Population Services International is hiring an
Scope of Work: Translation and Interpretation Services
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Background
PSI is a leading global health organization with programs targeting malaria, child survival, HIV
and reproductive health. Working in partnership within the public and private sectors, and
harnessing the power of the markets, PSI provides life-saving products, clinical services and
behavior change communications that empower the world's most vulnerable populations to lead
healthier lives. PSI's core values are a belief in markets and market mechanisms to contribute to
sustained improvements in the lives of the poor; results and a strong focus on measurement; speed
and efficiency with a predisposition to action and an aversion to bureaucracy; decentralization and
empowering our staff at the local level; and a long-term commitment to the people we serve. PSI
has programs in 67 countries. For more information, please visit www.psi.org
The US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) Impact Malaria Project (IM) is PMI’s flagship global
malaria service delivery project, helping to improve the quality and increase the delivery of malaria
prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services in up to 27 countries around the world. IM is a
USAID contract hosted and led by PSI as the prime contractor. PMI Impact Malaria works with
national malaria control programs to help tackle these challenges by:
● Closing the gaps in malaria service delivery to get the right medicine, with the correct
diagnosis, to patients in need, in the timeliest manner.
● Unlocking the potential of key drug-based approaches, by helping countries to introduce,
implement, and scale-up proven innovations to move countries forward in their elimination
efforts, according to each country’s unique malaria situation.
● Strengthening malaria health systems and the use of data for decision-making to link
operational research and country-led dialogue with global technical leadership for the
means of accelerating service delivery improvements and advancing key learnings.
The IM team is a results-focused, multidisciplinary and multicultural team, based out of
Washington DC, working through PSI country offices as well as through our partners Jhpiego,
MCD and UCSF.
IM regularly develops multiple documents such as Workplans, Quarterly Reports, technical
presentations, and guidelines for the project staff. IM is looking for a vendor who will provide
ongoing English/French and English/Spanish translation services with the ability to translate into
other languages, if needed. IM also hosts internal and external online meetings to share project
updates and learnings, many are singular meetings but there are several recurring meeting series.
To accommodate non-English speaking colleagues, IM offers interpretation for the duration of
these meetings.
For translations, please note that the rates per word/page should be fixed for the duration of the
contract with PMI Impact Malaria. For interpretation, price should be listed as a cost per unit
(e.g., per hour of an interpreter’s time) and quotes should be inclusive of all costs.
The agreement with the selected vendor is anticipated to be valid until May 12, 2024.
Detailed Specifications
The PMI Impact Malaria project is seeking one or more vendors to provide periodic translation
services for workplans, quarterly reports, presentations, and other technical documents, as well as
periodic live interpretation services. Preference will be given to US registered small businesses
with a Unique Entity Identifier (SAM) (formerly DUNS number). Please indicate your Unique
Entity Identifier in the proposal if applicable.
• Languages: Translation and interpretation between English/French is required. Translation
and interpretation in Spanish and Portuguese is a plus;
• Content: Please note that project documents and vernacular are highly technical and consist
of malaria-specific and medical language. The translations and interpretation should be
done with a public health perspective and the vendor should use the appropriate language
for our audience which might include USAID, African governments, public health
professionals and health works from various countries;
• PMI Impact Malaria has a list of common malaria technical terminology in English and
French. This document will be shared with the vendor for reference to support the
translation and interpretation process;
• Rush charges: the project may require documents translated/interpretation services on a
short turnaround time. The proposed quote should indicate your company’s ability to turn
around documents quickly, separately quote for charges associated with rush jobs, and
outline criteria for what qualifies as a rushed translation;
• Staff: Proposals should highlight the general qualifications of staff performing translation
and interpretation including CVs of translators and interpreters on staff.
For translations, price should be listed as a rate per word or rate per page. The quote should be
inclusive of all costs (if applicable) such as editing, reviewing, formatting etc. For interpretation,
price should be listed as a cost per unit and quotes should be inclusive of all costs.
Deliverables
The selected vendor will be responsible for completing the following deliverable:
• Timely and successful translation of documents from English to French and French to
English. Please note that this also includes formatting, copyediting, and reviewing the final
document.
Preferred Qualifications
• At least 5 years of translating technical documents from French to English and English to
French required.
• At least 5 years of interpretation from French to English and from English to French
required.
• Demonstrated ability to translate technical documents (examples of previous work done
for public health organizations and references required);
• Demonstrated ability to provide simultaneous interpretation from English to French, and
from French to English.
• Experience working with non-profits preferred;
• Preference given to US registered small businesses
Not ready to apply? Connect with us for general consideration.