Call for Proposals for the “Project on Mekong Sustainable Supply Chains Transformation and Advancement” Using AMEICC’s FY2022 Supplementary Budget

Japanese companies have been leading in manufacturing sector in Mekong countries and have developed a regional supply chain to export products to the global market in collaboration with local SMEs. Surveys conducted at the occasion of developing ASEAN-Japan Economic Co-creation Vision suggested that the supply chain should be upgraded in a sustainable manner through adopting ESG principles and related investment due to global business circumstances, in order to continue business with global firms and keep its global competitiveness. However, one of the biggest challenges to implement ESG principle at the supply chain level is the insufficient knowledge of SMEs although some actions such as Kaizen can lead to another benefit such as less business operation cost. Therefore, based on the discussion in West East Corridor Working Group (WEC-WG) under AMEICC in 2023, Japan has decided to develop new co-creation project to accelerate ESG actions among local SMEs through capacity building with a plan of future expansion.

The basic premise of the project is that SME suppliers/component manufactures are provided with the opportunity to improve their ESG performance through an interplay of other stakeholders such as leading companies, technology providers and financing companies. Those stakeholders guide SMEs in ESG adoption through technology and financing options, while SMEs identify improvement areas on ESG standards to comply global regulations and requirements of lead companies through adoption of ESG solutions accessing affordable technologies and financing options.

Based on the premise, this project will (i) develop training catering to the global, regional and local demand after preparatory research and educate local lecturers in the main local training facility, and (ii) provide the training to selected local SMEs and facilitate matching with solution providers and financial institutions to monitor the behavior change of the SMEs. The project aims to understand the opportunities and challenges local SMEs are facing and develop policy proposal to Mekong countries to facilitate the private sector’s transitions leading to accelerate adopting ESG principles and related investments at supply chain level at a later phase. This project will focus on environment or decarbonization issue as the climate change is the most urgent for concrete actions among ESG parameters. In addition, due to the characteristic of industries, the project takes care of 1. automobiles, 2. textiles and 3. agriculture and food industry.

The Contractor selected through this call for proposals shall be commissioned by the Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Partnerships (AOTS) to implement the services (1) through (5).

• (1) Preparatory Study of the Current Global, Regional and Local Situation
• (2) Develop Training Curriculum and Conduct Training of Trainers (ToT)
• (3) Conduct Open Call for Selecting SMEs and Develop IT System for Tracking
• (4) Conduct Training, Developing Decarbonization Plan and Facilitating Matching with Solution Providers and Financial Institutions
• (5) Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting

1)    Declaration of Willingness to Participate in the Competition

If you wish to participate in this project competition, you must express your intention to participate by sending an application form by e-mail attachment by 3:00 p.m. in Japan time, Wednesday, July 10, 2024 [must arrive by this date and time]. The Application Letter must be submitted separately with the application documents.

2)    Q&A

(1)    Question deadline: 3:00 p.m. in Japan time, Wednesday, July 10, 2024
(2)    How to Receive Questions: By e-mail only
(3)    How to Answer Questions: All questions received will be answered by e-mail to those who have expressed their willingness to participate in the proposal competition by 4:00 p.m. in Japan time, Thursday, July 16, 2024.

6. Contact Information for Submission of Application Documents and Inquiries