For the purposes of the project “Accountability, Technology and Institutional Openness – ActionALBANIA”, funded by Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs represented by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Pristina, Kosovo and supported by Partners Albania for Change and Development, MJAFT! Movement opens a:

CALL FOR SUBMISSION OF BIDS

for procurement of services for preparation of articles for the Institutional Openness

1. Contracting authority

MJAFT! Movement will contract journalists for the preparation of investigative articles in the framework of “Accountability, Technology and Institutional Openness – ActionALBANIA” project.

2. Information about the project

ActionALBANIA (Accountability, Technology and Institutional Openness in Albania) aims to continually keep public authorities accountable and promote transparency, integrity and effectiveness in decision-making processes, in order to increase youth participation and public trust towards government. The core added value of this project is gathering and making public data of Albanian public institutions performance in meeting international standards of good governance, in an open data format.

ActionALBANIA aims to monitor all the public institutions in the Republic of Albania, producing the National Openness Index (NOI), as well as providing a set of recommendations for the improvement of the current performance of the Albanian Parliament, Prime Minister’s Office, 11 Line Ministries and 4 State Ministries, 28 Executive Agencies, 61 local self-government units and 77 judiciary bodies. An open source of indicators and policy papers showing the performance of public institutions in terms of institutional openness is going to be easily accessed from everyone, allowing relevant stakeholders and interested parties to use this data for further analysis.

ActionALBANIA also aims to enhance the dialogue among youth/students and governmental institutions, to increase inclusiveness and participation of citizens in the decision-making processes.

3. Subject of the service contract

The subject of the service contract is the preparation of Investigative articles for the Institutional Openness.

MJAFT! Movement, hereafter, ‘Contracting authority/organization’, is seeking to contract Investigative journalists, hereafter ‘journalists’ who will be engaged to produce Investigative articles about the Institutional Openness.

In total, 8 investigative articles will be published in the span period of 3 months (during April-June 2022), covering topics related to each branch (1 article for the Parliament of Albania, 1 article for Executive Agencies, 1 article for Line Ministries, 1 article for Prime Ministry’s Office, 1 article for Local Self-Government Units and 3 articles for Judiciary, due to the reform this power has gone through the recent years).

The investigative articled should be focused in the performance of the public institutions in the Republic of Albania in fulfilling the standards of transparency, accountability, awareness and integrity. These articles will contribute in increasing the media coverage of institutional openness standards in Albania, keeping the institutions accountable for their performance and aiming to improve the efficiency of certain e-Government applications.

All delivered products should be in the Albanian language. The deadline for the delivery of the investigative articles will be communicated with the journalist/s, after the signing of the Contract.

4. Assignment timetable

This assignment is expected to start on the 5^th of April 2022 and to last until the 30^th of June 2022. The Assignment of Journalist/s is foreseen to be a total of the production of eight investigative articles (2 articles per journalist), excluding the time spent in online discussions, reporting, and other placement-related duties.

This call foresees to engage up to 4 journalists.

5. Duties and responsibilities

- The investigative articles need to be presented in a human-friendly format that allows the large public to better understand the concept of open government and institutional openness.

- The journalist/s need to produce high-quality investigative articles for the institutional openness.

- The journalist/s need to publish the articles on their official media websites and share them on their social media accounts.

- The journalist/s needs to provide the organization with the financial documentation needed to make payments (Contract, Bank account, Payment request, and Individual Mission Report).

- The writing material must be the original work of the journalist/s and not previously published.

- All sides of the issue covered by the journalist/s will be presented and reviewed to refrain from any bias, except opinions.

- The Contracting authority/ organization will not accept material that is an unnecessarily unwarranted invasion of privacy.

- Other similar duties and tasks as required by the project.

The contract may be terminated if the abovementioned requirements of this ToR are not met by the selected journalist/s.

6. Selection criteria

Experience and qualification:

• University degree or professional certifications for Journalism;
• Applicants need to have a proven track record of at least 2 years’ experience in the field of Journalism;
• 2 samples of investigative articles written by the applicant, published previously.

The Contracting authority/organization reserves the right to contract multiple journalists for this Call.

7. The offer should contain the following elements:

- CV of the applicant/s which contains detailed information for the required qualifications of this call;

- Financial offer signed by the applicant (please, use the uploaded file);

- Inserted copies of 2 investigative articles in Albanian or English language.

- Signed declaration for the acceptance of this ToR (please, use the uploaded file).

Those bids that will not contain the necessary elements or are not made according to the propositions of the call, will not be considered for further evaluation.

Applications should be handover at the following address: Rr. Jul Variboba, Pall. 3, Ap.5, Tirana, Albania.

All applications must be submitted by 3^rd of April 2022.

8. Awarding criteria

The selection of applicants will be done through evaluation of the qualitative offer (70%) and financial offer (30%). The journalist/s who will receive the most points in total will be selected.

9. Payment

The payment will be made after the realization of the service, i.e. after submitting a report on the work done and its approval by the project.

Projekti “Euroudhëtim” mundeson udhetimin e 11 studenteve nga Shqiperia për te vizituar brenda 30 ditëve këdo qytet apo kryeqytet ne europen e bashkuar. Ceremonia e hapjes organizohet cdo vit në kryeqytetin europian Berlinin, mundësuar nga Fondacioni Robert Bosch dhe në bashkëpunim me Balkan Trust for Democracy.

Nese jeni studente ne universitet atehere aplikoni. Mund te vizitoni faqen www.euroudhetim.org ose te na shkruani ne adresen info@mjaft.org

Bashkangjitur jane dokumentat sqarues per aplikim.