⏰ Fristen — abgelaufen (Stand Lint 2026-10-19): Die Angebotsfrist 21.08.2026, 12:00 ist verstrichen, die Frist für Aufklärungsfragen (18.08.2026) ebenfalls. Ob SINE abgegeben hat, ist im Wiki nicht verzeichnet — es liegt seit der Frist keine Quelle zum Ausgang vor, auch acht Wochen später nicht. Die Zuschlags-/Bindefrist 13.11.2026 läuft noch. Alles Weitere auf dieser Seite und auf der Konsortialseite ist ein Schnappschuss vor der Abgabe (Stand 2026-08-17) und beschreibt nicht den heutigen Stand.
⚠⚠ Lint 2026-10-19 — der Vertragsbeginn ist seit vier Tagen überschritten. Der 15.10.2026 ist am vergangenen Donnerstag verstrichen. Damit ist der Fall nicht mehr hypothetisch: entweder läuft seit vier Tagen ein Zwölfmonatsvertrag, von dem das Wiki nichts weiß, oder er läuft nicht — und auch das wäre eine Tatsache, die hier stehen müßte. ⟨Inference: von den drei unten genannten Zweigen ist der zweite (Starttermin verschoben) ab heute der einzige, der ohne eine Mitteilung von außen noch plausibel wäre — denn ein Zuschlag, der den Starttermin hält, hätte spätestens am 15.10. operative Spuren hinterlassen müssen: Kickoff, Vertragsunterschrift, Personalbindung. Daß hier keine liegen, ist selbst ein schwaches Indiz gegen Zweig eins. Es bleibt ein Indiz, kein Beleg — das Wiki hat weiterhin keinen Kanal in dieses Verfahren.⟩
Befund vom Lint 2026-10-12, unverändert gültig — der Vertragsbeginn war damals in drei Tagen. Die Laufzeit ist mit 15.10.2026 – 15.10.2027 ausgeschrieben, die Zuschlags-/Bindefrist läuft aber bis 13.11.2026. Beides steht seit dem 2026-08-13 unverändert auf dieser Seite, ohne daß der Widerspruch benannt wäre: ein Vertrag, der vier Wochen vor Ablauf der Bindefrist beginnen soll. ⟨Inference: daraus folgt eines von dreien — der Zuschlag ist längst erteilt und das Wiki weiß es nicht; der Starttermin ist bereits verschoben; oder die Vergabe ist ergebnislos ausgelaufen. Die Ausschreibungsunterlagen selbst erlauben keine Unterscheidung, und keine davon ist hier verzeichnet. Was den Fall von einer gewöhnlichen Lücke unterscheidet: ab dem 15.10.2026 wäre, im günstigsten Fall, SINE-Personal in einem laufenden Zwölfmonatsvertrag gebunden — 56 Fee-Days allein für den Team Leader — ohne daß im Wiki eine Zeile dazu stünde.⟩ Siehe offene Aufgabe 5.
Vorheriger Stand 2026-08-17, zur Nachvollziehbarkeit erhalten: zwei abgabekritische Punkte waren offen — die Referenzprojekt-Eignung (drei Projekte ≥ EUR 60.000 in den genannten Sektoren, plus drei in „region World” — nur als ⟨Inference⟩ vermerkt, nie gegen SINEs tatsächliche Projekthistorie geprüft; ohne sie scheitert das Angebot vor der fachlichen Wertung) und die Besetzung von WP2 / Key Expert 2.
Status: Abgabefrist verstrichen, Ausgang unverzeichnet (zuletzt bestätigt Lint 2026-10-19 — der Punkt steht seit sieben aufeinanderfolgenden Lints unverändert offen, und der Vertragsbeginn liegt nun in der Vergangenheit). Der folgende Absatz gibt den Stand vor der Frist wieder. Submission deadline extended from the original 4 Aug 2026 — now officially confirmed by the UVgO Bekanntmachung (public notice, published 04.08.2026): Angebotsfrist 21.08.2026, 12:00 Uhr (Berlin time; offer opening begins immediately at the same time). Clarification-question deadline (Frist zur Einreichung von Aufklärungsfragen): 18.08.2026. Award/binding period (Zuschlags-/Bindefrist): 13.11.2026. This matches what Martin Pompéry had flagged informally — now confirmed in writing. See also the GIZ tender portal link.
Commissioning party: GIZ, project number/cost centre G-011488-024. Contract term: 15.10.2026 – 15.10.2027 (12 months), possible extension to 15.11.2027 if the option (below) is exercised.
Context
Part of the SAFE project (Sustainable Agriculture for Forest Ecosystems), a flagship under the Team Europe Initiative on Deforestation Free Value Chains, responding to the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). SAFE promotes an ecosystem of publicly accessible, modular, interoperable Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) — registries, open standards, geospatial tools — together with FAO, ITC, EFI (Technical Facility), and DIASCA.
The assignment: implement farmer-centric participatory data governance models for smallholders in deforestation-free value chains, piloted in 2 SAFE partner countries, selected from: Burundi (Coffee), Cameroon (Cocoa/Coffee), Colombia (Cocoa/Coffee), Kenya (Coffee), Nigeria (Coffee), Peru (Cocoa/Coffee), Uganda (Coffee), Vietnam (Coffee), Tanzania (Sugarcane).
Core concern named in the ToR: smallholder farmers currently have the least agency over their own data (demographic, farm, production data), leading to unfair value redistribution, limited choice, and PII breach risk. Framed explicitly as returning control over data to the farmer — directly adjacent to Data Commons’s reciprocity/openness framing, though the ToR does not cite SINE or Ostrom.
Work packages
- WP1 — Adapt farmer-centric participatory data governance frameworks to the selected country/commodity context. Builds on GIZ’s existing study on data sovereignty (Dalberg 2022 PDF), an unpublished GIZ data cooperative framework, and SAFE’s DPI approach. Methodology must center women, youth, smallholder farmers; address power relations, notional vs. de facto data sovereignty, technical-capacity limits; and work with DPI building blocks Open Foris Ground, GeoID, INATrace, Whisp, ITC’s Deforestation-Free Gateway, KoBo Toolbox, GeoRoots, Trace.
- WP2 — Prototype an open-source digital data wallet app for farmers to exercise the governance model. Interoperable with FAO’s GeoID and Whisp, ITC’s Deforestation-free Trade Gateway. Must reference/evaluate the MiCacao data wallet and CIAT/Fairfood farmer cards. Open-source license subject to GIZ approval; code published on GitHub.
- WP3 — Implement the methodology as a pilot with ≥2 agricultural cooperatives/farmer organisations in the selected countries; capacity building; coordination with FAO, ITC, EFI, CIAT, DIASCA; kick-off workshop; produces a replicable manual/guidelines.
- WP4 — Knowledge transfer to SAFE project staff: training units (self-study + live online), training plan, recorded sessions, onboarding of 2 SAFE staff to steer the prototype’s further development.
Milestones (indicative)
| Milestone | Deadline |
|---|---|
| Kick-off workshop | upon contract signature |
| Selection of country/commodity context; inform DPI partner network | Dec 2026 |
| Methodology for participatory data governance | Jan 2027 |
| Evaluation of data wallet approaches | Jan 2027 |
| Implementation plan & pilot timeline | Feb 2027 |
| Development of data wallet prototype | Mar 2027 |
| Informing pilot stakeholders | Mar 2027 |
| Documentation/publication of data wallet prototype | Apr 2027 |
| Workshops setting up/validating governance model + wallet with cooperatives | Jul 2027 |
| Guidelines/manuals for replication; training measures developed | Aug 2027 |
| Training delivered to GIZ staff | Oct 2027 |
| Step-by-step internal replication guideline | Oct 2027 |
Personnel concept
Four roles assessed on CVs against the assessment grid point criteria — team leader plus two key experts plus a 2-person short-term expert pool (average of the pool’s qualifications is scored).
- Team leader / Agricultural value-chain expert — Master’s (political/social science, law, agriculture, rural development, agri economics, development studies); C1 English; 5y sustainable agriculture/ag supply chains; 5y digital/data governance or digital transformation; 3y team-lead/management; 3y regional experience (2 of LatAm/Africa/Asia); 5y development-cooperation (DC) experience; 3y direct smallholder/agri-MSME engagement. Leads value-chain mapping, cooperative selection, field rollout, farmer training.
- Key expert 1 — Data governance — degree in law, public policy, information governance, data protection/privacy, political science, digital governance; C1 English; 3y digital/data governance or DPI; 3y designing/implementing participatory data governance, consent frameworks, data-sharing agreements or digital-ID/wallet initiatives; 3y regional (LatAm/Africa/Asia); 3y DC-funded governance/regulatory-reform/digital-public-goods work; 3y smallholder/agri-MSME experience + EUDR specialist knowledge. Drafts consent models, data-sharing agreements, role-based access policies, governance KPIs, SOPs.
- Key expert 2 — Data science & software engineering — degree in computer science, data science, software engineering, information systems; C1 English; 3y data engineering/data science for development; 3y building data platforms, interoperability standards/APIs; 3y regional (LatAm/Africa/Asia); 3y DC projects delivering digital public goods/open-source tools. Designs architecture, builds the offline-first mobile/web wallet prototype, identity/auth, encryption/key management, privacy-preserving analytics, DevOps/open-source repo.
- Short-term expert pool (2 members) — one social-science/humanities-oriented (capacity building/training design, 3y; training-of-trainers delivery, 3y) + one technical (computer science/data science, systems integration/backend/platform ops, 5y; digital wallets & API integration, 3y). Tasks: systems integration; knowledge transfer/capacity building.
Soft skills required of all team members: team skills, initiative, communication, socio-cultural skills, efficient/partner-and-client-focused working methods, interdisciplinary thinking.
Budget / fee days (main service)
| Role | # experts | Days/expert | Total days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Team lead | 1 | 56 (incl. 24 for 2 workshops) | 56 |
| Key expert 1 | 1 | 51 (incl. 24 for 2 workshops) | 51 |
| Key expert 2 | 1 | 30 | 30 |
| Expert pool | 2 | 20 each | 40 |
- Fixed travel budget: €34,000 (2 selected countries, settled against evidence, not guaranteed to be used in full)
- CO₂ offset budget: €2,000 (4 × €500)
- Flexible remuneration budget: €15,000
Draft contract — key terms
- Standard GIZ Service Contract template referencing the ToR (Annex 1), price schedule (Annex 2, = final financial bid), technical bid (Annex 3), current General Terms and Conditions of Contract (Annex 4), and consortial declaration if a consortium is formed (Annex 5) — in that order of precedence.
- Term: 15.10.2026–15.10.2027, matching the ToR; final report due to GIZ no later than 15.10.2027.
- Payment: settlement by time statements (§3.7.3 of the T&Cs). An advance payment (amount left blank in the draft) is offset in two equal instalments against the penultimate and final interim invoices. Interim invoices for services actually provided are submitted quarterly from contract start — max. 3 interim invoices plus the final invoice for the whole contract; no settlements outside these quarterly windows. Work must commence within 30 days of contract start, and GIZ must be informed in writing of the commencement date; the advance-payment request cannot be filed more than 15 days after the end of the month works commenced.
- Place of supply for VAT: Germany (Contractor performs the service for GIZ in Germany per §3a(2) UStG) — relevant for how SINE prices/invoices regardless of where the pilot fieldwork itself happens.
- Publicity/visibility obligations reference the EU’s General Conditions for PA Grant/Delegation Agreements or Contribution Agreement (§7/§8) in addition to GIZ’s own T&Cs §1.9 — i.e. EU-funding-level visibility rules apply on top of GIZ’s own, since SAFE sits under a Team Europe Initiative.
- Remuneration total (§5.1) and advance-payment amount are blank in the draft — to be filled from the Contractor’s own final financial bid; no cap is pre-stated by GIZ beyond the fee-day/budget structure in the ToR (see Budget section above).
Option (possible contract extension)
If exercised (decision expected June–July 2027; would extend term to 15.11.2027): proof-of-concept for ≥2 business models leveraging the governance model/data wallet — (1) farmer income via insetting-based payment-for-ecosystem-services, (2) farm/supply-chain data enabling financial-services access — plus detailed large-scale deployment requirements for the data wallet across all SAFE countries (functional, non-functional, security/privacy, interoperability, deployment architecture, governance/policy, pilot-to-scale operations, cost/expertise estimate). Option fee days: Team Lead 5, Key Expert 1 5, Key Expert 2 5, Expert Pool 10 (further wallet development).
Format requirements for the tender
- Technical bid: max 10 pages (excl. CVs), font ≥11, English. Content after page 10 is not assessed; external links (e.g. websites) not considered.
- CVs: max 4 pages each, GIZ format, English permitted.
- Financial bid must follow the price schedule exactly; days/trips/ workshops/budgets are contractual maximums, not guaranteed minimums.
- Structure must mirror the ToR / positively-weighted assessment-grid criteria.
Assessment & award mechanics {#assessment-weighting}
- Technical bid weighted 70%, financial bid 30%.
- Minimum 500 points in the technical assessment required to proceed to financial evaluation; below that, the bid is rejected as unsuitable.
- No negotiations (public invitation to tender); tender binding until expiry of the binding period.
- Assessment-grid weighting mirrors the ToR concept structure 1:1: Strategy
1.1 (7%), Cooperation 1.2 (4%), Steering/M&E 1.3 (4%), Processes/plan 1.4
(6%), Learning/innovation 1.5 (4%), Project management 1.6 (6%), Option
1.7 (2%) — technical-methodological concept subtotal 33%; personnel
qualifications (team leader 2.1: 24%, key expert 1 2.2: 17%, key expert 2
2.3: 17%, short-term expert pool 2.6: 9%) — personnel subtotal 67%.
(Exact criterion-level text descriptions did not survive PDF→Markdown
table extraction cleanly — see
sources/tenders/2026-08-13-giz-10036847-assessment-grid.pdffor the verbatim wording if a criterion’s precise phrasing matters later.)
Other
- Personal data: contractor will not process personal data or access any existing system; prototype development/testing uses dummy data only (farm-level, production, environmental data).
- Sustainability: GIZ asks tenderers to favour low-emission travel (economy class, train/e-mobility for short distances) and offset air-travel CO₂ using a certified standard.
Questions & answers (v2, 29.07.2026) — binding, part of the tender documents
GIZ states these Q&As “will form an integral part of the tender documents” — treat as authoritative clarifications of the ToR, not just FAQ.
- Tandem Team Leader. A tandem arrangement (two experts jointly filling the Team Leader role) is explicitly acceptable — the technical bid must detail how responsibilities/days split between the two and how a single point of contact/continuity of leadership is ensured.
- WP2b dependency wording. Confirmed as written in the ToR (not a typo): the WP1 methodology is applied and advanced through WP3, and WP2b (developing the data-wallet prototype — documenting it is task c) draws on both WP1 and WP3 results, not WP1 alone. ⟨Inference: this creates a scheduling contradiction. The milestone table puts prototype development at March 2027, while the only WP3 activities that generate farmer-side results — the cooperative workshops for setup and validation — are scheduled for July 2027. Before March 2027 WP3 has produced only an implementation plan (February) and stakeholder information (March). The dependency is confirmed as intended; the timeline makes it unachievable in the literal reading, so a bid must propose an iterative resolution. Basis: ToR ch. 2.2.2 (WP2 tasks b/c), the ch. 2.2.4 milestone table, and Q&A v2 answer 2.⟩
- Travel pattern (4 trips). No fixed requirement on whether Team Leader and Key Expert 1 travel jointly to both pilot countries or independently to one each — either is acceptable, as long as travel organisation and task/responsibility split stay within the Chapter 4 personnel concept and the Chapter 5 travel-day budget.
- Capacity-Building Expert (NKE1) scope. Confirmed: the WP4 training expert focuses on WP4 only, not also on the WP3 cooperative capacity- building tasks.
Eligibility declaration — self-declaration form to submit
A form SINE (and each consortium member/subcontractor, if any) must fill in and submit, not GIZ-stated terms — captures the thresholds SINE must clear to be eligible at all, before the technical/financial assessment.
- Economic/financial capacity: average net annual turnover ≥ EUR 190,400 over the last 3 financial years; average of ≥ 5 employees/ managers over the last 3 calendar years.
- Technical capacity (reference projects): at least 3 reference projects (last 3 years, min. contract volume EUR 60,000 each) in the field “Rural Development, Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food” or “International Trade and Standards, Global Supply Chains, and Complex Economic Cooperation,” and at least 3 reference projects in the region “World” — up to 10 reference projects total can be listed; ODA financing (≥50%) is noted per project but not itself a requirement. ⟨Inference: not yet checked against SINE’s actual project history — someone needs to confirm SINE/partners can name 3+ qualifying references before submission.⟩
- Grounds for exclusion: standard GWB §123/§124 exclusion-grounds declaration, LkSG (Supply Chain Act) fine declaration (≥EUR 175,000 in past 3 years), and a declaration that no prior GIZ employment/advisory conflict of interest exists for anyone on the proposed team.
- SME self-classification question (for GIZ’s own procurement statistics, not an eligibility gate): <250 employees and <EUR 50M annual turnover.
- Individual-consultant income rule (relevant only for any solo/ freelance experts on the team, not the bidding entity itself): must declare that <5/6 of total self-employed income (trailing/next 12 months) comes from GIZ contracts, or provide full income detail if that can’t be confirmed — a false declaration carries liability exposure.
- Attachments required alongside the form: commercial/company register extract (dated within 6 months of submission), and — only if bidding as a consortium — a signed consortium declaration from all members, each member also filing its own separate self-declaration.
Official public notice (Bekanntmachung)
Published as UVgO öffentliche Ausschreibung (public tender procedure), Bekanntmachungs-ID CXTRYY6YT1PQSKGJ, dated 04.08.2026. Confirms/adds:
- Contact at GIZ: isabel.paul@giz.de, +49 6196792752.
- Submission only electronic, in text form, via the Vergabemarktplatz GIZ portal — no postal submission accepted.
- No lots (Vergabe nicht in Lose aufgeteilt); no alternative bids (Nebenangebote nicht zugelassen).
- Award method: economically most favourable offer per the criteria in the cover letter/tender documents (consistent with the 70/30 weighting above).
- All communication with bidders happens in English via the procurement portal’s communication tool.
Fit assessment ⟨Inference⟩
Strong thematic overlap with SINE Foundation’s core expertise: farmer-centric data governance is a direct application of the Data Commons framework’s Reciprocity/ Security/Openness values and Ostrom’s commons-governance principles to a new domain (smallholder agriculture) and a new governance mechanism (consent models, data-sharing agreements, role-based access — WP1/WP1). SINE’s whitepaper co-authorship experience (Deutsche Bank, Systemiq, TLGG, ECDF) is evidence of the “convene multi-stakeholder governance design” capability WP1 and WP3 require. The heaviest capability gap is WP2/Key Expert 2: SINE would need a data-science/software-engineering partner able to build and ship an offline-first mobile data wallet with identity, consent-lifecycle and encryption features on GitHub — this is a build-and-ship software deliverable, not a framework/methodology deliverable, and is a different kind of work than SINE’s whitepaper-authoring track record. ⟨Inference: not stated in any source; a judgement call to flag to Martin/Tell for staffing the technical-methodological concept.⟩
People in the wiki with relevant profiles ⟨Inference, added 2026-08-14⟩
Superseded 2026-08-17 — the roles are now decided. Everything about who bids, in which role, under which scenario now lives on the companion page: consortium constellation and staffing. In short: HRNS as consortium lead (under examination), Michael Opitz as the proposed Team Leader, Tell Münzing as Key Expert 1, Stefan Dierks as fallback, Key Expert 2 still open.
The observation below is kept as written on 2026-08-14, because it is the step before the roles were assigned:
Two of the three people imported on 2026-08-14 sit on this tender’s subject matter, from opposite ends of the same value chain. Neither is stated anywhere to be involved in this bid — this is a profile-fit observation only, and the role Martin intends for them is still open (see open questions g).
- Michael Opitz — 21 years at the Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (coffee-sector implementer, farmer-family livelihoods), MD 2005–2026, plus four years inside GIZ as an extension-services expert (1988–1992). Covers exactly the farmer-facing, participatory, pilot-country side of WP1/WP3 — not the WP2 software gap.
- Stefan Dierks — Director Sustainability, Melitta Group; before that 17 years at Tchibo, where he built KPI systems and supply-chain compliance standards. The corporate buyer-side counterpart: who consumes the value-chain data and under which regulatory pressure.
Neither addresses the WP2/Key Expert 2 software-engineering gap, which remains the open staffing risk.
Sources
- 10036847-TOR (Terms of Reference) — full source for Context, Work Packages, Personnel concept, Costing, Option, Format requirements, Outsourced processing of personal data sections above.
- 10036847-Assessment Grid — weighting percentages (criterion-text extraction incomplete, see note above).
- 10036847-Cover Letter — submission deadline, award mechanics (70/30 weighting, 500-point cutoff), annexes list.
- 10036847_list of questions v2 — read natively (PDF), not via the Markdown twin: Marker’s table extraction was unusably garbled for this densely-tabular Q&A document.
- 10036847-DRAFT Contract — contract term, remuneration/VAT, advance payment, interim invoicing cadence, GTC/annexes order, publicity clause (Draft contract section above).
- 10036847-Eligibility declaration — self-declaration form: turnover/staffing thresholds, reference-project requirements, exclusion grounds, SME classification, consortium-attachment requirements (Eligibility declaration section above).
- CSX 21 - Bekanntmachung — official UVgO public notice: confirms the extended Angebotsfrist (21.08.2026, 12:00), Aufklärungsfragen deadline (18.08.2026), Zuschlags-/Bindefrist (13.11.2026), and submission mechanics (Official public notice section above). Read natively (PDF) — Marker’s model-server dependencies (font/OCR-error-detection downloads) failed at the time (SSL/timeout errors unrelated to the document itself); the PDF is short and machine-readable so native extraction is reliable here. ⟨Update 2026-08-14: the font and SSL failures were environmental and are now fixed in the container — no per-call setup needed. The OCR limit is not fixed and will not be: Marker’s OCR needs a local inference server this image does not ship, so
--disable_ocrbelongs in every call and OCR-fallback table extraction stays out of scope. Digital PDFs like this one convert normally; see thecorrectentry of 2026-08-14 inwiki/log.md.⟩
All 6 tender documents plus the official Bekanntmachung ingested as of 2026-08-13.