Very quickly: so far everything seems to be proceeding according to plan, less a slight delay.
- We do indeed have to go through procurement.
- The procurement documents were finalized last week and passed on to the procurement guys in Bratislava. The end-of-the-year mess is delaying the publishing of the tender. According to Millie, it should be out "any day now". They promised to get in touch with me when it does, but it does not hurt to keep an eye on their procurement notice webpage.
- The big news is that the number of countries to be analyzed has been reduced to three, for the same $85K (maximum). They have also been pre-selected, mosty on the basis of UNDP country offices that are fast and willing to cooperate with us. They are: Armenia, Egypt and Georgia.
- Once the procurement notice is published, we will have two weeks to respond.