Mr Douglas said the contracts were strong evidence of Coffey’s expertise and client relationships in the international development field.
The first contract, for theTarabot Project, is to deliver the initial phase of the National and Provincial Administrative Reform Project in Iraq (Tarabot in Arabic). It is a four-year, US$151.3 million project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
MSI has a strong track record of working on development projects in Iraq, having most recently managed the USAID-funded Tatweer project. That project focused on rebuilding the government of Iraq’s administrative capacity in 11 ministries and 5 executive agencies by training more than 106,000 ministry officials over five years to deliver improved services to the Iraqi people.
The Tarabot project also supports Iraq’s strategic goal of strengthening public institutions to improve service delivery processes through better governance and resource management.
“Coffey’s success in securing this initial phase of the Tarabot project is a strong demonstration of our capabilities in this key market segment and highlights our competitive position as an effective international development partner with key agencies such as USAID,” Mr Douglas said.
MSI has also signed an additional contract to deliver a five-year, $70.9 million competitively-bid contract in Pakistan. MSI will provide verification, monitoring, evaluation and reporting across all projects that USAID is supporting in Pakistan.
The goal is to assess whether USAID resources are well-spent and achieving desired results.
Divestment of LA Office
Mr Douglas today also confirmed the sale of Coffey Environments Los Angeles office, as foreshadowed in the announcement of the initial outcomes of the company’s strategic review (ASX, June 8).
“While Coffey Environments is a key part of our global business, the LA office, is largely focused on servicing the Californian Government. We have taken the view it is too small and specialised to make a meaningful contribution to the broader Environments business,” Mr Douglas said.
”Environmental consulting is one of the most profitable areas of our businesses, with extremely good growth opportunities particularly in regions exposed to the resources sectors - where Coffey Environments’ earns approximately 50-70% of its revenue.
The Los Angeles business has been acquired by Winefield & Associates LP. The commercial terms of the transaction remain confidential.
Media contact
Angela James, Manager, External Communications, Coffey International Limited
P: (+61) (2) 8404 4415; M: (+61) 42 8 905 573; E: angela_james@coffey.com.
About Winefield & Associates
Winefield & Associates is an environmental and safety consulting firm that provides practical, cost-effective, and value-added solutions for its clients. W&A engineers, geologists, and scientists are distinguished experts within the environmental and safety community. Based in California since 1997, W&A has been offering a broad spectrum of environmental and safety services to diverse clients – from industries to municipalities to attorneys, brokers, and investors.
About the National and Provincial Administrative Reform Project (“Tarabot”)
USAID’s strategic objective for this program is to support a whole-of-government approach for governance and resource management. Underpinning such a whole-of-government approach is an assumption that long-term stability and state building can only be achieved through assistance with governance and institutional capacity development.
Specifically, the purpose of Tarabot is to support the Government of Iraq’s (GOI) strategic goal of strengthening public institutions to improve service delivery processes through better governance and resource management. The Tarabot project will have a national scope targeting federal, provincial and sub-provincial entities. The program will fulfill its strategic objective and sub-objectives through legal and institutional reforms that:
- Establish and modernise civil service regulatory institutions, structures, systems and processes
- Assist central, provincial and local government institutions to eliminate gaps and build linkages between civil servants and policy makers in executive and legislative branches of government
- Promote horizontal linkages (across ministries at the central level, and between provincial ministry departments and the provincial government) and vertical linkages (central to provincial) among civil servants at all levels of service delivery.
- Push decision-making down to the lowest levels of service delivery and empower district and sub-district civil servants to better serve their customers.
About USAID / Pakistan’s current Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system
MSI’s work will provide additional dimensions to USAID/Pakistan’s current Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system, including:
(1) An independent monitoring unit, run by a dedicated program-monitoring specialist, that trains and supervises local monitors whose function is to travel to program sites and monitor ongoing implementation. The scope for this monitoring service will be more intensive in hard-to reach areas where USAID’s access is restricted due to security or other considerations. This unit will also facilitate the development and administration of local project-oversight committees such that the committees have a vested interest in providing constructive feedback to USAID on USAID’s performance;
(2) Provision of technical staff for the development and ongoing maintenance/refinement of the PakInfo (MIS/GIS) into an integrated M&E system that enables the Mission and Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs (OAPA) to continuously assess what works, what doesn’t, and why. Provision of PakInfo trainers, who work closely with the M&E Unit to develop trainings for implementing partners and offer ongoing PakInfo technical support;
(3) An evaluation unit, run by a dedicated program evaluation specialist, that conducts baseline, mid-line and end-line surveys, and mid-term and close-out evaluations of projects, with an emphasis on the Mission’s major projects, in order to assess impact, inform future programming, and enable the broader dissemination of knowledge as outlined in the new USAID Evaluation Policy that was released by the USAID Administrator in January, 2011.
