Consultancy for Assessment of Socio-economic Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic in ACVN’s Member Cities

TERMS OF REFERENCE

I.          Background

The Partnerships for Municipal Innovation in Local Economic Development Project (PMI-LED) is funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada. It is implemented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) in local governments in six countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. in Vietnam, FCM is cooperating with the Association of Cities of Vietnam (ACVN) to implement the program with the aims to build capacity for municipal governments to support local economic development (LED), involvement of private sector, to promote trade and investment attraction, to contribute to sustainable economic development, and to strengthen the economic relationships with Canada.

During the first nine months of 2020, COVID-19 pandemic has been having negative impacts to health, economy and society worldwide as well as in Vietnam. According to statistics of the Ministry of Health, as of September 18, 2020, there are 1066 infected cases, 940 cured cases and 35 deaths in Vietnam; meanwhile, there are 30,357,146 infected cases and 950,629 deaths in the world https://ncov.moh.gov.vn/ [1]. The global economy fell into a serious recession. Vietnamese economy with a large openess and deep integration has been seriously impacted which caused the interruption of supply chains and trade flow, delay of production, business and services that directly impacts to industries of import-export, aviation, tourism, accomodation and catering services, health, education, labour and employment; many enterprises have been bankrupted, dissolved, suspended their operations or shrink their scale, etc. In the first quarter of 2020, GDP only increased 3.82%, the lowest level in 10 recent years that strongly impact to people’s psychology and life https://ncov.moh.gov.vn/-/ket-luan-cua-bo-chinh-tri-ve-chu-truong-khac-phuc-tac-ong-cua-ai-dich-covid-19-e-phuc-hoi-va-phat-trien-nen-kinh-te [2].

The main source of the pandemic spreads is in large municipal centers (cities of Da Nang, Hanoi, HCMC, Hai Duong, Wuhan, Beijing, New Dehli, New York, etc.) which have large impacts on every aspect of municipalities nationwide and worldwide. In Vietnam, especially in Da Nang, the second pandemic wave returned at the end of July 2020 and has a negative impact on the implementation of the socio-economic development plan 2020 of the city.

In this common global and national context, ACVN’s member cities are also suffered from local socio-economic impacts. In order to learn about negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic to local economic development in ACVN’s member cities. An assessment of COVID-19 impacts will be carried in ACVN’s members to understand their difficulties, challenges and needs of community and local governments. Then recommendations will be developed basing on the survey and submitted to governments at different levels, central government, stakeholders and donors for appropriate support to overcome the pandemic consequences in its member cities.

II.          Research objectives

• To support ACVN to understand cities’ difficulties, challenges and needs to overcome COVID-19 impacts on local economic development (LED) in Vietnamese cities;
• To propose solutions for supporting cities to overcome COVID-19 impacts on local economic development

III.         Research scope

• To understand about difficulties and challenges faced by cities in the current pandemic context, with focus in local economic development in ACVN’s member cities, especially those suffer the most from the pandemic such as Da Nang, Ha Noi and Hai Duong, etc.;
• To understand about needs of cities and what they expect from ACVN and PMI LED to support for LED;
• To propose solutions with ACVN’s support to its members to overcome COVID-19 consequences in LED.

IV.          Expected deliverables

• Overview of socio-economic impacts of COVID;
• A quesionnaire for ACVN’s members developed in collaboration with survey team;
• A workshop on sharing research results;
• An analysis of difficulties, challenges, needs, solutions and action plan for ACVN to support its members to overcome COVID-19 impacts to LED. 

V.          Time

The survey assignment will be conducted from 10^th till 31^st October, 2020 with 10 working days.

VI.          Research management

The National Coordinator of the PMI LED Vietnam (NPC) will monitor the implementation of this assignment. ACVN Secretariat will be in charge of approving the consultant’s work and ensure the task progress. The Consultant can request assistance from the NPC and ACVN’s staff to fullfil his/her task if necessary.

The Consultant will propose survey approach/methodology with a temperary workplan. During task implementation, this workplan may be adjusted for better use of available resources; however, this change will not result in contract extension or budget modification.

There will be a meeting between the Consultant, ACVN Secretariat and NPC before implementing the task in order to agree in task approach, scope, expected results and work schedule.

During the task implementation, the Consultant must adapt to the project capacity, limitation and progress.

VII.         Qualification

• Degree in economics, local governance, business administration, public policy and relevant degrees;
• A minimum of 15 year experience in required professional field;
• Experience in workshop and training chair and facilitation;
• Good written and verbal communication skills in English;
• etc.

VIII.          Location

In ACVN’s member cities as proposed in the survey plan which will be co-developed by the Consultant and ACVN.

IX.          Submission

The leter of interest will be send via email to Mrs. Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao – National Program Coordinator PMI LED Vietnam at [email protected] [3] before 10^th October, 2020.