA team, which should take approximately two weeks (although in this case the process was delayed somewhat over Christmas and New Year's Eve).
Once this final review is completed, the purchase order can be signed, and the supplier can get to work. So in the ideal LTA procurement case, starting from scratch, a tailor-made system consisting of a network of weather stations and lightning detection systems, an accurate weather forecasting system, an early warning system for weather-related hazards, plus the associated data management and display systems and training and maintenance provisions can be ordered within less than two months' time. Pretty fast for such a complex system!
Public-Private Partnerships
Another facet of the support missions currently being undertaken by the CIRDA Programme is to foster capacity building, review current monitoring systems, share technical details on new technologies, and actively engage on dialogue regarding engagement with the private sector.
During our field mission, we gained valuable insights into the local situation, which proved very useful in finalizing the terms of reference. Liberia is a beautiful country, with some very specific challenges for hydrologists and meteorologists. Quite a number of possible locations for (notably) hydrological observation equipment lack good GSM coverage, making real-time data transmission more challenging. Upstream mining activities in neighbouring Guinea and Ivory Coast could potentially impact water quality, so that's an important parameter to include in the monitoring. Mining companies in Liberia itself need accurate and timely weather information in their operations. The challenge is to find a way to cater for all these, as well as many other needs, by optimizing the design of the observation network and the weather and climate information systems.
To find out a bit more on the possibilities for the NMHS and the needs of the future consumers of weather and climate information, the UNDP Country Office hosted a workshop on innovation and partnerships. The workshop was attended by representatives from the government, the NMHSs and the private sector. During the discussions, a representative from mining giant Arcelor Mittal pointed out that his company is in fact already spending money on weather and climate information. They've purchased a number of automatic weather stations for their mining sites, and have allocated an annual budget for maintenance. This illustrates that there is a market for commercial weather and climate information. Moreover, the potential customer for this information has a pretty good idea of what kind of information is required, which could make future product development exercises a lot easier.
Joost Hoedjes is a Country Support Specialist in Hydrology for the CIRDA Programme. Joost holds a PhD in Meteorology, Hydrology and Remote Sensing. His scientific interest lies in the development of innovative hydrometeorological observation systems. Besides his work for the CIRDA programme, Joost holds a part-time position as assistant professor in hydrometeorology at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente, The Netherlands, and is ITC representative for East Africa.
Pascal Okello
Interesting article.
Thanks
Pascal
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UNDP’s Programme on Climate Information for Resilient Development in Africa (CIRDA) connects ideas, people and technology to build resilience to climate change in 11 of Africa’s Least Developed Countries. This forum is designed as an open knowledge exchange
to share best practices, advance experiences and share new models and technologies. Contributions are welcome. The views expressed in this forum are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations, including UNDP, or the
UN Member States.
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