The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the Ministry of International Business and Industry (MIBI), the Barbados Investment & Development Corporation (BIDC) and the Clean Tech Cluster Barbados (BLOOM) are jointly implementing the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project “Strategic platform to promote sustainable energy technology innovation, industrial development and entrepreneurship in Barbados”. The project contributes to the implementation of the National Strategic Plan 2005-2025, which aims at making Barbados a “green circular economy” and the “most environmentally advanced green country in Latin America and the Caribbean”. The project is closely coordinated with the regional clean tech efforts of the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (CCREEE).

The GEF project has achieved laudable progress. With support from UNIDO, the Barbados Cleantech Cluster (BLOOM) has become fully operational in 2020. It is hosted by BIDC and has already established a broad range of international partnerships. It has also launched its incubation program, which offers mentoring services to a number of clean-tech businesses and start-ups. Further information on the GEF-UNIDO project is available at: https://open.unido.org/projects/BB/projects/150123. 

To boost a common marketing and identity of the industry, BLOOM intends to develop the Barbados Clean Tech Industry Report, which will be updated regularly. This includes also the development of a joint vision statement and label for the Barbados Clean Tech Industry (the BLOOM label). This will offer to the cluster members and Barbadian institutions an opportunity to promote their products and services under one label. The industry report will become part of a country report series under the BLOOM Regional Clean Tech Cluster Program, coordinated by UNIDO. It will also provide relevant data for the intended Barbados Green Industry Assessment Reports of the Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE). Moreover, the industry report will provide a more solid benchmark for the higher-level indicators in the GEF CEO Endorsement Document and its monitoring plan. 

Further information is included in the attached terms of reference and the UNIDO website. Applicants are requested to submit their proposals no later than 24 Arpil, 2021, 17:00 hrs., CET, by registering on the UNIDO procurement page (www.unido.org/procurement). In case of difficulties, applications could exceptionally be sent to procurement@unido.org. The bidder should, however, provide an objective and convincing justification for not having submitted via the procurement system.