Note: Please, be aware that only Romanian version of these Technical Specifications is official. The translation from Romanian into English was done by the Implementing Authority to facilitate a wider competition within the tender.

Technical Specifications

1. General information ...... 3 1.1. Contracting Authority ...... 3 1.2. Current state of affairs in the relevant sector ...... 3 1.3 Related programmes in the sector:...... 5 2. OBJECTIVE, PURPOSE & EXPECTED RESULTS...... 6 2.1. General objective ...... 6 2.2. Purpose/ Specific objectives ...... 7 2.3 Results to be achieved by the Consultant ...... 8 3. ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS...... 8 3.1. Assumptions underlying the project intervention ...... 8 3.2. Risks...... 9 4. SCOPE OF THE WORK ...... 9 4.1. General...... 9 4.2. Specific activities ...... 12 Project management...... 14 5. LOGISTICS AND PLANNING...... 16 5.1. Location ...... 16 5.2. Commencement date & Period of execution...... 16 6. Requirements...... 16 6.1. Personnel...... 16 6.2. Office accommodation...... 18 6.3. Facilities to be provided by the Consultant...... 18 6.4. Equipment...... 19 6.5. Incidental expenditures ...... 19 6.6. Expenditures verification ...... 19 7. REPORTING ...... 19 7.1. Reporting Requirements...... 19 Submission & approval of progress reports ...... 20 8. Monitoring and evaluation...... 20 8.1. Definition of indicators ...... 20 Special requirements...... 22

1. General information

1.1. Contracting Authority Contracting Authority: Ministry of Economy and Finance – Central Finance and Contracting Unit Implementing Authority: Ministry of Economy and Finance – Authority for Coordination of Structural Instruments Beneficiary Institution: Caras-Severin County Council

1.2. Current state of affairs in the relevant sector

The Evaluation Facility is one of the tools of the Authority for Coordination of Structural Instruments within the Ministry of Economy and Finance aiming at increasing the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of policies and strategies, as well as of programmes/projects funded from public funds (local and central budgets).

The Evaluation Facility provides the Romanian public bodies with financial and technical resources for conducting evaluation activities of public interventions that are not funded by the EU. The provided support includes: • Counselling and technical assistance to decision makers and public officials during the whole life-cycle of an evaluation project: elaboration of technical specifications, assistance in tendering procedure, contracting the provider of the evaluation services, monitoring and quality assurance of the evaluation exercise, as well as in preparation of implementation of the evaluation’s recommendations; • Funds for financing the consultancy in the field of evaluation (covering the costs of the evaluation services).

The Evaluation Facility also contributes to the increase of the local capacity of the supply side of evaluation by supporting the know-how transfer from high calibre international evaluation experts to local consultants.

The local Public Administration is currently undergoing a wide strategic planning process, at all levels (communes, towns, county councils). Within this process, socio- economic development strategies are under elaboration and/or update.

Subject of this evaluation is The county strategy concerning the Speeding Up of the Development of Community Public Utility Services within Caraş-Severin County. This refers to the existing community public utility services at the level of 69 communes and 6 towns within Caras-Severin County, under the coordination of the Caras-Severin county council, concerning the monitoring, coordination and implementation of local strategies, as well as the related implementation plans. The local strategies will be implemented in cooperation with the involved local public administration authorities.

The Strategy has been elaborated on the basis of the general objectives that are specific to each service, according to the provisions of the Accession treaty and the national and regional strategic documents: the Regional Action Plan for Environment of the West Region, the Regional Plan for Waste Management of the West Region, which result from the negotiations on the 22 Chapter – Environment for Caras Severin County -, that has been elaborated by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development on the basis of the data provided by the 69 communes and 6 towns.

The strategy is structured on the 5 fields of public utility community services (SCUP) and comprises the analysis of the current situation of services’ structure, the management of public utilities community services, the strategy on speeding up the SCUP development on the 5 fields, the main objectives of the strategy, together with the forecasted financing sources until 2013, mostly public investment, measures that need to be undertaken at local level for implementing local strategies, as well as monitoring the county strategy.

The county strategy for speeding up the development the public utilities community services for Caras Severin county has been finalised and approved in February 2007 and is currently under implementation.

The programming of measures/ projects proposed under the strategy has been made in accordance with the deadlines defined within ’s EU Accession Treaty. The analysis of the funds needed for the proposed measures/ projects for each community and service type is based on feasibility studies, that are elaborated and approved by the local public administration authorities.

Caras Severin County Council, through the Department for Monitoring the Public Utilities has the task to monitor, coordinate and implement the county strategy. In this stage, there is the need for an independent opinion on the County Council’s priorities, in order to most efficiently allocate existing resources, taking into account the effectiveness and sustainability of the interventions included in the strategy, in the context of socio- economic changes that have taken place.

Currently, the evaluation capacity is extremely limited in Romania, even if it is of outmost importance for a sound financial management – this issue is included in the financial Community acquis (Chapter 28) – and for the participation in EU financed programmes through the pre-accession or structural instruments, that foresee the need for ex-ante, interim and ex-post evaluations.

The evaluation process needs robust professional skills and standards, both for evaluation managers (demand) as well as for the consultants (supply). Consequently, the evaluation needs to be requested and provided in a professional way by persons with relevant skills and expertise, including the skills to „understand” both „sides” of the evaluation. Professionalism is a crucial factor in ensuring credibility and in demonstrating independence and impartiality of evaluation towards the different and sometimes the very strong interests related to a programme or to a public policy.

Caras Severin County Council is the local public administration authority, which has been set up in 1992 in order to coordinate the activity of communes’, towns’ and municipalities’ councils, for carrying out public services of interest at county level, and it functions according to the Law nr.215/2001 of local public administration (re-published in the Official Journal, nr.123, of 20-02-2007). Its main tasks are following: a. Tasks concerning the organisation and functioning of the specialised departments of the county council, of the public institutions and services of interest at county level, as well as of companies and regies autonommes of interest at county level; b. Tasks concerning the socio-economic development of the county; c. Tasks concerning the management of the county belongings; d. Tasks concerning the management of the subordinated public services; e. Tasks concerning the inter-institutional cooperation; f. Other tasks which are foreseen by law. g. It selects, amongst the county counsellors, one president and two vice-presidents; h. It decides on the setting up or reorganisation of institutes, public services and companies of interest at county level, as well as on the re-organisation of regies autonomes of interest at county level, by observing the law. i. It approves the regulation concerning the organisation and functioning of the county council, its structure and functions, the regulation concerning the organisation and functioning of the specialised departments as well as of the public institutions and services of interest at county level, and of the companies and regies autonomes of interest at county level;

The human resources involved in the proposed project at the level of the County Council are represented by the 15 civil servants within the Department for Monitoring the Public Utilities Community Services. Currently, the County Caras Severin undergoes a difficult economic situation, having a small contribution to Romania’s GDP, mainly because of the restructuring and re- organisation of the following fields: mining, steel processing, wood processing,etc.

Specifically, Caras Severin is second ranked in the country with regard to the forestry surface, road and railway infrastructure (E70 between the towns Toplet and , over 90 km, and the railway for the same distance), and is in an advanced degradation, with a negative impact on the social and economic development of the county. The state of the infrastructure is negatively influencing the tourism development, even if the geography of the county (mountain area, border to the Danube) provides premises for development.

The county council allocates with priority financial resources in order to implement projects having a major economic and social impact, taking also into account the interest of the local public administration authorities.

1.3 Related programmes in the sector:

In the field of public interventions’ evaluation the following projects have been finalised or are ongoing:

Within the project PHARE 2003/005-551.03.03 ”Technical assistance for programming, monitoring and evaluation” the following has been done:

A. Elaboration of the National Evaluation Strategy aiming at creation by the year 2013 of a functioning national evaluation system the parts of which reinforce each other, encompassing the public and private sector and civil society and contributing to the effective management of public interventions and the accountability of policy makers and public managers. B. Strengthening of the evaluation function of PHARE programme C. Developing the evaluation capacity in Romania through - Creation and strengthening of the evaluation system of structural instruments; - Increasing the awareness on evaluation concept and its utility for 6 target groups: decision makers of the central and local public administration, parliamentarians, civil servants at central level, universities, NGOs; - Training for 35 potential evaluators from Romanian consultancy environment, academia and NGOs1; - Evalsed Guide has been translated in Romanian language and posted on MEF website; - An evaluation dedicated module has been created on MEF website.

2. The project PHARE 2004-016-772.04.03 “Ex-ante evaluation” is currently under implementation until October 2007. This project intends to contribute to the improvement of the operational programmes under the objective „Convergence”, through an ex-ante evaluation of each operational programme and programme complement, as well as through ad-hoc analyses and training. The project concerns mainly the management structures of the structural instruments.

3. The project PHARE 2005 /017-553.05.03.01 “PHARE Interim Evaluation Scheme” under implementation and aims at carrying out the interim evaluation of PHARE programmes.

4. The Operational Programme for Administrative Capacity Development 2007-20132.

5. The project Phare 2005/017-553.05.03 – Management of the Evaluation Facility, having as objective the coordination of the Evaluation Facility component.

2. OBJECTIVE, PURPOSE & EXPECTED RESULTS

2.1. General objective

1 Some trainees have founded the Informal Evaluators Network in Romania, www.evalrom.ro 2 Available on www.mfinante.ro The overall objective of the project of which the present contract will be a part is to increase the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the interventions funded publicly, both by the European Union, as well as by the national budget (at central and local level).

The General objective of this contract is to contribute to the improvement of the impact of the County Strategy on Speeding Up the development of Public Utilities Community Services in Caras-Severin county.

2.2. Purpose/ Specific objectives

The contract purpose is to carry out an interim evaluation of the county Strategy concerning the speeding up of the development of public utilities community services in Caras-Severin county.

The evaluation is carried out in order to provide a competent and independent opinion, recommendations concerning the feasibility, efficiency and effectiveness of measures included in the strategy, as well as the prioritising of resource allocation by the County Council in implementing the strategy.

The main purpose of the proposed evaluation is the analysis and formulation of recommendations concerning financing priorities of the measures /proposed projects within the strategy for accelerating the SCUP development. Particularly, the analysis and recommendations shall refer to the infrastructure projects in the field of the new water supply and sewing systems. Also, the purpose of the contract is to promote good practices on evaluation of projects and using the evaluation for taking corrective measures that eventually are needed during the implementation.

The Beneficiaries of the evaluation are the County Council and the Local Councils, taking into account the fact that the proposed projects within the county Strategy on speeding up the development of public utilities community services in Caras Severin county are going to be financed – cofinanced from the budget of the county council and from the budgets of local councils.

Specific objective 1 To revise the financing priorities for measures/ projects that envisage new water supply and sewage systems, that are included in the Strategy, from the point of view of their feasibility, efficiency and sustainability.

Specific objective 2 To identify the main elements for improving the quality of technical documentation (feasibility studies, technical projects, cost-benefit analyses etc) that are elaborated for the new water supply and sewage systems, in order for these to be used as effective instruments in taking the financing decisions for the public interventions.

Specific objective 3 To improve the management of public interventions by introducing and integrating the evaluation methods in the current practice of the local public administrations.,

2.3 Results to be achieved by the Consultant

The interim evaluation of the county strategy on speeding up the development of public utilities community services in Caras Severin county, shall provide the Beneficiary with following results:

• Conclusions on the appropriateness, efficiency and sustainability of the most relevant 5 projects – measures selected out of the 34 projects included in the strategy. • Recommendations on the project financing priorities – measures included in the strategy, addressing the new water supply and sewage works, taking into account the economic and social development of the area, including the touristic potential. The recommendations shall refer to the 5 projects evaluated, and will also include general methodological recommendations for the typology of projects concerning new water supply and sewage works. • Conclusions concerning the quality of technical documentations elaborated for new water supply and sewage works, considering the most relevant factors in taking the decision to invest public funds, and also considering the technical and financial viability. The conclusions shall be accompanied by recommendations for the County Council to eliminate the identified defficiencies. • The evaluation methodology of the 5 public interventions described and presented as good practice example, to the beneficiaries of this contract.

The evaluation results shall be presented as a final report in Romanian language, on paper and on electronic format. The evaluation report must be of maximum 30 pages plus annexes. The main conclusions and recommendations must be also shortly presented in an executive summary that shall not exceed 3 pages. The report must also contain a chapter presenting the proposed solutions for enhancing the system for monitoring and evaluation, and ways to implement the recommendations of the evaluation. The evaluation methodology shall be presented to beneficiaries and other relevant actors, during a workshop having as purpose the know how transfer. Additionally to the results of the evaluation exercise and according to the objective of the Evaluation Facility that finances this contract, the Consultant must ensure a transfer of know-how in the field of evaluation from the international expert to the locals expert that will work under this contract.

3. ASSUMPTIONS AND RISKS

3.1. Assumptions underlying the project intervention

The assumptions underlying the present contract are: 1. Availability of local evaluators, with competencies in the field of evaluation and especially in field of infrastructure works for water supply and sewage works, and also in the field of evaluation of local strategies.

2. Local councils who are beneficiaries of the infrastructure works accept the conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation.

3. The Romanian Government continues to support the development of the evaluation capacity through the Ministry of Economy and Finances and the Evaluation Central Unit within SICA – for ensuring sustainability of this contract by extending the practice.

3.2. Risks

• Limited consensus of various involved stakeholders’ groups on the evaluation concept may reduce the perceived utility of the evaluation results • Political instability at the level of local public administration • Unbalanced perceptions on the various utilities of evaluation: improving the decision- making vs. accountability, control, may represent a barrier for implementing the recommendations and consequently the impact of evaluation.

4. SCOPE OF THE WORK

4.1. General

4.1.1. Description of project

The contract refers to the provision of evaluation services for the “County strategy on speeding up the development of public utilities community services within Caras-Severin county”.

Besides the specific conclusions and recommendations, the contract will also provide a learning experience for the staff of the beneficiary institution and a good practice example for the local public authorities, in evaluating public interventions. The consultants shall revise and include good practice examples.

Description of the intervention Subject of the evaluation is: the county strategy on speeding up the development of public utilities community services in Caras-Severin county;

The purpose of the strategy is to fulfill the obligations of the EU Accession Treaty, which envisages the 5 fields of Public Utilities Community Services (SCUP): water supply and sewage, waste management, central thermal energy, local public transport and public lighting.

The problems and needs undelying its elaboration were following: 1. Infrastructure works of the old water supply and sewage networks, with low outputs and big losses; 2. Lack of water supply and sewage networks in many rural and even urban communities; 3. Inefficient or lack of waste management systems; 4. High costs thermal energy supply systems, with low outputs; 5. Lack of local transport means, bad or inexisting links with the towns for many rural communities, because of the mountain relief of the county; 6. Inefficient or old public lighting systems, lack of those in rural communities, lack of electric energy supply networks; 7. Need to make SCUP more effective; 8. Low capacity for attracting and absorbing funds by the 69 commune local councils and 6 urban councils; It is important to specify that, parrallell with implementing the county strategy on speeding up the SCUP development, the elaboration and implementation of local SCUP strategies also started.

The objectives of the county Strategy on speeding up the SCUP development are: 1. Rehabilitation of the old water supply and sewage infrastructure, in the communities where this infrastructure exists; 2. New water supply and sewage netwrorks in 35 rural communities and 2 urban communities; 3. Efficient waste management systems, including all communities of the county; 4. Introducing efficient systems for supplying thermal energy at central level/ rehabilitation of the existing systems for increasing their efficiency/ output; 5. Setting up of local transport for persons in the communities where this does not exist, ensuring the link of rural communities with the towns/ county capital; 7. Ensuring efficiency of SCUP within the county; 8. Increasing the capacity for atteacting and absorbing European funding for the 69 commune councils and 6 urban councils.

The activities of the county strategy concerning the speeding up of SCUP development are shortly presented below:

1. Initiating/ elaboration of projects by Caras Severin County Council and urban and commune local councils in all 5 SCUP fields; 2. Prioritising projects and implementing projects; 3. Provision of specialised technical assistance (centrally and on place) by the specialised staff of the County Council – Department for Monitoring Public Utilities Community Services, to the 69 commune councils and 6 urban councils for the project elaboration (financing requests and technical documentation) in all 5 SCUP fields; 4. Financial support of Local Councils to the 69 commune councils and 6 urban councils for financing/ co-financing of projects (financing requests and technical documentation) in all 5 SCUP fields; 5. Provision of specialised technical assistance (centrally and on place) by the specialised staff of the County Council – Department for Monitoring Public Utilities Community Services, to the 69 commune councils and 6 urban councils for the elaboration of local development strategies (key documents for accessing any EU Programme) and for the elaboration and implementation of local strategies on speeding up the SCUP development;

Currently identified problems concerning the strategy implementation show the need to focus the evaluation – subject of the present contract – on new water supply and sewage systems in the 34 urban communities, which are foreseen in the Engagements of Romania’s EU Accession Treaty, to be achieved by 2013.

The similar past experience, projects that have been financed through the SAPARD Programme, showed that some of such works are not efficient and cannot ensure sustainability, since population is not interested to join these networks, either due to the high costs, or due to the fact that many inhabitants have their own water supply systems. For example, in the commune Sichevita, where water supply has been achieved through SAPARD funding, only 15% of the families have joined the network.

Results achieved so far: 1. providing consultancy, centralised and on place, for 22 local councils for initiating projects, elaborating local development strategies etc. 2. submitting 16 financing requests for the programme PHARE 2005 SGSP-PP, out of which 4 projects have passed the first stage. 3. implementation at the level of local councils, of the projects financed through GO7/2006; ISPA, Phare environment (SC. Ecologica S.A.) etc

The costs related to the implementation of the proposed measures/ projects included in the strategy are partially supported by the County Council budget, local councils’ budgets, European funding, World Bank funding, etc., and the total amount is a summing up of all needed funding for the implementation of projects at the level of the 69 local commune councils and 6 urban councils in the 5 SCUP fields.

4.1.2. Geographic area to be covered

The geographic area of the contract is represented by the area of the 34 communes within Caras Severin county, i.e.: Bănia, Dalboşeţ, Iablaniţa, Lăpuşnicel, Lăpuşnicu Mare ,Băuţar, Bolvaşniţa, Bucoşniţa, , Copăcele, Ezeriş, Fârliug, , , Păltiniş, , Zorlenţu Mare, Slatina Timiş, Berlişte, , Ciudanoviţa, Naidăş, , Sasca Montană, , , , Vărădia, Brebu, Caraşova, , ,, Târnova as well as 2 towns:Moldova Nouă and Oraviţa. Taking into account the large area of the project, rural communities are generally mountain areas, with many belonging villages, large areas, difficult access, etc., and the evaluation will only take into account a set of 4-5 communities out of the 34, that will be selected by the consultant following some evaluation criteria agreed with the beneficiary. Some of those criteria might be: area with multiple development opportunities, rural or urban area, rich or poor area etc.

The proposal of the beneficiary is that the chosen set contains the communities: Dalboşeţ, Lapuşnicu Mare, Copăcele, Ciuchici, Vărădia.

4.1.3. Target groups:

1. County Council Caras-Severin, which ensures the financing/ cofinancing for projects concerning new water supply and sewage works within the 34 rural communities and 2 urban communities that are going to be achieved according with the Strategy by 2013; the County Council Caras-Severin also provides specialised consultancy (technical assistance) through the staff within the Department for Monitoring Public Utilities Community services, for the elaboration/ implementation of those projects;

2. Local councils of the 34 above mentioned communes and 2 towns will indirectly benefit of the evaluation results through the recommendations that envisage the improvement of the impact of interventions, quality of documentation and evaluation methods/practices.

4.2. Specific activities The activities of the evaluation contract will take place in the target area - Caras Severin county, the county council and the selected communities, and are structured in the categories below:

Task 1. Inception activities.

This task shall comprise the preliminary activities for the evaluation. The consultant shall prepare a short inception report, comprising the objectives, methodology and expected results, as well as the planning of activities and resources. A detailed workplan shall be attached to this inception report. This report, together with the workplan shall be submitted within 3 weeks from contract signature and must be endorsed by the Beneficiary.

Defining the evaluation area. Starting from Beneficiary’s suggestions, the consultant shall propose a set of criteria for identifying the 5 interventions of the 34, which the consultants shall focus on. For this, the consultant will analyse the documentation provided by the Beneficiary and shall request all needed clarifications. Once the selection criteria agreed, the consultant shall propose and justify accordingly the 5 interventions which shall be subject of evaluation. The start of the evaluation is conditioned by the approval by the beneficiary of this proposal, mentioned in a minute of meeting.

Task 2. Evaluation of projects - measures Analysis of relevant documentation. The consultant shall study the strategy and relevant technical documentation which the Beneficiary will provide. Also, in this stage, the consultant will identify similar projects and other practices in the field, in order to justify conclusions and recommendations or to include them in the working methodology recommended for the future. Following documents are recommended, without limiting to those: a. Water supply and sewage works carried out within the county through the SAPARD programme or other financing programmes (Domaşnea,Armeniş,Eftimie Murgu,) b. Documentation that has been elaborated (SF, PT) in similar communities with regard to beneficiaries, relief, etc., with good practice examples (advanced technology, etc).

Field data collection – the consultant shall visit the locations and shall interview relevant stakeholders for adjusting the information in the existing documents. The Beneficiary will facilitate the meetings with stakeholders. An important element of the contract is that the consultants discuss with the key actors involved. The consultant must present a firm and documented opinion on his evaluation, but the method used to carry out this evaluation must be transparent and must be explained to the key actors, at the latest during the meetings on the evaluation report.

A preliminary list includes, without being limited to those, following stakeholders:

a. For the impact and sustainability of new water supply and sewage works:

- private persons from the 34 rural communities and 2 urban communities targeted;

- legal persons: SMEs, public institutions (city hall, school, cultural institutions, medical cabinet, etc.);

- potential investors, NGOs, etc.

b. For the quality of the technical documents:

- local councils (36): technical staff, political leaders, the designer of the technical documentation of the works targeted, technical specialists in the elaboration of the technical documentation.

The consultant shall chose the proper information collecting methods, that shall be presented in the inception report.

Analysis and preliminary conclusions- The Consultant shall check the strategy (measures/ projects in the strategy) against information collected, identifying strengths and weaknesses, for which he shall provide recommendations. The Consultant shall present the Beneficiary the preliminary conclusions both for the evaluation of the 5 projects – selected measures, as well as for the quality of technical documents. In order to ensure efficiency of consultation, the consultant shall send these preliminary conclusions in writing, at least 3 days before the meeting with the Beneficiary.

Task 3. Finalisation of conclusions and recommendations. Ensuring sustainability Elaboration of the final report, taking into account the feedback of preliminary conclusions. Dissemination of results and promotion of best practices. The consultant shall organise a seminar for all stakeholders that can potentially multiply the results and ensure sustainability of the evaluation results. The purpose is to facilitate the acceptance of the evaluation results by the stakeholders and adopting evaluation as management method in the public interventions cycle.

Activity 5. Know-how transfer in the field of evaluation. According to the objectives of the Evaluation Facitily, the Consultant is responsible for carrying out the know how transfer in the field of evaluation from the international to the local experts. At the end of his activities, the Consultant shall include in the final report a description of the way in which the know-how transfer has been carried out for developing the evaluation capacity of the local experts.

Project management 4.3.1. Responsible body The Beneficiary Institution of the Contract is Caras Severin County Council. The Authority for Coordination of Structural Instruments is the main body responsible for the technical implementation of the contract, and it fulfils the role of the implementing authority. The Central Finance and Contracts Unit of the MEF is the contracting authority, being responsible for contractual aspects, including payments.

The Contractor is fully responsible for the quality of the results of this project and for a sound and result-oriented administrative and financial management, in compliance with the contractual provisions. In this respect, the Contractor has to: - Ensure that the project results have the required qualitative levels and are delivered in accordance with the deadlines set; - Establish contractual relationships with the CFCU; - Ensure a sound reporting, according to the contractual conditions.

4.3.2. Management structure For the proper monitoring of the activities identified during different stages of the project, a Steering Committee shall be established.

The Contractor must inform the Steering Committee members on the progress made. The PSC Members shall have the possibility to make comments on the project implementation results and to request adjustments, when needed.

The contractor is responsible for the logistical organisation of the Project Steering Committee meetings (planning, agenda, taking the minutes etc.).

The minimum representation within the PSC is the following: • Evaluation Central Unit of ACIS – Ministry of Economy and Finance • County Council Caras Severin • CFCU • The Project director and the team leader.

At the request of any PSC member, other partners may be invited to participate in the PSC meetings, if this positively stimulated the project implementation process.

The consultant is obliged to observe Romanian legislation in force and the procedures applicable to this contract. The Consultant shall observe the administrative orders issues by the Contracting Authority and provide the Implementing and Contracting Authorities with all information concerning the contract. It will be obliged to ensure qualified experts in order to carry out the activities and reach the results established within the contract. The contractor will not make changes in staff without approval by the Implementing and Contracting Authorities. Replacement of any key expert is done by an addendum to the contract. It is recommended that replacement of the key experts to be made only in exceptional cases (e.g death, disease or accidents, resignation or inefficiency in implementation).

4.3.3 Facilities to be provided by the Contracting Authority and/or other parties

The beneficiary institution shall provide the Consultant with a project office, equipped with computers. It will, as well, hold the PSC meetings and launch the invitations to the PSC members, in order for them to participate in the meetings.

The Beneficiary will provide the following: - A team responsible for coordinating the evaluation exercise, which will coordinate and supervise the evaluators team, and will be the contact point with the implementing authority (the Authority for Coordination of Structural Instruments); - Information/ documents needed for project evaluation; - Facilitating the gathering information from the field, through enquiries of the target groups, discussions, debates, focus groups, etc.

All documents presented to the Consultant will be in Romanian and will not have a confidential character.

Following documents shall be provided by the Beneficiary institution:

1. Regional Action Plan for Environment for the West Region, Regional Waste Management Plan for the West Region, Engagements of the negotiation process on Chapter 22 – Environment for Caras Severin County – elaborated by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, as well as data provided by the 69 communes and 6 towns. The SCUP development strategy for Caras Severin for the period 2007 – 2013. 2. Project portfolio of Caras Severin County. 3. Information needed with regard to local budgets and county budget 4. Facilitating meetings with mayors 5. Feasibility studies concerning water supply and sewage works, carried out in the county through SAPARD funds or other funds – good practice examples 6. Feasibility or pre-feasibility studies, previously elaborated for the new water supply and sewage works, for some of the 34 commune councils and 2 town councils The beneficiary institution will also provide: 7. Facilitating meetings with specialists, engineers, technical specialists, companies which elaborate technical documentation (pre-feasibility studies, feasibility studies, technical projects etc) for water supply and sewage works 8. Other information requested by the consultant

5. LOGISTICS AND PLANNING 5.1. Location

Resita - Premises of Caras-Severin County Council, P-ta 1 Decembrie 1918, Nr 1

The communities corresponding to measures/projects selected by the consultant as focus of the evaluation.

5.2. Commencement date & Period of execution The intended commencement date is November 2007 and the period of execution of the contract will be 3 months from this date. Please refer to Articles 4 and 5 of the Special Conditions for the above-mentioned information.

6. Requirements

6.1. Personnel

6.1.1 Experts

All experts who have a crucial role in implementing the contract are referred to as key experts. The time each expert is expected to spend in Romania is of minimum 75% of his working days. The profiles of the key experts for this contract are as follows:

Key expert No 1: Team Leader (minimum 25 working days)

Qualifications and skills: - Long term university studies; - Excellent skills in English, General Professional Experience: - minimum 10 years of professional experience, out of which minimum 3 years of managerial experience or team leader experience

Specific Professional Experience • Minimum 3 years of experience in evaluation of public interventions and/or development of the capacity to evaluate public interventions • Knowledge of specific procedures and mechanisms of EU financed projects, demonstrated through the participation as key expert in minimum 1 EU financed project Key Expert No 2: Evaluation Consultant - technical local expert (minimum 25 working days). Qualifications and skills: - Long term university studies in the field of constructions; - Excellent skills in English - Excellent knowledge of Romanian language.

General Professional Experience - Minumum 5 years of experience in research institutes or university field Specific professional experience - At least 3 years experience in projects in the field of water supply and sewage infrastructure Key Expert 3: Evaluation Consultant – Strategic development expert (minimum 25 working days) Qualifications and skills: - Long term university studies in the field of public administration, economy or finances; - Excellent skills in English, - Excellent knowledge of Romanian language.

General Professional Experience - Minumum 5 years of experience in research institutes or university field

Specific professional experience: • minimum 3 years experience in projects in the fields of economic analysis, project management, programming/monitoring/evaluation

6.1.2 Other experts In the case when it considers it necessary, the Consultant may also provide other experts. CVs for experts other than the key experts are not examined prior to the signature of the contract. They should not have been included in tenders. The selection procedures used by the Consultant to select these other experts shall be transparent, and shall be based on pre-defined criteria, including professional qualifications, language skills and work experience. The experts will be considered approved after the issuing by the Contracting Authority of the administrative order. This order will be issued on the basis of the approval of the Implementing Authority and the following documents are needed: - the CVs of the proposed experts - a description of the selection procedure as it was above-mentioned - Declaration of the proposed experts availability.

Please note that civil servants and other staff of the public administration of the beneficiary country cannot be recruited as experts.

6.1.3 Support staff and backstopping

It is up to the tenderer to decide if it is necessary to use additional resources for the implementation of this project.

6.2. Office accommodation Office accommodation of a reasonable standard of approximately 10 square metres for each expert working on the contract will be provided by the Beneficiary Institution.

6.3. Facilities to be provided by the Consultant

The Consultant shall ensure that its employees are paid regularly and in a timely fashion. If the Consultant is a consortium, the arrangements should allow for the maximum flexibility in project implementation. Arrangements offering each consortium member a fixed percentage of the work to be undertaken under the contract should be avoided.

The Contractor will nominate a project director who will supervise the execution of the contract and have the following responsibilities:

• To ensure the quality of the activities as well as the project’s results are according to the quality standards before their delivery to the implementing authority;

• To discuss and establish contractual relations with CFCU and ACIS; • To ensure a sound and result-oriented management and reporting in compliance with the contract’s provisions;

• To represent the Contractor in contractual relations with CFCU and ACIS.

6.4. Equipment

No equipment is to be purchased on behalf of the Contracting Authority / beneficiary country as part of this service contract or transferred to the Contracting Authority / beneficiary country at the end of this contract. Any equipment related to this contract which is to be acquired by the beneficiary must be purchased by means of a separate supply tender procedure.

6.5. Incidental expenditures

Not applicable.

6.6. Expenditures verification

Not applicable.

7. REPORTING

7.1. Reporting Requirements

The Contractor is expected to produce the following reports:

• Inception Report

The Contractor is expected to submit an Inception Report (IR), 4 weeks from the project start. The IR will specify exactly the results to be reached within each separate activity and the tasks that will be fulfilled in order to allowing for the attainment of the results. The Inception Report will be the main working instrument and references to it will be made during whole duration of the project’s implementation. The report will include an implementation schedule of the activities, the number of experts and working days needed for each particular activity. • Monthly Technical Progress Reports Following a standard format prepared by the Contracting Authority, the Contractor is expected to complete, on a monthly basis, a project sheet, indicating the progress the project has made during the implementation stage. The monthly reports will be submitted to the Senior Programme Officer for its analysis and will have an informative character.

• Final Report In the end of the execution period, it must be a final report accompanied by an invoice. The report final draft must be submitted at least 3 weeks before finalisation of the contract execution period. The Final Report provides a comprehensive description of the work performed by the Contractor and shall record project implementation details of a technical, financial, and administrative nature. The Report shall also include an assessment of the success of the project in satisfying the defined objectives. The final report shall be written in Romanian and English languages. • Random Reports

Upon request of Implementing Authorities, the Contractor may be asked to produce relevant additional documentation such as supportive and explanatory reports, inputs to strategic documentation and/or mission reports. The final report must contain a narrative and a financial section. The financial section must contain details on the results provided by experts. Please note that technical progress reports, random reports and the final report are additional to the ones specified in section 4.2 of the Terms of Reference.

Submission & approval of progress reports Three hard copies of each report will be submitted for official approval to the ECU and previously approved by the Beneficiary Institution. One copy of the inception report, interim progress reports and final report must be submitted to the Contracting Authority after their approval by the Implementing Authority and will be accompanied by the respective approvals. The progress reports must be written in Romanian language, but the final report must be elaborated also in English. During the implementation of the contract, the reports that will be submitted by the Consultant according to the provisions of the Reporting sub-chapter, will be analysed and approved by the Implementing Authority – PIU – Senior Project Officer. The voting members of the Project Steering Committee will express their standpoint on the reports. The contract’s language will be Romanian. The payment to be made by the Contracting Authority will be conditioned by the approval of the reports – the ex-ante evaluation report and the final report – by the Implementing Authority. The invoice issued by the Consultant will be approved by the Implementing Authority with «read and approved».

8. Monitoring and evaluation

8.1. Definition of indicators

Complete follow-up of the agreed working schedule as well as its up-dating, translated into evaluation reports represents the main performance indicator.

Also, for measuring the quality of the evaluation report, following grid shall be used: GRID for assessing the quality of evaluation reports 1 = unacceptable = criteria mostly not fulfilled or totally absent 2 = weak = criteria partially fulfilled 3 = good = criteria mostly fulfilled 4 = very good = criteria entirely fulfilled 5 = excellent = criteria entirely fulfilled in a clear and original way 1. Meeting needs: 1 2 3 4 5

a) Does the report precisely describe the subject which is evaluated? b) Does the report clearly cover the requested period of time, and the target groups and socio-geographical areas linked to the project / programme/strategy/policy? c) Has the evolution of the project / programme/strategy/policy been taken into account in the evaluation process? d) Does the evaluation deal with and respond to all ToR requests? If not, are justifications given? 2. Appropriate design a) Does the report explain how the evaluation design takes into account the project / programme/strategy/policy rationale, cause-effect relationships, impacts, policy context, stakeholders' interests, etc.? b) Is the evaluation method clearly and adequately described in enough detail? c) Are there well-defined indicators selected in order to provide evidence about the project / programme/strategy/policy and its context? d) Does the report point out the limitations, risks and potential biases associated with the evaluation method? 3. Reliable data a) Is the data collection approach explained and is it coherent with the overall evaluation design? b) Are the sources of information clearly identified in the report? c) Are the data collection tools (samples, focus groups, etc.) applied in accordance with standards? d) Have the collected data been cross-checked? e) Have data collection limitations and biases been explained and discussed? 4. Sound analysis a) Is the analysis based on the collected data? b) Does the analysis focus well on the most relevant cause/effect assumptions underlying the intervention logic? c) Is the context taken into account adequately in the analysis? d) Are inputs from most important stakeholders used in a balanced way? e) Are the limitations of the analysis identified, discussed and presented in the report, as well as the contradictions with available knowledge, if there are any? 5. Credible findings a) Are the findings derived from the data and analyses? b) Is the generalisation of findings discussed? c) Are interpretations and extrapolations justified and supported by sound arguments? 6. Valid conclusions a) Are the conclusions coherent and logically linked to the findings? b) Does the report draw overall conclusions on each of the five evaluation criteria? c) Are conclusions free of personal or partisan considerations? 7. Useful recommendations a) Are the recommendations consistent with the conclusions? b) Are recommendations operational, realistic and sufficiently explicit to provide guidelines for taking action? c) Are the recommendations drafted for the different target stakeholders of the evaluation? d) When necessary, have the recommendations been clustered and prioritised? 8.Clear report a) Does the report include a relevant and concise executive summary? b) Is the report well structured and adapted to its various audiences? c) Are specialised concepts clearly defined and not used more than necessary? Is there a list of acronyms? d) Is the length of the various chapters and annexes well balanced? Considering the 8 previous criteria, what is the overall quality of the report?

Special requirements The consultant must be independent with regard to the intervention proposed for evaluation. In that sense, any company or expert having a contribution in the preparation, elaboration or implementation of the proposed intervention shall be excluded from the tender, in order to avoid any conflict of interests.