Facility for Information Integrity and Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) in West Africa and the Lake Chad Region

This is a restricted EU public procurement (fee-based service contract) to establish a Facility for Information Integrity and Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) covering West Africa and the Lake Chad region, with an estimated value of €1.5 million and a maximum duration of 36 months. Applicants must submit a request to participate via the EU Funding and Tenders Portal by 9 November 2026 (submissions in English) and shortlisted candidates (4–8) will be invited to tender. Mandatory selection minima include an average annual turnover of at least €750,000, a current ratio ≥1, at least 6 relevant personnel on average, and three reference contracts each of at least €600,000 completed in the last 4 years. Award will follow the best price-quality ratio with quality weighted 80% and price 20%, and full requirements and templates are available in the procurement documents on the Funding and Tenders Portal.

Scope

What is funded

Provision of on-demand technical, communication and operational services to strengthen information integrity and counter foreign information manipulation and interference in West Africa and the Lake Chad region. Activities include expert assignments, studies, training, policy dialogues, study visits, events and related logistical support.

Who can apply

Open to all eligible natural and legal persons and consortia, including international organisations, without nationality limitations under NDICI rapid response financing. Sub-contracting allowed; consortium members are jointly and severally liable. Specific financial, professional and technical selection criteria apply (turnover, staff, prior contract experience).

Practical details

Consult the procurement documents and register/submit via the Funding & Tenders Portal for full requirements and templates FIMI Facility tender page 1

Footnotes

1. 1Procurement documents, selection and submission instructions are available on the Funding & Tenders Portal tender page linked above.

Opportunity summary

This is a restricted call for tenders (procedure identifier EC-FPI/DKR/2026/EA-RP/0029) published by the European Commission, Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) — FPI Regional Team Dakar. The contracting authority seeks a service provider to establish and operate a Facility for Information Integrity and Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) covering the West Africa and Lake Chad region, with capacity to respond to requests from EU Delegations, the regional FPI team in Dakar and relevant Brussels services. The facility will deliver on-demand technical, communication and operational support including expert assignments, studies, training, policy dialogues, study visits, events and all related logistical support. The award method is best price-quality ratio. The procurement is funded under NDICI Global Europe rapid response actions (Budget line 14.02 03 30) with an estimated total value of €1,500,000 and a maximum contract duration of 36 months. Submissions must be electronic through the Funding & Tenders Portal / eSubmission and all communications and documents must be in English.

Eligible Applicant Types

Open to all eligible natural and legal persons and groupings (consortia), including international organisations. Participation is open without nationality limitations under NDICI rapid response actions. Eligible applicant types therefore include: private companies (SMEs and large enterprises), NGOs, nonprofit organisations, research institutes, universities, consultancies, public bodies (where allowed by national rules), and consortiums of these entities. Individuals may participate only where consistent with the procurement rules and role (for example as subcontracted experts) but the contract is designed for organisations or consortiums able to deliver multi-disciplinary services.

Funding Type

This is a public procurement contract for services (fee-based). The mechanism is a tender for a service contract financed by EU grants under NDICI Global Europe rapid response budget lines. It is not a grant, loan or equity instrument — it is a paid services procurement (contract for services).

Consortium Requirement

Consortia are explicitly permitted and commonly expected given the multidisciplinary nature of the facility. The procedure is restricted: candidates submit a request to participate and the contracting authority will shortlist between 4 and 8 candidates to invite to submit full tenders. A consortium may be permanent or informal for the procedure. All members of a consortium are jointly and severally liable. The procurement documents specify that short-listed candidates may not alter the composition of the tendering consortium without prior authorisation and shortlisted candidates may not form alliances with each other for this contract.

Beneficiary Scope (Geographic Eligibility)

Participation is open without limitations under NDICI rapid response rules and includes international organisations. The contract will be performed in the West Africa region and in EU Europe as needed. Therefore geographic eligibility is international with a focus on the West Africa and Lake Chad region; applicants from EU, EEA, candidate countries and third countries may participate subject to procurement and eligibility rules in the procurement documents.

Target Sector

The thematic scope covers strategic communications, information integrity, counter-disinformation, media and journalism support, public diplomacy, research and policy outreach, training and events. CPV classifications include public relations services, public relations consultancy services, research consultancy services, travel management services, event services and training services. The opportunity targets sectors: communications, media/journalism, public diplomacy, policy research/analysis, security studies (information manipulation), training and events management.

Mentioned Countries

Project Stage and Expected Maturity

This is an operational service facility expected to deliver immediate and on-demand technical and operational support. Expected maturity: ready-to-deploy operational capability, implementation and service delivery. Suitable bidders should demonstrate established operational capacity, prior contract experience, and the ability to mobilise experts, tools and logistical arrangements rapidly.

Funding Amount

Estimated total value of the procurement is €1,500,000 (excluding VAT). The contract duration is up to 36 months. The procurement documents treat this as the estimated overall contract amount; bidders should consult documents for financial breakdowns and fee modalities.

Application Type and Submission Method

Nature of Support

Application Stages

Success Rates

Estimated shortlisting will invite between 4 and 8 candidates. Assuming maximum competitiveness, invited-to-awarded ratio depends on submissions; final award is typically one contractor for the lot. Historical success rates for restricted tenders cannot be precisely given from this notice alone; statistical chance of being shortlisted depends on meeting selection criteria and being among top-ranked applicants if more than 8 eligible candidates apply.

Co-funding Requirement

No co-funding from the contracting authority is required beyond contract payments. The notice does not require co-financing from applicants; instead applicants propose price and quality in their tenders. Financial capacity and turnover requirements apply (see selection criteria).

Selection and Eligibility Requirements (detailed)

Key selection criteria specified in the procurement documents are mandatory and include economic/financial capacity, professional capacity and technical capacity. Candidates must provide declarations on exclusion and selection criteria. Subcontractors and capacity-providing entities must provide the same declarations and specific commitments where relevant.

Award Criteria and Weighting

Award will be made on the basis of best price-quality ratio. The weighting published in the procurement metadata is: Quality 80% and Price 20%. Tenderers must consult procurement documents for the detailed breakdown of quality sub-criteria and scoring methodology.

Procurement Documents and Templates

Requests to participate must be submitted using the official Request to Participate form available from the procurement Annexes (Funding & Tenders Portal / Annexes wiki). The Request to Participate must be accompanied by a Declaration on Honour on Exclusion and Selection criteria using the provided template. Supporting documents (financial statements, certificates, CVs, proof of completed contracts) must be uploaded in the correct eSubmission attachment sections. Only the requested documents will be considered; extraneous attachments will be disregarded.

Submission practicalities and system constraints

Electronic submission via eSubmission requires an EU Login account and PIC registration for each organisation and each consortium member. Attachments must follow system requirements (file size limits: individual files must be less than 50 MB; maximum number of files per submission 200). The system encrypts uploaded attachments; submissions can be edited until the deadline. For technical guidance consult the eSubmission Quick Guide and system requirements on the Funding & Tenders Portal.

Deadlines and timeline

Additional legal and programmatic details

Main CPV and work scope

How evaluation and shortlisting works

The contracting authority will evaluate requests to participate against the published selection criteria. Between 4 and 8 candidates meeting the selection criteria will be shortlisted and invited to submit full tenders. If fewer than 4 meet criteria, the contracting authority may still invite those who do meet them. If more than 8 meet criteria, additional comparative criteria (number of qualifying contracts and cumulative value of those contracts) will be used to rank and select the best 8 candidates for invitation to tender.

Important obligations and restrictions

The contracting authority may extend the submission deadline in case of electronic submission disruptions in the last five calendar days before the deadline; interested economic operators are advised to subscribe to the call on the Funding & Tenders Portal for updates.

Concluding summary

This procurement seeks an experienced, operationally capable service provider or consortium to deliver a multi-faceted Facility for Information Integrity and Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). The facility will provide rapid, on-demand technical, communication and operational assistance to EU Delegations, the FPI Regional Team in Dakar and relevant Brussels services to address evolving disinformation and FIMI threats across West Africa and the Lake Chad region. The contract is a restricted procurement with a two-stage process (request to participate followed by invited tenders), estimated at €1,500,000 over up to 36 months, awarded on best price-quality ratio (quality 80% / price 20%). Bidders must meet clear financial, professional and technical selection criteria and follow the eSubmission process via the Funding & Tenders Portal. The procurement is financed under NDICI Global Europe rapid response actions and is targeted at organisations with proven experience in communications, media, policy outreach, events and training relevant to counter-disinformation and information integrity.

Footnotes

1. 1Procurement documents, contract notice and the Additional information A5f are available at the Funding & Tenders Portal tender page: ec.europa.eu. Request to participate form and Declaration on Honour templates available in the procurement Annexes as referenced in the notice.

Facility for Information Integrity and Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference in West Africa and the Lake Chad Region

Executive summary

This is an EU public procurement opportunity for a fee based service contract, not a grant. The selected contractor will provide on demand technical, communication, research, training, policy and operational support to EU Delegations, the Foreign Policy Instruments Regional Team in Dakar and relevant European Commission services working on information integrity and foreign information manipulation and interference in West Africa and the Lake Chad region. The official opportunity is available through the EU Funding and Tenders Portal.

The procurement has an estimated maximum value of €1.5 million excluding VAT and a maximum implementation period of 36 months. It uses a restricted procedure. Applicants first submit a request to participate, after which between 4 and 8 eligible candidates are expected to be invited to submit a detailed tender. The final contract will be awarded on the basis of best price quality ratio, with quality weighted at 80 percent and price at 20 percent.

Opportunity identification

Official documents and submission information are published on the Funding and Tenders Portal opportunity page. The related TED contract notice should also be monitored for amendments.

Key procurement facts

What the contract is intended to deliver

The facility is designed as an on demand support mechanism. Its purpose is to give EU services rapid access to specialist expertise and operational capacity as FIMI and disinformation threats evolve. The successful contractor is likely to be required to assemble and manage multidisciplinary teams and respond to individual assignments or requests issued during the contract period.

Expected service areas include:

The combination of CPV codes indicates that the buyer is seeking more than a conventional public relations agency. Strong candidates should be able to combine strategic analysis, specialist content, field delivery, training, event logistics and rapid mobilisation under one accountable service structure.

Who can apply

Participation is open without nationality limitations under the NDICI Global Europe rapid response rules stated in the additional information document. International organisations may participate. Eligible natural persons, legal persons and groupings of such persons may submit a request to participate.

Consortia are permitted. A consortium may be a permanent legally established grouping or an informal grouping created for this procurement. All consortium members are jointly and severally liable to the contracting authority. Any ineligible member can cause exclusion of the whole consortium.

Subcontracting is permitted. Applicants may also rely on the capacity of other entities, but the relevant entity must provide a commitment that its resources will be available. For technical and professional capacity, the capacity providing entity must perform the tasks for which its capacity is relied upon. Entities whose financial capacity is used become jointly and severally liable for contract performance.

The procurement is not reserved for a particular category of operator and the available data does not identify a set aside for SMEs, sheltered employment organisations or local suppliers.

Mandatory eligibility and exclusion conditions

Minimum selection requirements

Economic and financial capacity

Professional capacity

Technical capacity

The €600,000 threshold applies separately to each of the 3 required reference contracts. The procurement documents do not state that the references must concern FIMI specifically, but applicants should select the most relevant references possible and show a clear connection to information integrity, strategic communication, media, public diplomacy, counter disinformation or policy outreach.

Shortlisting and second stage

The contracting authority expects to invite between 4 and 8 candidates to the second stage. If fewer than 4 eligible candidates satisfy the selection criteria, the authority may invite the eligible candidates that meet the criteria. If more than 8 candidates qualify, the authority will rank them using comparative criteria.

The comparative criteria are the highest number of contracts meeting the technical capacity requirement, followed if necessary by the highest cumulative value of completed services meeting that requirement. This means that merely passing the minimum threshold may not be sufficient where competition is strong.

Shortlisted candidates may not change their composition, form alliances with other shortlisted candidates or subcontract to another shortlisted candidate for this contract unless the contracting authority has given prior authorisation. The consortium structure and key delivery partners should therefore be settled carefully before submitting the request to participate.

Award stage

The final tender will be evaluated using best price quality ratio. Quality carries 80 percent of the total weighting and price carries 20 percent. The detailed quality subcriteria are stated to be in the procurement documents and should be reviewed immediately when the invitation to tender is issued.

The high quality weighting indicates that the buyer is likely to prioritise technical relevance, mobilisation capacity, understanding of regional information environments, methodological quality, team composition, operational flexibility, safeguards, local delivery capability and the credibility of proposed management arrangements over the lowest price alone.

Funding and payment structure

This is not a grant with a reimbursement rate or a fixed beneficiary award. The €1.5 million figure is the estimated overall contract value excluding VAT. The additional information describes the contract as fee based, meaning the contractor will be paid for services delivered under the contractual arrangements and applicable assignments or orders.

No general EU co financing percentage, beneficiary contribution rate or grant budget by work package is specified. Applicants should not assume that the full €1.5 million will be paid automatically or that it represents a guaranteed annual allocation. The actual payment mechanism, unit rates, ceilings, deliverable acceptance rules, travel treatment, taxes, invoicing and any task ordering mechanism must be confirmed in the full procurement documents and final contract.

The procurement data states that electronic ordering and electronic payment will be used, and electronic invoicing is allowed. Financial information in the request to participate and later tender must be expressed in euros. Where historical financial amounts are in another currency, the documents require conversion using the applicable InforEuro exchange rate for October 2026.

Application and submission requirements

The additional information document states that brochures, letters and other materials not requested by the contracting authority will not be taken into consideration. The submission should therefore be concise, compliant and evidence based rather than supplemented with unsolicited promotional material.

Clarifications and procurement monitoring

Questions about the contract notice and the additional information document must be submitted in writing through the Questions and Answers function of the Funding and Tenders Portal. Questions may be submitted no later than 21 days before the request to participate deadline. The stated deadline for clarification questions is therefore approximately 19 October 2026 at 16:00:59 UTC, subject to the official portal time and any amendments.

The contracting authority is expected to publish clarifications no later than 8 days before the submission deadline. Applicants remain responsible for checking the portal for new documents, corrections, answers and deadline changes. The notice also indicates that the authority may extend the deadline if electronic communication systems are unavailable or disrupted during the last 5 calendar days before the deadline.

Practical applicant assessment

This opportunity is most suitable for an established communication, research, strategic communication, media, public diplomacy or policy outreach provider with sufficient turnover, a permanent or legally contracted expert pool and several large service references. A small specialist organisation can participate through a consortium or capacity providing arrangement, but the financial, current ratio, staffing, liability and reference requirements must be allocated and documented precisely.

A competitive applicant should demonstrate regional access and delivery capability in West Africa and the Lake Chad region, including relevant language skills, political and contextual understanding, safeguarding procedures, trusted local networks, secure information handling and the ability to mobilise experts quickly. The tender is likely to favour an integrated team that can move from analysis to training, dialogue, communication support and event delivery without lengthy procurement or mobilisation delays.

Key compliance risks

Recommended preparation plan

Overall assessment

The opportunity is a strategically relevant EU external action procurement for organisations able to provide rapid, multidisciplinary and regionally grounded support on information integrity and FIMI. It offers a potentially significant 36 month service relationship with an estimated value of €1.5 million, but it is competitive and compliance intensive. The principal entry barriers are the €750,000 turnover requirement, current ratio requirement, minimum staffing level and 3 qualifying contracts of at least €600,000 each.

Applicants should prioritise technical relevance and evidence quality over broad promotional material. Because quality represents 80 percent of the final award weighting, the strongest positioning will combine demonstrable delivery history with a credible operational model for rapid expert deployment, high quality research and analysis, effective training and dialogue, reliable event and travel logistics, and sensitive implementation in West Africa and the Lake Chad region.

Source documents

The analysis is based on the official Funding and Tenders Portal opportunity record, the published contract notice and the additional information about the contract notice. Applicants must rely on the latest versions of those documents and any portal clarifications when preparing a submission. Additional information about the contract notice

The search record independently identifies the tender as a Senegalese public relations services procurement with a €1.5 million estimated value, a 9 November 2026 deadline and the same FIMI facility title, but the Funding and Tenders Portal and its procurement documents remain the authoritative sources for submission requirements and amendments.1

Footnotes

1. 1The independent search result was not a substitute for the official procurement documents. Applicants should verify all dates, portal notices, clarifications and document versions directly in the official Funding and Tenders Portal before submission.