Recrutement de deux consultants individuels chargés de l’analyse de la chaîne de valeur pour (1) le lithium et le cobalt et (2) les éléments de terres rares en Afrique

REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

Immeuble CCIA, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

African Natural Resources Center

E-mail : M.HARRATHI@AFDB.ORG        Telephone : +225 20 26 32 13

Department issuing the request : AFRICAN NATURAL RESOURCES CENTER

 

Position : Two (2) Individual Consultants to undertake Value Chain Analysis for (1) Lithium & Cobalt and (2) Rare Earth Elements in Africa

Place of assignment : Côte d’Ivoire, selected countries & home based work

Duration of the assignment :  40 person days each consultancy

Tentative Date of commencement : December 2019

Deadline for applications : 15^th November 2019

Applications to be submitted to: Maali Harrathi (M.HARRATHI@AFDB.ORG)

With a copy to : Jerry Ahadjie (J.AHADJIE@AFDB.ORG)

Any questions and requests for clarifications may be sent to : JERRY AHADJIE (J.AHADJIE@AFDB.ORG) ,

TERMS OF REFERENCE

CONSULTANCY SERVICES TO UNDERTAKE VALUE CHAIN ANALYSIS FOR LITHIUM, COBALT AND RARE EARTH ELEMENTS IN AFRICA

1. Introduction :

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) places renewed emphasis on Natural Resources Management as a transformational platform, emphasizing the role of natural resources in promoting inclusive growth and transition to green growth. In order to respond to the challenges facing sustainable management and use of Africa’s natural resources, the AfDB created the African Natural Resources Center (ECNR). The ECNR is a non-lending entity whose mandate is to assist African governments maximise development outcomes derived from natural resources by boosting the capacity of the governments to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth from natural resources.

One of the ways in which the Regional Member Countries (RMCs) can benefit from the natural resources is through value addition across the resource commodity value chains. The potential benefits of these are considerable and include: enhanced income generation, employment creation and accelerated industrialization and regional integration. However, policies seeking to promote value addition have to be informed by sound evidence. It is for this reason that the ECNR has planned to undertake analysis of the value chain development for lithium, cobalt and rare earth metals which are minerals with rapidly growing demand.

2. The Need for Lithium, Cobalt and Rare Earth Metals Value Chain Study :

In addition to export earnings, African countries aspire to derive greater economic value from their mineral resources. One of the assured ways is through linkage development (backward, forward and sidestream).

Lithium, cobalt and REEs increasingly appear critical to the development of technologies increasingly associated with the future global economy. These include but are not limited to low carbon transition technologies and those associated with Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and Blockchain. Advances in battery technology and the electrification of automobiles, for example, appear likely to play a key role in low carbon economies. Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have existed since the 1980s, but the recent adoption of LIBs in electric vehicles (EVs) has driven the development of newer and better batteries. The new energy revolution and accelerating growth in demand for lithium-ion batteries provide a good opportunity for Africa. Estimates of lithium reserves and resources by the USGS in 2018 for some African countries indicates the following: Zimbabwe (70,000MT reserves & 540,000MT resources), the Democratic Republic of Congo (1 million MT of lithium resources), Mali (400,000 MT of lithium resources) and Namibia (9,000 MT of lithium resources). For cobalt, the Democratic Republic of Congo continued to be the world’s leading source of mined cobalt, supplying more than 60% of world cobalt production. Other African countries with significant cobalt potential include South Africa, Zambia, Morocco and Madagascar.

Rare Earth Elements (REEs) which hitherto were an obscure group of metals have now assumed global significance. They are especially critical to modern high-strength magnets and constitute vital inputs for a growing range of mass consumer electronics and some military applications. Global production of REEs for 2017 was 130,000 MT with an estimated reserves of 120 million MT. Whilst significant reserves have been found in Malawi and South Africa, there are existing projects in several African countries that have delineated some significant resources. The countries include Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, Kenya, Burundi and Mozambique.

3. Objective :

How African countries can harness these resources to accelerate their sustainable development is the fundamental question of this assignment.

The overall objective of this study is to assess the opportunities and challenges of harnessing lithium, cobalt and REE value chains to accelerate industrialization and broad-based sustainable development in Africa.

The specific objectives of the study are to :

1. Assess the current and future status of lithium, cobalt and REE reserves and value chains in Africa ;
2. Identify opportunities and challenges for value addition in lithium, cobalt and REE value chains in Africa ;
3. Propose options or policy incentives for promoting value addition, efficiency and equity of lithium, cobalt and REE value chains in Africa.

4. Scope of Work :

4.1 Lithium, Cobalt and associated minerals

Specifically, the study will cover among other important issues :

1. Review the lithium, cobalt and other related LIB mineral resources in Africa, focusing among others on lithium resources in Zimbabwe and cobalt in Zambia & Democratic Republic of Congo ;
2. Outline current entry barriers to lithium and cobalt mining and markets ;
3. Assess prevailing policy frameworks and offer guidance on how African countries can revise the policies to attract investment into mining and beneficiation of lithium and cobalt ;
4. Outline the dimensions of mineral value addition along the mineral value chain of lithium and cobalt in Africa ;
5. Outline the economic setting and the role of lithium, cobalt and related minerals resources in Africa’s development ;
6. Assess prospects of a regional approach to the development of the value chains ;
7. Analyse technology and skills requirements for optimum lithium and cobalt value chain development in Africa and identify existing gaps and propose remedial actions ;
8. Provide recommendations for promoting national and regional lithium and cobalt value chains in Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs) ;
9. Develop an Action Plan to implement the recommendations including prioritisation of areas for investment and/or policy interventions.

4.2 Rare Earth Metals

Specifically, the study will cover among other important issues :

1. Review the REE mineral resources in Africa, including Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Namibia, Kenya, Burundi, Mozambique and Zambia ;
2. Assess countries mining REEs currently in Africa ;
3. Evaluate the current entry barriers to exploration and mining of the rare earth elements (REE) ;
4. Assess prevailing policy frameworks and offer guidance on how African countries can revise the policies to attract investment into REE mining and beneficiation ;
5. Analyse the dimensions of mineral value addition along the REE value chain in Africa ;
6. Outline the economic setting and the role of REE resources in Africa’s transition to low carbon future ;
7. Assess prospects of a regional approach to the development of REE value chain analysing the strategic merits of a regional scale mining and beneficiation to overcome economics of scale ;
8. Analyse technology and skills requirements for optimum REE value chain development in Africa and identify existing gaps and propose remedial action ;
9. Provide recommendations for promoting national and regional value chains in Africa’s regional economic communities (RECs) ;
10. Develop an Action Plan to implement the recommendations including prioritisation of areas for investment and/or policy interventions.

 

5. Deliverables:

• A comprehensive study report using selected countries in Africa to give a general picture that is useful in ;
• Advising policymakers with an understanding of the entry barriers, benefits and types of public investments necessary to pave way for successful lithium, cobalt and REE value chain benefits ;
• Contributing to internal knowledge in the Bank and RMCs as ;
• A source of practical policy advice tool ;
• Capacity to effectively design and implement competitive lithium, cobalt and REE policies ;
• Narrowing the knowledge gap between governments and investors ;
• Enhancement of the ability of governments to negotiate with investors ;
• Addressing main questions in analyzing the value chain for lithium, cobalt and REE resources including ;
• Nature, source and contributors to the value chain ;
• Current market structure of lithium, cobalt and REE and what challenges and opportunities it offers new entrants ;;
• Type of social and economic benefits that countries can derive from beneficiation of lithium, cobalt and REE ;
• Conditions necessary for undertaking competitive beneficiation; and
• Forms of public and private sector investment necessary to be competitive.

Each of the reports will have an action plan to implement the recommendations including prioritisation of areas for investment and/or policy interventions.

6. Timeframe :

Each Consultant will be expected to work for no more than 40 person days. The study will be undertaken in a period of no more than 6 months with the following activities and outputs.

	Activity	Output	Time
1	Consultant’s pre-project meeting and	Agreed methodology, work	2 weeks after
	understanding of ToR	plan, formats and report	signing
		template
2	Review existing studies and undertake	Draft report prepared for	10 weeks after
	agreed field visits	review by Bank project team	signing
		and external reviewers
3	Address the comments from project team	Revised reports submitted and	18 weeks after
	and external reviewers	approved by Centre	signing
4	Consultants’ report consolidation at	Final project report	22 weeks after
	Validation meeting		signing

7. Consultant Qualifications :

The Consultants must have the following qualifications :

• Possess at least a Master’s degree in Development Economics, Natural Resources Economics, Geosciences, Mining or Mineral Process Engineering, or Disciplines related to Mineral Resources ;

• At least 10 years of industry or research experience in mining sector, policy development, management, production or processing ;

• At least three focused projects/studies with cobalt, lithium and related minerals (Lithium and cobalt consultancy) ;
• At least three focused projects/studies with REE (REE consultancy) ;

• Experience in conducting value chain analysis or designing industrial policies in Africa will be an added advantage ;
• Excellent written and oral English or French.

8. Consultant Selection :

The Consultants will be selected in accordance with the African Development Bank’s Implementation Manual relating to the Procedures for Acquisition of Consulting Services funded by the Administrative or Capital Expenditure Budget of the Bank Group. The candidates shall be evaluated based on the following criteria :

CRITERIA	Marks (%)
General qualifications and adequacy for the proposed assignment	30
Similar experience in the area of expertise of the assignment as described in the	50
Terms  of  Reference  and  understanding  the  terms  of  reference  (Technical
Proposal)
Experience with the Bank or other international donors	10
Knowledge of the Region (environment of the Assignment)	5
Language capacity (Excellent technical writing in English and French is an	5
advantage)
TOTAL	100

Applicants are to submit a brief technical proposal in line with the objective and scope of work in addition to their CVs. Only the best candidates earning 70% and above will be shortlisted and requested to submit financial proposals. Appendix 1 gives a template for submission of CVs.

9. Service Conditions :

The African Development Bank conditions for retaining short-term consultants will apply.

Appendix 1:

Please attach an updated Curriculum Vitae on the basis of the template below : MODEL CURRICULUM VITAE – AFDB BAD PDF