Digital, Inclusive, Accessible: Support to Digitalisation of State Services in Ukraine (DIA Support) Project

BACKGROUND

Ukraine has been moving towards rapid digitalization throughout the last several years, alongside other countries of the world. One of the positive trends is that political declarations and priority-setting have been accompanied with practical steps that, oftentimes in an expedited manner, tried to deliver on promises of “Your State in Your Smartphone”. Such actions are extremely welcome and should be continued with the champion agency, the Ministry of Digital Transformation (MDT), at its helm.

At the same time, there is a growing body of both academic research and practical experience in Europe suggesting that even well-considered web-resources, electronic services and applications for citizen use are not immune to blind spots of neglecting rights of people with disabilities or those belonging to vulnerable groups. Based on years of research and practical implementation, the EU adopted its 2016 Directive on the accessibility of the websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies followed by the 2018 Harmonized European Standard EN 301 549 V2.1.2 “Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services”. Yet, even despite this, in 2019, the European Ombudsman took up and investigated a strategic case where a person with a visual impairment was prevented from making a complaint through the OLAF (European Anti-Fraud Office) web portal due to a faulty logic in the portal design.

While there already exist widely-applied standards for verifying accessibility of web content (sites, portals) – through the widely-applied WCAG framework[1] – shared accessibility standards for state-designed and owned mobile applications (hereinafter referred to as “apps”) are not yet in place.

As noted in some of the recent reviews and studies[2], the standards, common guidelines or well-established operational procedures for designing, building and assessing apps as accessible have not yet been established for state-developed apps universally. While main commercial vendors do have basic accessibility guidelines[3], these are broad, offer overall guidance, and are commercial by nature – as opposed to state policy or regulations.

More and more electronic services in the world are offered based on the “mobile-first” principle, and Ukraine is proactively expanding the functionality of its “Diia” state-developed smartphone app. While there currently is a trend for unification and centralization of electronic services under the “Diia” auspices, it would be impossible to have all citizen-related functions in one app. It is, therefore, inevitable that other state-sponsored apps (for instance, for mobile baking through state-owned banks, communication with and services from other state companies) are to appear or will be updated soon.

[1] Please see for more information: https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/. Ukraine currently has WCAG 2.0 as the minimum standard for accessibility of state online resources (web-pages and portals): https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/493-2019-%D0%BF#Text

[2] See, for instance, the paper “Study of Accessibility Guidelines of Mobile Applications” at https://cutt.ly/vl5EYvZ

[3] See, for instance, the app developer kit from Apple (https://cutt.ly/8l5Kj5h) and Android (https://cutt.ly/ql5KJWK)

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONSIBILITIES / SCOPE OF WORK

Given the above, and keeping in mind the mandate of the DIA Support Project of integrating the Human Rights Based Approach into the design and operationalization of electronic citizen-oriented services, UNDP is looking for a national consultant to undertake a study of international regulations, practices and business processes for ensuring state-sponsored app design, prototyping, testing, and updating with a view towards accessibility and the Universal Design[1] principles.

While methodologies offered by bidders may vary, it is expected that the final product – the resulting analytical report – will be based on information gathered through desk research (including case-study search and review), interviews with international stakeholders and national issue-area specialists, potentially mini focus-groups with relevant experts, and thorough review of the policy documents in the cases where such regulations exist. The general expectations of the report, as well as its possible structure, are outlined below.

[1] See https://cutt.ly/rl51r0O for more details

DELIVERABLES AND IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE

The research and its resulting report are not academic in nature. Instead, they should be designed and carried out as a policy-oriented exercise aiming at informing Ukraine’s public policy course. As such, it is expected that the core findings, recommendations, lessons learned and cautionary tales are laid out upfront in the form of a policy memo, while supporting arguments, case study descriptions, interview summaries and other relevant materials should be presented in annexes.

The scope should include the following themes (and relevant sources of data):

1. Search, review, and comparison of international good international practices for accessibility requirements (+ Universal Design principles where applicable) to state-funded, designed and deployed apps for use by citizens.
2. Map and review and compare standards that were created based on accessibility requirements.
3. Map and review legal acts (or publicly available drafts of such acts) that adopt such standards or requirements as mandatory / recommended in foreign jurisdictions (priority to be given to EU member-states, G-7 or OECD members but needs not be limited to them), noting the ways such standardsrequirements were put into legislation.

In conducting the study, the Consultant is expected to perform tasks that lead to the production of the following Deliverables:

The research’s proposed structure is presented below (note: the structure may be altered based on feedback from UNDP and MDT, as well as in the course of the research, responding to the findings made. The core research questions listed above are supposed to be depicted in the report regardless of the final structure):

• Report’s executive summary highlighting the contents, main findings, explaining the research limitations and presenting the report structure for ease of navigation (1 page);
• Report’s code body, shaped up as a policy memo[1] for a clear, concise, structured depiction of the results of the research and a brief listing of recommendations (up to 12 pages);
• Annexes:
  • Description of the methodology used to complete the research (up to 5 pages);
  • At least 2 cases studies of countries that underwent detailed analysis (up to 10 pages in total);
  • Extended explanations or background considerations for recommendations given.

[1] Please see as one of the possible ways to present the information here: https://twp.duke.edu/sites/twp.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/policy-memo.original.pdf

The payment shall be arranged in stages in accordance with the proposed payment scheme below and upon acceptance of the deliverables based on quality control and acceptance of recommendations. UNDP will be the ultimate authority to control the quality of work results and assess the Consultant’s performance during the assignment. The Consultant shall comply with the quality assurance system of UNDP, and provide the necessary information, reports and statistics according to a preliminary determined schedule or as soon as possible (within a reasonable period of time).

In particular, the payment schedule will be as follows:

• Deliverable 1 – 10%
• Deliverable 2 – 20%
• Deliverable 3 – 30%
• Deliverable 4 – 40%

MONITORING/REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

The Consultant shall report to the DIA Support Project Manager. Day-to-day supervision may be delegated to a different staff member or a different UNDP consultant. The payment shall be arranged in stages in accordance with the proposed payment scheme below and upon acceptance of the deliverables based on quality control and recommendations. The final report shall be submitted to UNDP no later than 30 June 2021 or as indicated in the relevant Contract.

All reports should be transmitted to UNDP electronically (formats of * .docx, * .xlsx, * .pptx, * .pdf or others specified in the Deliverables section above) on the electronic source or in the form of electronic communication with the attached final product in the Ukrainian language. UNDP will provide payments upon provision of deliverables duly certified by UNDP per the table above.

CORPORATE COMPETENCIES

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism;
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

EXPERIENCE AND MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS REQUIREMENTS

• Master’s / Specialist’s degree in Public Policy / Administration, IT or other relevant social sciences / information technology field;
• At least 2 year of experience in issues of accessibility of information technology (web-based resources, software, mobile-based accessible software);
• Demonstrated track record in academic research, civil society advocacy, or advice to international organizations / national government institutions / CSOs on issues of accessibility of public services and ICT products. First-hand experience in problems with accessibility of government online resources considered as an asset;
• Demonstrated experience in producing advisory notes and reports in the past. Experience of working with international technical development projects would be an asset;
• Fluent Ukrainian, working-level English.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Applicants shall submit the following documents: