Terms of Reference
One UN/UNDP Website Hosting Services for the One UN in Rwanda
1.0 Introduction
As part of the overall UN reform process, the Delivering as One (DaO) in Rwanda was launched at the beginning of 2007 with the broad objective to improve the UN’s impact, coherence and efficiency. The first year (2007) was a year of preparation of the four pillars that are central to the Delivering as One initiative, namely: One Programme, One Budgetary Framework, One Leader & One Voice, and One Office.
The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2008-2012 as well as the Common Operational Document (COD) was developed as central piece for the Delivering as One.
In Rwanda’s context, the Delivering as One is strongly built on the principles of national ownership and leadership and aims at enhancing effectiveness, efficiency, and relevance of the UN in support of national development and poverty reduction efforts. The Delivering as One also aims to reduce transaction costs for Governments as well as decreasing overhead costs for the UN system and its partners.
The four Pillars of Delivering as One
The Delivering as One (DaO) initiative involves all UN funds, programmes and specialized agencies in Rwanda in a joint reform process based on fundamental pillars, the “Four Ones”: One Programme, One Budgetary Framework, One Office, One Voice/One Leader. The reform process carried out along the five pillars aims at strengthening the overall impact of the UN system at the country level, ensuring a closer alignment of programmes and funding to national priorities, while increasing transparency and accountability.
The UNDAP
The United Nations Assistance Framework (UNDAP) 2013-2018 is the 5-year common strategic framework for all UN programming interventions in the country. The contents of the UNDAP are strictly aligned with and respond to the priorities identified by the Rwanda’s Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS-2), also covering the same programming period 2013-2018, and Vision 2020.
Various evaluations of the DaO in Rwanda such as the Country-led Evaluation and a comprehensive Comparative Advantage and Stakeholders Analysis (referred to as the Focus Study) have yielded anecdotal evidence of gaps in the UN communication activities and strategies
UN Communications
In line with the newly released Standard Operating Procedures for
DaO countries, Communicating as One must include a joint communications strategy, development and use of common tools, and common messaging and advocacy.
Communicating as One ensures coherent messaging from the UN. It should assist with improving the quality of the dialogue with the Government of Rwanda, increase advocacy and help with highlighting results achieved by the UN at the country level. Communicating as one is critical for ensuring clear and consistent positioning of the UN and its vision at the national level; developing messages and policy positions; strengthening the outreach of the UN system by pooling efforts; supporting communication about the UN comparative advantages in the country to both internal and external stakeholders and avoiding message duplication, inconsistencies and fragmentation. It implies developing common messaging and joint communication on key issues where the UN is active in Rwanda.
Communicating as One improves the efficiency and effectiveness of common messages and communication products; by pooling expertise and resources. It also plays an important role in building support for the successful implementation of Delivering as One with external partners and UN staff.
The UN Communications Group is mandated to implement the UN Communications Strategy.
Initially, part of the UN Communications Strategy was the upgrading the One UN website. This was successfully carried out in 2014. There is now a need to contract a new firm to carryout webhosting services among other services as the current contractor’s arrangement expires next month (May 2016).
Pursuant to this, the UN Communications Group is seeking the services of a professional web- hosting company to maintain and where necessary perform upgrades on the structure and content of the One UN website.
2.0 Purpose
The overall objective of the assignment is to provide webhosting services for One UN in Rwanda existing website, in close consultation with the UN Communications Group. This entails but is not limited to providing the One UN with on-going technical website maintenance support, updating applications as new versions become available and helping to change and improve features and web site structure on request.
A second but equally important objective is to provide hands-on training to designated UN staff in basic website management, so that simple publishing and editing can be performed independently.
3.0 Scope of Work/Key responsibilities
Provide web hosting services and technical maintenance support, and also provide training to One UN staff performing content management tasks, and modify website design when necessary.
4.0 Methodology
The website hosting services will be provided at professional standard quality. This includes but is not limited to: providing the client with adequate bandwidth of 5GB /month as minimum and disk space allocation of up to 20 GB, webmail interface, integration with apps such as Gmail, and lastly but most importantly, the company shall provide technical and support service on a 24 hour basis.
Back-Up Data and Disaster Recovery
The company shall back up the Website and Client’s data daily and retain those back-ups for emergency use. The hosting company is responsible for files that cannot be recovered due to corrupt data.
Security
The hosting company shall provide the client with a firewall to help prevent unauthorized access to website folders, which will consist of hardware and software designed and configured to control the website folder itself.
Reporting
• Number of visits to webpages, including date and time of visits
• Continually updated reports accessible over the Internet regarding problems with the client’s website, downtimes, bandwidth usage and network latency
• Audience measurement metrics, such as repeat traffic, length of time spent on the website and where traffic originates from.
Confidentiality
The hosting company shall not disclose to any third party or user any confidential information of the One UN website learned by the hosting company.
Confidential Information shall include;
• Specifications of the client’s website and any future development plans • Concepts relating to the client’s website not disclosed from the operation of
the website.
5.0 Timeframe and deliverables
Item Timeframe Deliverables
Web hosting Duration of contract Website is functional and
online 24 hours a day, and features top-of-the range features such as video, HD images, etc. Providing training for
staff
Periodic – to be
communicated
Trained staff are able to perform tasks with ease and minor input from the web host
6.0 Duty station
The duty station of the work is in Kigali, Rwanda. However the company may be required to travel outside of Kigali.
7.0: Duration of the contract
The successful bidder will be awarded a one year contract, renewable upon mutual agreement and successful completion of the deliverables, as detailed in the deliverables and methodology sections.
8.0 Required expertise and qualification
• The individual expert or company should possess excellent web design skills and a good over-all understanding of communications.
• Hold a degree or internationally-recognized certificate in Computer Science and/or Information Communication Technology from a reputable institution. • Be able to demonstrate skills by showing samples of previous work.
• Have strong working knowledge of computer programmes relevant to web design such as Drupal, Joomla, Dreamweaver, CQ5, FrontPage, Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator.
• Have extensive knowledge and experience in hand coded HTML, DHTML, XHTML, graphics optimization skills, JavaScript, CSS and having a good understanding of cross browser compatibility issues.
• Have working knowledge of PHP, ColdFusion, JSP, ASP, .NET, SQL. • Be an experienced trainer and presenter.
• Be a good team player with excellent interpersonal skills. 9.0 Languages
Fluency in English and Kinyarwanda, knowledge of French as an added benefit 10.0 Skills
• Good communication, interpersonal and liaison skills • Analytical skills
• Good listening skills
• Ability to establish effective working relations in a multicultural team environment
11.0 Eligibility
All qualified and reputable/credible firms with proven, well-documented track record of successful web design and web hosting. The bidder will be required to produce a certificate of merit attesting to the abilities and competencies of the said bidder, issued by companies/organizations that the bidder has previously served in a similar capacity to this assignment. At least three (3) such certificates will be required in order to qualify.
12.0 Scope of payment
The successful bidder shall receive remuneration for services rendered via quarterly payments (i.e. every four months of the calendar year) for the duration of the contract.
13.0 Management Arrangements
UNDP will contract the company on behalf One UN in Rwanda. The consultant/company will report to the UN Communications Group (UNCG).
The company is expected to use its own equipment and other resources required. The firm/consultants will work under the overall guidance of the UNCG Chairperson or any other UNCG member charged with the responsibility, and will also maintain close liaison with UNDP Rwanda.
14.0 Selection Criteria
Submissions will be evaluated in consideration of the Evaluation Criteria as stated as follows: the offer will be evaluated by using the best value for money approach (combined scoring method). Technical proposal will be evaluated on 70%, whereas the financial one will be evaluated on 30%. Below is the breakdown of
technical proposal scored on 100%:
Criteria Weight
Proven experience and capacity in sophisticated design and web-hosting services. Bidder must provide samples of previous work done and letters of reference from at least three (3) previous or current clients.
40 %
Proven previous experience with training of staff in content management
Qualifications and experience of
technical personnel attached
specifically to this assignment
20%
Proficiency in languages
predominately used in Rwanda:
English, French and Kinyarwanda
10%
