Period of performance: April 2021 - April 2026
Client/Donor/Funding Agency: Millennium Challenge Corporation
Role: Subcontractor to DT Global
Unit/Division: TVS
Technical Support Advisory Services for Due Diligence & Implementation Oversight – Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Indonesia Compact Development II
This project is to provide technical advisory service for the due diligence and implementation oversight of the Indonesia II Compact. The Compact seeks to assist the Government of Indonesia in addressing its binding constraints to economic growth: costly and underdeveloped financial intermediation, by investing in needed infrastructure project preparation and structured finance solutions, and in increased access to finance for micro, small, and medium enterprises. The Compact aims to unlock financing that will catalyze economic growth and leverage Indonesia's own resources. There are three projects in this Compact: (1) Advancing Transport & Logistic Accessibility Services (ATLAS), (2) Financial Market Development Program (FMDP), and (3) Access to Finance for Women-owned/Micro-, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME Finance) Project. GDC is supporting MCC on the ATLAS Project valued at about $350M.
The main objective of ATLAS is to improve transport planning, logistics and infrastructure preparation in the target provinces, responding to the root cause of inadequate infrastructure project preparation. The five provinces selected for support are South Sumatera, North Sulawesi, Bali, Riau Islands and Riau. The four Activities of the ATLAS projects are:
The ATLAS Project also aims to strengthen environmentally friendly and gender-responsive, inclusive infrastructure preparation and delivery processes at all stages of the infrastructure project lifecycle. The creation of the PIMG will require new regulations to mandate the use of the PIMG and significant adjustment of technical standards and operating procedures at the national level. Similarly, the key legal, regulatory, policy and institutional reforms (PIR) that will be funded by the Compact include fundamentally changing the approach to transport planning by replacing the current single-mode planning exercises carried out separately at the three levels of government (national, provincial, district/city) with a multi-modal integrated approach. This will require adjustment of the relevant legal and regulatory framework in the transport and planning area. The ATLAS project activities are described below.
Transport Planning Reform Activity: This activity will develop two proof-of-concept multi-modal transport planning projects to influence the Government of Indonesia in embracing the necessary institutional, legal, and regulatory reforms required to mandate and mainstream a multi-modal transport planning approach. This Activity also includes a Provincial Logistics Study to conduct a comprehensive domestic logistics data stocktaking, modeling, and analysis of three (3) geographical areas, consisting of Bali, North Sulawesi, and Bintan Island in Riau Islands.
Good Practice Infrastructure Projects Activity (GPIP): This activity aims to support five infrastructure projects, which are intended to demonstrate innovative and strengthened approaches to project preparation, planning, structuring and financing, and procurement and implementation.
Public Investment Management Guidelines (PIMG): This activity will create a public, online suite of Public Investment Management Guidelines for infrastructure, designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public investment.
Project Preparation and Delivery Facility Activity (PPDF): This activity will provide project preparation, structuring, procurement, and project delivery support to sub-national governments.
This task order was originally awarded to IMC Worldwide (IMC). IMC and the entire team were led by Imad Abousleiman (our proposed Team Leader). The award was administratively managed by Benjamin Larsson (our proposed Project Manager). Many of our proposed personnel worked on this call order. IMC was acquired by DT Global in March 2022 and GDC was formed shortly after in June 2022. Since its formation, GDC received an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract from DT Global and GDC’s staff continued to support MCC on the Indonesia, Nepal, and Timor-Leste Compacts in the same roles as prior to the acquisition and to the formation of GDC. Since GDC is a small business, some of the experience and past performance claimed is based on a combination of GDC’s and our Principal experience.
Period of performance: April 2021 - April 2026
Client/Donor/Funding Agency: Millennium Challenge Corporation
Role: Subcontractor to DT Global
Unit/Division: TVS
MCC Timor‐Leste: Education Project Center of Excellence (CoE) MCC Architect/Facility Planner
GDC is providing Architecture and Engineering (A&E) consulting services during the Compact development for the Education Center of Excellence Activity to meet MCC’s technical and contractual requirements during the development of Timor-Leste’s Education Project - Teaching and Leading the Next generation of Timorese (TALENT) Project. GDC, in support of its prime contractor – DT Global, is developing all Terms of Reference (TORs) for the Pre-EIF Consultancies and daft procurement packages for the Center of Excellence (COE). Specifically, the TORs are for MCC/MCA-TL’s implementing partners for planning, design, construction, architecture and engineering oversight. GDC has developed industry leading standard cost estimates, risk assessments and Functional Design Brief (FDB), as well as full implementation/ project life cycle workplans and schedules. GDC will also assist with conducting remote and on-site construction quality assurance; monitoring adherence to environmental and social management, land acquisition and resettlement, waste management, and stakeholder engagement plans; ensuring implementers have permits to start work; overseeing adherence to the construction schedule, budget, and implementation plans; conducting quality assurance/quality control checks on materials and adherence to design specifications; advising on contract compliance; and managing cost proposals and change orders from the field.
The Teaching and Leading for the Next Generation of Timorese (TALENT) Project, which the COE falls under, aims to implement a program designed to improve the quality of secondary education in Timor-Leste. The program aims to provide an understanding of the existing policies, legislation, and needs, challenges and best practices in the country in relation to establishing a Centre of Excellence (CoE) to improve preservice education and training and in-service training for secondary teachers and school leaders. In addition, the program aims to build on existing practices, structures and systems and provide an evidence-based direction while benchmarking with international best practices. A review of the secondary education curriculum was undertaken with recommendations for reform being at the core, however, to achieve this a facility to accommodate the educational reform and training programs was needed. These reflect current SDGs and a 21st Century Schools approach to learning through courses and modules in the areas of CoE’s ‘Core Disciplines’, namely: Literacy, numeracy and ‘soft skills’, with critical thinking, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI), and school leadership in the areas of management and instructional learning.
The overarching aim of the project is to better prepare students for success in tertiary education and employment, thereby helping to diminish Timor-Leste’s human capital constraints. The specific focus decided by GoTL and MCC is on improving and upgrading secondary education teachers and school leaders’ skills in pedagogy, management and instructional leadership. The skills most needed in the Timorese workforce are numeracy, literacy and ‘soft’ skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving.
To improve teacher and school leader skills, it was critical that the research determine the needs, skill gaps and lack of capacity, as well as successes, in the workforce and teacher training institutions. This needed to take place in the context of the current legislative and policy framework and Timor-Leste’s aspirations for an improved education system.
Improving school leadership and teacher quality is expected to result in the medium term in an improvement in student learning outcomes, preparing them for higher education and employability and resulting in higher individual productivity. In the long term, the anticipated outcome is that the MCC investment will contribute significantly to the development of a highly trained and effective workforce able to support Timor-Leste to compete internationally.
It is anticipated that over the Compact’s life, every senior secondary teacher, leader and prospective school leader, as well pre-service students will be involved in CoE activities. As a result, by the end of five years, the proposed CoE will be a productive, respected and sustainable institution making a significant contribution to Timor-Leste’s education system and community.
Determinations have been made about what is reasonably achievable within the five-year MCC time frame and what programs offer the greatest opportunity for impacts for the greatest number of secondary teachers and students, aimed at meeting MCC’s Economic Rate of Return target. The proposed CoE role in relation to existing institutions, one that foregrounds collaboration, aims to create an effective, well-regarded organization that is sustainable beyond the MCC’s five-year funding commitment.
In fulfilling a core MCC and GoTL principle, a comprehensive gender and social inclusion assessment has been conducted to ensure these considerations are included in all aspects of the project design recommendations. CoE programs and activities support GSI aims to redress gender imbalances, address stereotyping, ensure women and people with disabilities are properly catered for and assist in developing ‘safe schools’ facilities and attitudes amongst staff and students.
Period of performance: September 2019 – September 2024
Client/Donor/Funding Agency: Millennium Challenge Corporation
Role: Subcontractor to DT Global
Unit/Division: TVS
Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Nepal: Roads Maintenance Project (RMP)
Through a constraints analysis MCC determined that poor road maintenance in Nepal made travel and transport of goods challenging and expensive. The high cost of transport had significant economic effects in a landlocked and mountainous nation that relies on cross-border trade. To address the high cost of transport, the Road Maintenance Project aims to maintain road quality across the strategic road network, preventing further deterioration of Nepal’s road network. The project aims to achieve this through:
The objective of the RMP is to maintain road quality across the Nepal’s Strategic Road Network (SRN). First, the RMP provides technical assistance related to road maintenance planning, assessment and implementation to strengthen the Department of Road’s (DoR) and Roads Board Nepal’s capacity to plan and execute routine and periodic maintenance. These interventions are reinforced by a learning by doing approach to conducting maintenance on a subset of the SRN. This maintenance work shall reduce road roughness and associated vehicle operating costs. The expectation is that by equipping the DoR with the data, skills and experience necessary to plan and implement road maintenance, combined with an increased level of funding under an improved road maintenance funding regime, the SRN will be adequately maintained, and the road quality will not deteriorate.
Under RMP, GDC in coordination with its prime contractor DT Global, was tasked with a broad mandate/Scope of Work to provide a diverse array of technical advisory support for a range of consulting services in connection with the development, assessment, design, delivery, and operations of infrastructure projects. GDC’s team, to-date, have provided a wide range of advisory support and independent engineering services; collected and analyzed field data (distress, roughness, deflection, geometric data, accident data, etc.) to perform needs assessment and analysis of the documentation made available by the Nepalese road agencies. Following this baseline data collection and analysis the Compact Development team led the introduction of pavement design on the Road Recycling Project with Full Depth Reclamation (FDR) and Superpave high modulus asphalts; conducted HDM-4 analysis for the Road Recycling Project with Full Depth Reclamation (FDR) and Superpave high modulus asphalts, in Nepal; assessed the needs of the Road Fund of Nepal and supported in drafting of the Implementing Entity Agreement (IEA) with e RBN. As RMP progressed towards procurement GDC assisted with drafting the terms of references for the data collection program on the Structural Road Network in Nepal as well as terms of references for the technical assistance program for the Road Asset Management System in Nepal. This ultimately progressed the project to drafting TORs for eventual construction, e.g. TORs for the Pavement Design, ESIA and RAP for the Lamahi - Bhalubang Road (27 km), and the extension to Butwal (100 km). Due to the host country needs and requests the Compact has gone through additional changes, namely the FDR section and periodic maintenance sections have drastically changed. This resulted in GDC supporting MCC with rescoping the RMP portion of the Compact, post the 2-year delay due to ratification not taking place until 2022. GDC supported the full rescoping of RMP, adjusting the economic assessment HDM-4, engineering feasibility of the road sections, advised on additional critical data collection that was required to make these adjustments, supported ESP/GSI and M&E efforts to assess the new road segments.
GDC also supported in the development of the TORs for the acquisition of the laboratory and in situ equipment to control the design and implementation of FDR and Superpave technologies in Nepal and the terms of references for the recruitment of the FDR and the Superpave experts. GDC was also tasked with capacity development as well, during which our team prepared training courses to the technical evaluation committee Chairman to select the suppliers for the equipment to mix design FDR pavements and Superpave asphalts; and, prepared a FIDIC training for the road agency representatives.
DT Global and GDC led the introduction of new technologies with regards to road construction and maintenance, namely Full Depth Reclamation (FDR) and Superpave high modulus asphalt, which prior to RMP had never been used in Nepal. From the onset of the project DT Global, GDC and MCC were determined to introduce cost and time saving technologies where applicable and possible. FDR was identified as a potential pivotal and industry advancing technology, that despite the large barriers to entry and technology/skill gaps in Nepal, would prove extremely useful in the long-term. With the introduction of FDR technologies as the crux of the road construction planning, DT Global/GDC/MCC set out to fully establish not only the sourcing, procurement and testing of the equipment, but also the long-term storage, maintenance and actual facility design in which the equipment could be stored. While the latter was quite an achievement, without designing a training curriculum for local technical experts and Department of Roads staff the upfront investment in equipment, maintenance, storage, etc. would have been self-defeating. Thus, GDC’s engagement was targeted to provide a holistic system and support structure to ensure long-term viability and usability.
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