Request For Expressions Of Interest / Consultancy Services tender at The Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC)

CONSULTANCY TO CONDUCT AN INTEGRATED COMPREHENSIVE BASELINE ASSESSMENT FOR THE DHAPP-UPDF PARTNERSHIP FOR RESILIENT MILITARY HEALTH SYSTEMS

The Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC), in partnership with the Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces (UPDF), is implementing the Department of War (DoW) HIV/AIDS Prevention Program (DHAPP) Partnership for Resilient Military Health Systems for the period October 2026-September 2030.
JCRC invites expressions of interest and proposals from qualified and experienced consultancy firms or multidisciplinary consultant teams operating under one accountable Lead Consultant/Team Leader to conduct an integrated comprehensive baseline assessment of the UPDF health system. The assessment will establish the baseline status, performance, capacity, readiness and sustainability of the supported health system at the commencement of the partnership.
The assignment will be procured, contracted and managed as ONE integrated consultancy covering all 69 UPDF-supported health facilities, including 31 antiretroviral therapy (ART)-accredited facilities. Its three distinct but complementary technical components will be coordinated under one Lead Consultant/Team Leader, using a harmonized methodology and producing one consolidated baseline assessment report. They are not separate consultancies.

1. Program Assessment – Programme performance; human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB) services and related health services; laboratory and surveillance systems; workforce and community health workers; infection prevention and control; medicines and supply chain systems; service readiness; training needs; and transition and sustainability readiness.
2. Infrastructure Assessment – Health facility infrastructure and biomedical equipment; laboratory and medicine-store infrastructure; utilities, electrical load and energy resilience; maternity and prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) infrastructure; and infrastructure and equipment requirements for the Rear Public Health Laboratories and UPDF central sample repository.
3. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Assessment and Enterprise Architecture Design – Existing ICT infrastructure and digital health systems; data flows, interoperability and information security; and current-state and target-state enterprise architecture design to guide establishment of a secure Enterprise Data Warehouse and interoperability platform.

Applicants may apply as a consultancy firm or as a multidisciplinary consultant team but must propose one accountable Lead Consultant/Team Leader and suitably qualified technical leads for EACH of the three components: Program Assessment Lead, Infrastructure Assessment Lead and ICT Assessment Lead. The proposal must demonstrate expertise in public health and health systems assessments, HIV/TB programming, monitoring and evaluation, laboratory and diagnostic systems, health infrastructure and engineering, ICT and digital health, enterprise architecture, interoperability and data management.
The anticipated consultancy implementation period is 27 November 2026 to 12 February 2027, subject to contract award and mobilization. The successful consultant/team will deliver one comprehensive integrated baseline assessment report, a consolidated baseline matrix, cleaned datasets, an ICT Enterprise Architecture design package and the other technical outputs specified in the detailed Terms of Reference.

DETAILED TERMS OF REFERENCE AND APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
Interested applicants should consult the detailed Terms of Reference for the complete scope, minimum qualifications, deliverables, proposal requirements and evaluation criteria:
https://www.jcrc.org.ug/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/DHAPP_UPD_F_Baseline_TOR_Final.pdf
SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
Interested and eligible applicants must submit BOTH a technical proposal and a financial proposal, together with the supporting documents specified in the detailed Terms of Reference (ToR). Submit proposals electronically by email to the address below, following the application and evaluation requirements in the ToR.
Submission deadline: 20 November 2026 at 05:00 PM
Submission method/address: Email submissions to jobsjcrc.org.ug (electronic submission).
Email subject/reference: Integrated Comprehensive Baseline Assessment – DHAPP-UPDF
Only proposals received by the stated deadline and submitted in accordance with the detailed Terms of Reference will be considered.