RFP at USAID/Tanzania Heshimu Bahari (Respect the Ocean) Project

Find here the information about RFP at USAID/Tanzania Heshimu Bahari (Respect the Ocean) Project

USAID Heshimu Bahari Activity
Request For Proposal
Heshimu Bahari RFP 5/202

The USAID/Tanzania Heshimu Bahari (Respect the Ocean) Project is a five-year project that aims to improve the ecological resilience and productivity of Tanzania’s high marine biodiversity areas. Tanzania’s coral reefs are among the world’s fifty most climate-resilient reefs based on biological and oceanographic characteristics, and Tanzania’s marine and coastal ecosystems support a diverse range of coral reefs, seagrasses, open-ocean pelagic habitats, and mangroves. Not only do the ecosystems support species such as dugongs, sea turtles, and sharks and rays, but they also support a variety of livelihoods such as artisan fishing, aquaculture, and marine/coastal-related tourism activities. Overfishing, poorly planned infrastructure projects, and climate change all threaten not only these ecosystems and their fauna and flora, but also livelihoods and food security. These obstacles, together with the lack of a functional marine management area (MMA) framework, underdeveloped governance systems, insufficient funding, and an unincentivized private sector, severely limit effective management and measurable impact in marine biodiversity conservation.

To help address these challenges, Heshimu Bahari aims to establish an enabling environment and science-driven framework for sustainable MMA and wild-caught fishery co-management by government, communities, and the private sector. The Activity has four integrated objectives:

Strengthen an enabling framework for a network of MM As and fishery replenishment zones (FRZs) for resilient biodiversity conservation, climate resilient communities, and enhanced wild-caught fisheries production.
Community co-management of MMAs/wild-caught fisheries and climate resilience strengthened.
Private sector investment in MMAs and wild-caught fisheries expanded.
Integration of relevant science to MMA and fisheries policy and management improved.

Objective.

USAID Heshimu Bahari is seeking to engage subcontractor to establish a sustainable, low-cost acoustic monitoring network to document the scale and trends in blast-fishing in Tanzania to aid in understanding, communicating and combating the problem, including corroboration of other kinds of reporting. This will include procuring, developing, and deploying a series of acoustic monitoring devices in strategic locations (blast-fishing hotspots) along the Indian Ocean coastline of Tanzania. This sophisticated underwater fish bomb detection system will be able to identify blasts within a range of 15 to 30km wide from the source of explosion, depending on size of blast. It is expected that the underwater acoustic system should, as far as possible, address the following known requirements and challenges: (i) design a system that is embedded in local institutional (government and/or non-government) capacity within Tanzania, for sustainability; (ii) capacity for reliable detection of fishing blast acoustic signals, avoiding false positives; (iii) capacity to triangulate the locations of blasts; and (iv) allowing as fast as possible a turnaround time in generating analysed data on a quarterly basis; (v) operable at a reasonable, sustainable cost.

Eligible Recipients:

Companies or organizations, whether for-profit or non-profit, must be legally registered under the country where it is headquartered upon award of the subcontract.
Firms operated as commercial companies or other organizations or enterprises (including nonprofit organizations) in which foreign governments or their agents or agencies have a controlling interest are not eligible as suppliers of commodities and services.
Companies or organizations, whether for-profit or non-profit, shall be requested to provide a UEI number if selected to receive a subaward valued at USD$30,000 or more, unless exempted in accordance with information certified in the Evidence of Responsibility form included in the required certifications in Annex 3.

About Author