Please note this is a request for proposal for a project. Please read all the details carefully before submitting your proposal. Deadline for proposals 21st May 2021.
1.0 Background
The AFR100 (the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative) is a country-led effort to bring 100 million hectares of deforested and degraded landscapes across Africa into restoration by 2030. The initiative connects political partners—participating African nations—with technical and financial support to scale up restoration on the ground and capture associated benefits for food security, climate change resilience, and poverty alleviation. The initiative is part of an accelerator program called The Land Accelerator.
The Land Accelerator is an accelerator program and curated network for entrepreneurs who restore degraded forests and farmland. It was created by WRI and is implemented in regions and countries around the world through partnerships. One such partnership for The Land Accelerator Africa is through AFR100 in collaboration with AUDA-NEPAD. The Land Accelerator currently operates on a cohort based model with two phases: Phase 1 is 3 months of weekly training meetings with integrated mentorship and deliverable creation. Phase two is anchored by an intensive week-long workshop when the cohort meets in person, culminating in an Impact Day where the companies present to the public and investors.
2.0 The objectives of the assignment
The program now wants to capitalize the community we have built so far – we have over 1500 applicants since 2018 – and offer an online platform for members to be able to access online learning opportunities and connect with one another. This project is targeted for Africa, but we are open to the possibilities for this platform to be able to expand to additional regions over time and with the collaboration of our other regional partners.
The Land Accelerator Academy is proposed as a joint initiative of AFR100 (https://afr100.org/) initiative and The Land Accelerator program (https://thelandaccelerator.com/). Land Accelerator Academy intranet portal will be accessible exclusively for registered users, who will come from idea-stage and actual entrepreneurs in Africa who have businesses or want to launch businesses that restore land.
Scope of Work, Activities, and Tasks
Scope of Work:
We are seeking proposals from qualified firms to design and develop a new Land Accelerator Academy intranet portal which will be integrated into the existing AFR100 website https://afr100.org/ and/or https://thelandaccelerator.com/. The platform may take advantage of various online platforms that already exist, as well.
The Consultant is expected to:
1) Design and develop the Land Accelerator Academy online community portal.
2) Shall integrate the [portal with the existing AFR100 and Land Accelerator websites https://afr100.org/ and/or https://thelandaccelerator.com/.
3) Develop content management and monitoring system.
4) Set up Hosting, Securing and Management of the portal.
Activities and Tasks:
Non – Functional Requirement:
The following are the non-functional requirements that are expected at a minimum:
Responsive – The portal should provide flexible layouts and should render seamlessly in desktop, tablet, and smartphones.
Speed – The portal needs to be optimized for low bandwidth situations accounting for users accessing the site from low connectivity areas.
Browser compatibility – The portal will function with the latest three (3) versions of Safari, Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome (on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems). This should also be mobile-friendly.
Security – The entire site should be SSL enabled. The vendor must take industry standard steps to secure the hosting, portal and information being passed to and from the portal.
Ease of management – How easily can WRI, AFR100 and AUDA-NEPAD staff make updates, add content, and modify lessons?
Functional Requirements:
CMS Framework – The portal should be built using a well-supported open-source CMS and should be able to regularly updated by non-technical team. A Content management system that is made easy and intuitive through the vendor’s administration interface, in which admins can easily upload, categorize, organize documents and content. Portal to be built in a way that can be expanded upon in the future as new functionalities become necessary.
Discussion Forum – This space should allow users to create, invite and engage in discussions on various topics. Ability to add background text and documentation to a discussion. Discussion Forum can be open or closed to members only. Ability to start or respond to a discussion thread, including the ability to “tag” other registered users to elicit responses.
Ask the Experts – Ask an Expert feature gives your users the ability to ask a question to subject matter experts and get their answers.
Projects – This feature will help administrator to upload and organize various case studies and other relevant documents. Users can browse through them and download.
eLearning – Administrator should be able to easily manage and upload different courses in presentation formats.
Videos – The administrator should be able to easily embed or upload videos to the portal. User would be able to browse through videos and play it
Webinar – It should list all upcoming and past webinars with details. It should be integrated with
Online meeting app like Zoom or Ms Teams so that users can launch webinar from the portal.
Backend Configuration – The portal should have intuitive and easy to use backend administration.
Administrator should be able to easily manage the content, courses, discussion forum, user profiles and flexible access control based on roles. The Backend interface will also provide rich and powerful content authoring tool for creating interactive and engaging content.
Hosting and Web Maintenance – Provision of technical support for the life of the contract, and provide a least two plans and budgets for maintenance for the following 1 year.
3.0 Expected results and deliverables
- Inception Report- The inception report should include a technical and financial proposal with the following points;
- Examples of past work, especially as it would relate to online curriculum development, online community creation, or landscape, ecology or land restoration.
- Budget and Budget narrative
- Description of the platform that will be created along with any visuals, wireframes
- Plan for ongoing maintenance
- Share how AUDA-NEPAD and AFR100 Initiative staff can take ownership for updating and making modifications.
- Progress Reports – The consultant/ small firm shall regularly inform about the progress of the assignment. They may also provide warnings of anticipated problems or serve as a reminder for payment of invoices due. Depending on the needs of the assignment, progress reports may be delivered monthly or bimonthly.
iii. Preview of Academy – The consultant/ small firm should hold a presentation of the Land Accelerator Academy for the review and comment from WRI, the Food Security Unit/ AFR100 Secretariat or AUDA-NEPAD management. The consultant might then incorporate the comments provided.
- User Acceptance Test – The user acceptance test is the demo of the site where we will invite some members of the Land Accelerator alumni community to try it out. At this point there should be online classes and other capabilities. Then we will launch to the entire community.
4.0 Logistics and Timing
4.1 Location
All work shall be performed remotely with no travel required to the AFR100 Secretariat nor AUDA-NEPAD.
Timeframe of the assignment
Project Timeline May 26, 2021 to October 31, 2021.
4.0 Deliverables/Reports/Milestones Schedule
|
Milestone |
Estimated Duration |
Delivery Period |
|
Technical proposal on the assignment |
|
21 May 2021 |
|
Inception meeting |
|
26 May 2021 |
|
Submission of Draft Design |
|
1 July 2021 |
|
Submission of Revised Design |
|
2 August 2021 |
|
Testing |
|
1 September 2020 |
|
Submission of Final Report & Hosting Inception |
|
31 October 2020 |
5.0 Submission & approval of reports
All reports should be produced in English. The AFR100 Secretariat or WRI is responsible for approving the reports. In the absence of comments or approval by the AFR100 Secretariat partners within 10 workdays, the reports are deemed to be approved.
6.0 Language requirements:
The Consultant/small firm should be proficient in one of the African Union working languages. Proficiency of two or more in other of one or several other working language(s) would be an added value.
7.0 Consultancy fees
Submit a financial proposal that details what your team bills us. The sections of your proposal might be sure to cover professional fee and reimbursable costs to undertake the assignment. AUDA-NEPAD will provide a fixed sum of amount that includes both the professional fee and reimbursable costs to the Individual Consultant.
8.0 Governance and support by AUDA-NEPAD
In undertaking this exercise, the consultant will report to WRI and will be expected to liaise frequently with it.
All materials / documents arising out of this consultancy work shall remain the property of the AFR100 Secretariat, WRI, and the Land Accelerator.
If negotiations with bidder(s) were to fail, the African Union Development agency-NEPAD shall, as of right, reject proposal(s) and cancel the bidding procedure, without thereby incurring any liability whatsoever towards bidder(s).
The signature of a contract with a selected bidder shall occur within fourteen (14) working days after the date of submission of the contract failing which the negotiations shall be considered as broken off indefinitely and the proposed draft contract shall become null and void.
9.0 Qualification and work experience required
Experience of the Firm:
– Firm should have minimum 5 years expertise in website design and development
– Firm should have minimum 5 years experience in working with NPOs and International Development
– Experience in executing similar assignments.
– Experience in website design and development
– Proven success in the establishment of web portal and interactive management and strong track
– Experience in public procedures and guidelines will be an added advantage.
– Experienced in working in the African Continent as a Region.
Key Experts Experience:
Project Lead:
– At least a university degree (BA degree) in Information Technology or related fields from a recognized institution.
– Extensive knowledge and experience of at least 10 years of working experience in the area website design and development.
– A multilateral or bilateral agency in which programs or initiatives required diplomatic coordination between governments and/or ministerial bodies.
– Facilitating and developing capacity in online curriculum development, online community creation, or landscape, ecology or land restoration
– Managing similar projects preferably in Africa.
Technical officer requirements:
– At least advanced university degree (Master degree or equivalent) in specific required field Information Technology or related fields from a recognized institution.
– At least five-years work experience in website design and development.
– Managing or supporting related projects preferably in African countries.
– Supporting establishment and strengthening of online curriculum development, online community creation, or landscape, ecology or land restoration.
– Providing technical support and supervision for web design, development and administrative support/hosting.
10. Selection Criteria
– Experience in executing similar assignments
– Clarity of proposal with regards to ongoing maintenance and content addition
– That the proposed platform seems user-friendly, as well as easy for the organizers to update and add additional modules
– Company will be selected that provides the best value as determined by: good user interface, attractive design features, classroom management and monitoring tools, easy to use bonus features such as community discussions and mentorship facilitation
11. How to submit interest:
Submit a proposal that details what your team can create for us. The sections of your proposal might be sure to cover these points:
- Examples of past work, especially as it would relate to online curriculum development, online community creation, or landscape, ecology or land restoration.
- Budget and Budget narrative
- Description of the platform that will be created along with any visuals, wireframes
- Plan for ongoing maintenance
- Share how WRI and AUDA-NEPAD staff can take ownership for updating and making modifications
You may upload up to 5 documents. The documents can be PDF, Word, or PPT.
Please submit your documents via this online portal by May 21, 2021.
Project budget: $100,000
Project timeline: June 1, 2021 – October 31, 202
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