Independent technical review of the City-Wide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS) Plan for Senmonorom, Cambodia. 2026/ESC-01a

Terms of Reference

Independent technical review of the CWIS Plan for Senmonorom — international expert · 2026/ESC-01a

1. Assignment at a glance

2. Background

Environmental Sanitation Cambodia (ESC) Cambodian non-profit, and non-governmental organization (NGO). ESC has a long-standing partnership with BORDA implement the BMZ-financed project “Decentralised Water and Sanitation Solutions for Small Towns in Cambodia and Laos” (2026–2028). Under Output 3, ESC is preparing a City-Wide Inclusive Sanitation plan for Senmonorom, the provincial capital of Mondulkiri, with the Provincial Administration and the Municipality. Endorsement is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.

Inputs available to the reviewer:

• A baseline assessment following the CWIS practitioner toolkit, with 48 completed annexes, drawing on ESC’s earlier baseline report, the city vision document, the sector plan development roadmap and the MPWT feasibility study of 2020.
• Focus group discussions across 11 population categories covering approximately 205 people — including women, girls, elderly people, persons with disabilities, indigenous communities and private operators — and key informant interviews.
• A topographic and drainage survey covering approximately 121 hectares, with a preliminary master plan, proposed drainage network, building and drainage inventory with levels, four candidate decentralised treatment catchments (D1–D4, D1 approximately 38 hectares) and raw data in GIS.
• A draft shit-flow diagram for the city.
• The mission note produced under assignment ESC-01b — a national consultant conducts a field mission to Senmonorom in October, in parallel with the municipal stakeholder consultation workshop, and reports on site conditions, meetings with the administrations, land tenure at the proposed treatment sites, flood-prone areas and the current destination of faecal sludge.

The first draft of the plan is expected in October 2026. ESC is applying the CWIS methodology for the first time and has requested independent technical quality assurance before the plan goes for endorsement. ESC commissions an external review rather than an internal check so that the endorsed plan carries an independent expert statement that is credible to national authorities and to prospective financiers.

3. Objective and scope of services

The objective is an independent, documented technical review of the draft Senmonorom CWIS plan and its evidence base, producing prioritised recommendations ESC can act on before endorsement, and an independent reviewer’s statement for annexing to the final plan.

Work Package 1 — Review of the evidence base

Review the documentation listed in section 2, including the ESC-01b mission note, and assess whether the evidence is sufficient and internally consistent enough to support the interventions the plan proposes.

Work Package 2 — Technical review of the draft plan

Review the draft against (i) the CWIS practitioner toolkit applied by ESC, (ii) the Sanitation 21 and World Bank city-wide inclusive sanitation frameworks, and (iii) applicable Cambodian regulatory requirements including effluent standards. The review must answer each of the following explicitly:

1. Is the baseline evidence sufficient and internally consistent? Where are the material gaps, and can they be closed before endorsement or must they be recorded as limitations?
2. Are the four candidate catchments (D1–D4) technically sound, and is the prioritisation of D1 justified by the topographic, population and pollution-load evidence?
3. Is the short-, medium- and long-term phasing to 2040 realistic, and correctly aligned with the municipal three-year rolling investment plan cycle?
4. Can the proposed treatment configurations meet current and anticipated Cambodian discharge standards, including for nutrients? Where is an additional treatment step — a planted gravel filter or aeration — required, and are the land area and power supply available at the proposed sites?
5. Is the sanitation service chain fully closed — containment, emptying, transport, treatment, end use or disposal — and is the destination of faecal sludge specified in each case?
6. Is land tenure at the proposed treatment sites evidenced, in the light of the enquiries reported in the ESC-01b mission note? Where ownership is unresolved this must be stated as a risk to implementation and financing, with a recommended course of action.
7. Are flood-prone areas identified, and are climate-resilience considerations reflected in siting, design assumptions and phasing?
8. Are capital and operation and maintenance cost estimates present, plausible and of a stated accuracy? Is the assumed payer of operation and maintenance costs identified and realistic?
9. Gender and inclusion: do the findings from the 11 focus group categories demonstrably shape the plan’s priorities, interventions and siting decisions, or do they appear only in the annexes? Specific, actionable recommendations are required.
10. Does the draft shit-flow diagram comply with the standard of the SFD Promotion Initiative, is it consistent with the plan’s own data, and is it suitable for submission to the SFD database?

Work Package 3 — Review report

A written review report with recommendations prioritised in three categories: (i) must be addressed before endorsement, (ii) should be improved before endorsement, (iii) to be considered at the next revision. Each recommendation must be specific enough for the ESC team to act on without further clarification.

Work Package 4 — Debriefing, verification and reviewer’s statement

Present the findings to ESC in an online debriefing; review the revised draft to confirm which recommendations have been addressed; and issue a short signed reviewer’s statement suitable for annexing to the final plan. Produce in addition a short note on what is transferable from the Senmonorom process to other small towns, usable as input to a published case study.

4. Deliverables and payment schedule

Three instalments, per ESC policy for assignments of EUR 5,000 and above. The verification of the revised draft, the reviewer’s statement and the transferability note are bundled into one final deliverable so that the number of payments stays within policy. ESC expects to provide the first draft plan in October 2026; the D2 date moves with the actual date of receipt, the contract end date does not. Should the draft not be received by 13 November 2026, the remaining scope is re-contracted for the period to 28 February 2027 from carried-over funds rather than delivered in haste.

Public holidays. Bidders must account for Cambodian public holidays in their work plans. Several fall in October 2026, and the Water Festival in November 2026 is a multi-day national holiday during which government offices and partner staff are largely unavailable. Work plans that assume continuous availability through October and November will be treated as unrealistic at evaluation.

Dependency on the draft plan. ESC expects to provide the first draft in October 2026. The D2 date moves with the actual date of receipt; the contract end date does not. Should the draft not be received by 13 November 2026, the remaining scope is re-contracted for the period to 28 February 2027 from carried-over funds rather than delivered in haste. Bidders should confirm availability on that basis.

5. Budget

The maximum budget is USD 5,700, all-inclusive of fees, taxes and incidental costs. No travel is included: the field evidence is provided under assignment ESC-01b. Please note that, in accordance with the laws of the Kingdom of Cambodia, withholding tax may applied appending on the bidder’s tax registration status.

Bidders must state their daily fee rate and the number of days offered per work package. At international rates this assignment is in the order of ten to fourteen expert days, and offers should be scoped honestly to that rather than promising a volume of work the fee cannot support.

6. Required qualifications

Essential

• Master’s degree in sanitary or environmental engineering, urban planning, or an equivalent field.
• At least ten years of professional experience in urban sanitation planning in low- and middle-income countries.
• Demonstrated experience with city-wide inclusive sanitation or comparable city sanitation planning, evidenced by at least two completed city-level plans in which the applicant held a substantive technical role.
• Working technical knowledge of decentralised wastewater treatment systems and faecal sludge management, sufficient to assess treatment configurations against effluent standards.
• Demonstrated competence in gender-responsive and socially inclusive sanitation planning.
• No prior involvement in the preparation of the Senmonorom CWIS plan, its baseline assessment or the topographic survey.

Advantageous

• Professional experience in Cambodia or elsewhere in the Mekong region.
• Experience preparing or reviewing shit-flow diagrams to the standard of the SFD Promotion Initiative.
• Familiarity with the World Bank CWIS diagnostic tools and the Sanitation 21 framework.

7. Content of the offer

Offers must be submitted in English and must contain the following. Incomplete offers may be excluded from evaluation.

• Technical offer (max. 4 pages): understanding of the assignment, proposed methodology, work plan with indicative dates per deliverable, and named team members with their role and days.
• CV(s) (max. 4 pages per expert), highlighting the experience relevant to the qualification requirements in section 6.
• Two reference assignments of comparable nature completed in the last five years, each with client name and a contactable reference person.
• Financial offer in USD, showing the daily fee rate, the number of days per work package, and all reimbursable costs itemised separately. The offer must state the total price inclusive of all taxes, duties and charges.
• Outline of the review matrix proposed for Work Package 2, showing the criteria against which the plan will be assessed.
• Daily rate and days per work package stated explicitly in the financial offer.
• For companies and firms: registration and legal documents — certificate of registration or incorporation, tax identification number, and a valid tax patent or equivalent where applicable. These are required with the offer, not after award, so that evaluation is not held up. Individual experts submit a curriculum vitae and do not need company documents.
• Confirmation of availability for the contract period stated in section 1.
• Signed declaration of (i) no conflict of interest in relation to ESC, the partner organisation, or the institutions covered by the assignment, and (ii) acceptance of ESC’s child protection and safeguarding policy.

8. Evaluation of offers

Offers are assessed by an evaluation panel of at least three persons from the ESC Office and the partner organisation. Scoring is 70 points technical and 30 points financial. The lowest compliant financial offer receives the full 30 points; other offers receive points in proportion (lowest price ÷ offer price × 30). The offer with the highest total score is recommended for award.

9. Contractual and administrative conditions

• Contract type: short-term expert consultancy contract with the contracting party named in section 1, under its partner contract with ESC. The maximum contractual duration for short-term experts is three months; the contract period in section 1 may not be extended beyond that limit.
• Payment: in instalments against deliverables accepted by ESC
• , as set out in section 4. Payment is made by the contracting party within 30 days of receipt of a correct invoice and written acceptance of the corresponding deliverable. All deliverables must be accepted before 31 December 2026; no deliverable may be dated retroactively.
• Language: all deliverables in English.
• Ownership and publication: all outputs, data and underlying working files are the property of ESC. and the partner organisation named in section 1. The consultant grants the right to publish, adapt and disseminate the outputs, including on the SuSanA knowledge platform and in ESC case studies, with due attribution of authorship.
• Confidentiality and data protection: the consultant shall treat all information received as confidential and shall handle personal data in accordance with applicable data protection law. Data from focus group discussions and interviews may not be published in a form that identifies individuals.
• Safeguarding: the consultant is bound by ESC’s child protection and safeguarding policy, which applies to the contracting party through its partner contract with ESC. and forms part of this contract.
• Procurement: this assignment is awarded by the contracting party following an open call for offers under BMZ procurement rules. The contracting party, in agreement with the ESC Office, reserves the right not to award the assignment, to award part of the scope, or to request clarification of offers. Costs of preparing an offer are not reimbursed. Offers remain valid for 60 days.
• Travel: The field evidence is provided under assignment ESC-01b.
• Independence and conflict of interest: the consultant must not have been involved in the preparation of the Senmonorom CWIS plan, its baseline assessment or the topographic survey, and must have no financial or advisory relationship with ESC or with the consultants who produced those documents. Because ESC is the contracting party and the assignment is independent quality assurance of ESC’s own work, deliverables are submitted to ESC and to the ESC Office simultaneously, acceptance is by the Executive Director, and the consultant may raise any concern about the assignment directly with the Executive Director.

10. Submission

Offers are to be submitted by e-mail, in PDF, with the subject line ” 2026/ESC-01a – Offer”, to:

Vira Riel, Project Manager, Environmental Sanitation Cambodia — vira@esc-cambodia.org

Deadline: 22 September 2026, 17:00 ICT. Questions of clarification may be submitted to the same addresses up to four working days before the deadline; answers are shared with all bidders who have registered their interest. Deadline

This assignment is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) under the project “Decentralised Water and Sanitation Solutions for Small Towns in Cambodia and Laos” (2026–2028).