Vendi i punësPodujevë, Obiliq

TERMS OF REFERENCE:

DESIGN OF BUSINESS VISUALITY AND BRANDING
FOR WOMEN OWNED BUSINESSES IN RURAL AREAS

within the project

Advancing Kosovo Women’s Agribusiness Inclusion (AKWA)

CARE Deutschland e.V – office in Kosovo within its project “Advancing Kosovo Women’s Agribusiness Inclusion (AKWA)”, implemented with funding from Land Vorarlberg, is seeking to contract a consultant(s)/company to design and develop the branding for project grantees, including a logo, motto and visibility materials.

The branding will be designed in close coordination with the project team and project grantees.

ABOUT CARE INTERNATIONAL WORK IN THE BALKANS

CARE’s mission in the Balkans is to foster socio-economic development and help build equitable societies across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia. The organization began its work in the region in 1993, initially providing humanitarian aid to people affected by the war. By the late 1990s, CARE strategically transitioned to addressing longer-term socio-economic development, through fostering sustainable livelihoods, promoting inclusive development and preventing gender-based violence. Today, CARE in the Balkans places strong emphasis on the quality of its programs, guided by a regional strategy that addresses three interconnected areas of impact - promoting economic justice through inclusive, climate-smart economic empowerment and resilient livelihoods; advancing social justice by fostering social transformation and greater inclusion and delivering humanitarian action by providing life-saving support to people affected by natural or man-made disasters, conflict, or displacement, in alignment with CARE International’s global strategy. All of these efforts are underpinned by cross-cutting priorities promoting gender equality, advancing climate justice, strengthening social cohesion and empowering civil society.

PROJECT INFORMATION

The project “Advancing Kosovo Women’s Agribusiness Inclusion (AKWA)” addresses challenges faced by rural women in Kosovo, including low acknowledgment of their rights and roles in traditional communities, their insufficient participation in agribusiness activities, lack of awareness of local and national authorities about specific needs of rural women, limited public knowledge about women in agribusiness and general insufficient understanding among young people about economic prospects in agricultural sector.

The project’s overall objective is to contribute to a more gender-inclusive socioeconomic development in the rural areas of Kosovo.

More specifically, the project enhances economic and social inclusion of rural women from the regions of Podujeva/Podujevo and Obiliq/Obilic, through improving the competitiveness of their agri-businesses and enabling a conducive environment for inclusive socioeconomic development.

The project aims to achieve the following results:

1. Women-led agri-businesses are equipped for modernized production and increased sales through a technical and financial support scheme
2. Conducive environment for women agri-business engagement fostered through enhanced social dialogue and awareness in the community
3. Local policies and affirmative measures in place, recognizing the role of women in the agribusiness sector

PURPOSE OF THE TASK AND SCOPE OF WORK

The AKWA project is looking to strengthen the branding, packaging, visual identity, and overall market positioning of women farmers’ products, through the development of tailored branding materials that will improve product recognition, differentiation, and competitiveness in local markets.

The engaged Contractor is expected to define and develop the visual identity for each of the 28 selected small women owned agricultural businesses selected and supported by the AKWA project, including branding, design, and printing services.

More specifically, the Contractor’s tasks will be to produce:

• Logo Design – the contactor is expected to create logos for each selected women owned agri-business. Each logo created should truly reflect the identity of the business, ensuring that the visual identity is consistent with the nature of their work and products. The designs should be creative, innovative and eye-catching to ensure that they are easily recognizable in markets and fairs.
• Visual Identity – Under the visual identity component, the Contactor shall develop and deliver branding materials for each of the 28 selected agri-businesses.
  • Design and print standardly formatted business cards – The Bidder’s quote in the bid should include the price for 100 cards per business. The business cards must contain the business logo, the business name and phone number and QR code of the business’s social media.
  • Design and print of stickers - the Bidder’s quote in the bid should include the price for 100 stickers per business. The stickers should be suitable for use on packages and promotion materials.
  • Preparation of short business profile descriptions for social media (Instagram and Facebook) for each supported business.
  • Design and production of promotional signage with the business logo
  • The Contractor should also provide guidance on how to use the logo, motto, and other brand elements can be applied across different materials including social media.

METHODOLOGY

The Contractor will design their outputs in communication with CARE project team, based on the information about the women owners and their agribusinesses, which will be provided by the CARE Project Manager and the project team within joint meetings and brainstorming with the Contractor. The draft ideas will be finalized in consultation with CARE project team.

The contractor shall develop two specific packages, depending on the need and the assessment of the beneficiary business plan:

• Package 1-Creative and design services including logo, motto, social media posts, design of business cards and stickers
• Package 2- Printing services including business cards, high-quality stickers, promotional signage, promotional fabric materials - flags.

These packages will be developed collaboratively with the project team and tailored to meet the specific needs of women‘s agribusinesses, ensuring relevance, usability, and professional presentation. All project produced materials will be designed with careful respect for gender equality norms and will consider the ethnic diversity of Kosovo.

All design and print files must be delivered in fully editable/open-source formats (e.g. AI, PSD, INDD, SVG), allowing future modification by the users – owners of the businesses.

DELIVERABLES

For this intervention, two support packages have been developed, as outlined below:

Note: A single fixed price (lump sum) must be submitted in the financial offer. The price should be specified per grant/beneficiary. In total, the project will support 28 beneficiaries, including grants and branding services.

Bidders should note that each beneficiary may select up to 6 services from the list in the table above.

TIMEFRAME.

The visual identity assignment is expected to be undertaken over the period April - May 2026 and to be finalized no later than the 15th of June 2026. The exact date for finalization of services will be agreed within initial discussions between CARE and Contractor.

REPORTING LINE

The Contractor will report to Project Manager of “Advancing Kosovo Women’s Agribusiness Inclusion (AKWA)”.

THE BIDDER MUST COMPLY WITH THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:

• Proven professional expertise, knowledge and experience in target-oriented design, clients advertising consulting.
• At least 3 years of experience in branding, creation of visual identity of similar projects/ actions. Proven experience in working with civil society organizations on visualization of their actions.
• Enclosed portfolio with previous work (include only designs relevant to this consultation). Proven ability to transfer the inputs from the team into the graphic elements of the visualisation.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Excellent written and verbal knowledge of Albanian and English language.

The consultancy proposal - bid should consist of the following:

1. Company profile with two references relevant for the required design.
2. Relevant registration certificates.
3. A portfolio with previous branding projects and other relevant design-related information to prove the company’s aesthetics and design capacities.
4. The Consultancy financial offer in EUR (without VAT), on the basis of the set consultancy outputs required, with a statement of confirming the schedule-deadline.

PAYMENT

Payment will be made to the upon completion of the deliverables and after receiving the required approvals by CARE.

APPLICATION

The bids should be submitted in English via e-mail to [email protected]

Deadline for sending bids: 31.03.2026, 23:59.

Criteria for Selection of Best Offer

The contract will be awarded based on the assessment of both a technical and financial proposal submitted by bidders. The quality and creativity of the company's portfolio of previous work that is similar to this project will also be taken into account.

The bids received will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis methodology: technical and quality evaluation weigh 70% and financial criteria weigh 30%.

Only the bids obtaining a minimum of 70 points in the technical evaluation shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

CARE reserves the right not to award the contract if none of the submitted offers meets the required quality standards.

CARE WILL SHARE THE VISIBILITY GUIDELINES AND VECTOR LOGOS OF THE DONOR WITH THE SELECTED CONTRACTOR.