Yes – multi-partner submissions are highly encouraged by the AWP to maximise the expertise and experience in delivering activities. It is expected that a primary (lead) organisation would be identified in the submission and the other partners would be supporting partners. In assessing submissions, a weighting will be applied to submissions that are collaborative.

No – however, in saying this, partners may “encourage” other Australian organisations to become partners prior to submitting a partner submission for an activity.

Invitations to submit and partner submissions will be made through a web form where partners can save progress in their submission as they need to. This will be available through a unique partner link for each activity as they become available.

Following partner feedback, the AWP is now seeking more traditional tendering style partner submissions that outline the approach, timeline, and budget required to demonstrate their capability and capacity to deliver the outputs within the specified timeframes as identified in each activity plan (terms of reference).

As per a typical tendering process, a number of eligibility and weighted assessment criteria will be identified that will be used by the AWP Expert Review Panel to assess all submissions. These will be provided in the invitation to submit online form. As indicated above, a weighting will be given to partners that collaborate with other AWP partners. Further, submissions that demonstrate their commitment to gender and youth participation in their partner team will be considered favourably.

The independent AWP Expert Review Panel will undertake the assessments of all partner submissions. Following their assessment, they provide a recommendation to AWP Management for approval. AWP will confirm this appointment with Government of Myanmar prior to engagement of the successful proponent/s.

We expect to have the first two activities open for submission mid-next week (21-22 Sep 2016).

There is already coordination being provided by the World Bank Project Management Unit, under Dr. Khin Ni Ni Thein from the National Water Resources Committee. AWP are supporting a State of the Basin Assessment Coordinator role in Myanmar. No further coordination is needed.

Partners need to form their own judgement about downstream risks as per World Bank procurement rules.

The weighted criteria for assessment of submission can be found in the Supporting Documents section on the Program Overview Page.  The Invitation for Partner Submission also contains the Weighted Critieria is located on page 3 of the submission form. To progress to this page Partner will need to submit their Lead Partner Details. You can change these details at any time by clicking “back”. You may aslo save your work at any time through-out your Partner Submission.

Yes. The $250K is also inclusive of airfares, accommodation, local travel in Myanmar, and per diem, as per the TOR.

The meta-data for the data sets identified in the Terms of Reference are expected to be a mix of English and Myanmar languages.

Analogue hydrometric charts cannot be shipped to Australia for processing. As a capacity building initiative, the hydrometric charts will be digitised in-country with active engagement and training of Myanmar colleagues from the Hydro-informatics Centre and Department of Meteorology and Hydrology. While the HIC and DMH staff can participate as a capacity building initiative, the Australian partner is  responsible for the delivery of all digitized data, and should design their approach accordingly.

Partners will need to make educated assumptions regarding the quantity of data to be digitised. The exact amount will not be known until the data audit exercise is underway.

Training will be conducted in English language.

Products and outputs from Activity 1, including the Hydrological data base (Output 3) will be produced in English language. However, some provision for language translation should be included to ensure any meta-data in Myanmar language can be converted to English language and integrated into Output 3.

The office accomodation arrangements for AWP partners in Myanmar are not yet  finalised, but it is expected that they will be housed in  a government building in Yangon.

Under Clause 4.3, where a cost arises that is not foreseeable, AWP will reimburse the Partner for reasonable expenses, as long as prior approval is received from AWP, e.g. a change of flight caused by the airline, an unscheduled meeting arises.

Yes, all registered AWP Partners have been invited to send submissions for these packages of work in Myanmar.

Yes, collaboration among partners is strongly encouraged.

There is already a conversation with BoM at a high level and we will be following that up and that is a separate government to government relationship and we will get back to you once we have more details in the coming weeks.

There is a dependency but not a formal link between them – that’s why we are doing the data study first because it’s very much about preparing the data for other pieces of work. There are no rules about who does and doesn’t get it other than to say clearly as a multi-lateral partnership, one of the strategic objectives for the AWP is to get the broadest range of engagement possible from amongst our panel, and that advice from our Expert Review Panel will be taken into consideration. But that doesn’t mean that any one partner could not be involved in more than one successful outcome. It is important to note that in our assessment criteria, one of the strategic characteristics and expectations of DFAT is that the widest possible range of skilled partners from the Australian public and private water sector will be involved in the work we do.

There is a significant groundwater component in the Ayeyarwady Basin program. Largely we won’t be significantly involved with that but there is a very significant groundwater component in the World Bank technical capability and SOBA process.

The Hydroinformatics Centre – which is run by the government of Myanmar significantly with World Bank funding – has a number of staff involved including a team of 12 or more young water professionals, all of them with varying levels of technical capability on water. So, there will be significant logistic and consultation support. The Hydroinformatics Centre has a team there consisting of a Consultations/Communications Coordinator, Project Officers, Technical Specialists, an Environmental Scientist, a Water Engineer and a GIS specialist. Tarek will have a continued coordination role to ensure what’s needed for the Australian team is available, as well there being a Myanmar coordinator working across the whole program. An important point to note is that these are not client consulting relationships. It is a collaborative partnership between Australia, the Government of Myanmar, and the World Bank. At times you’ll be under work pressures like a consultant but we want to be clear that the culture that everyone is expecting here is that of collaboration both within Australia and across the Pacific into Myanmar, with a whole range of counterparts across at least two major government departments, and the World Bank in-country.

It’s a complex situation up there. On one hand, the data is not really consolidated at the moment so it has to be sourced and collected from all the various government agencies. That needs to be done and does take time. What we have started already in August is identified a preliminary list of key data that is needed and this has already been communicated with the Hydroinformatics Centre. They are organising the letters and permissions for government-to-government transfer of this data to the Hydroinformatics Centre. So, if we’re looking at the surface water resource assessment side of things, there was a delegation from MDBA who came to Yangon in late August. Based on their discussions with various government agencies, they have come up with this preliminary list of the data that would be needed for the source modelling and for the surface water resource assessment. So, we’ve started that process and it will need refinement over time, but we are not waiting for this work to be mobilised first. Like any assessment, data is going to be critical and probably one of the biggest risks for the overall program from the Government of Myanmar’s point of view is clearly the availability of quality data. Everyone is aware there are risks in terms of on time delivery, and we’ll monitor that as we go through the process.

Clearly there are international partners involved and they are the number that we have identified in Myanmar. You’re making a good point, particularly for the meteorological and climatic data, so whilst AWP is not formally set up to fund third parties – we have a set of partnership rules that are about Australian engagement – if you were to make a bid or submission to AWP, you should identify a need for data from another source in your submission, and if that has a cost or some sort of collaborative transaction to it you would also identify it in your submission and that will enforce us to think more about it. As a general rule, we are not looking for a new set of international collaborators.