Consultant: National Consultant (Information System Development Expert )-ABADEI project UNDP

Background

With rapidly evolving context in Afghanistan and UNDP Country Office embarking on a new Country Programme from 2022 onwards, UNDP developed the ABADEI (Area Based Approach to Development Emergency Initiatives) in 2021 as a response to the needs post August 15th change in the country. ABADEI is an integrated multi sectoral resilience programme anchored to the United Nations Transitional Engagement Framework (TEF) for Afghanistan and currently operating in eight priority areas through a community-based design.

With rapid implementation of ABADEI activities through more than 45 implementing partners (IPs) on the ground, the demand for continuous monitoring, progress tracking, analysis and reporting to a wide variety of stakeholders has escalated in various digital and non-digital means. Informed by the agile monitoring strategy needs, monthly reporting exercises to RBAP office, the recent initiation in roll out of the ABADEI Information Management System (AIMS) in 2022 Q1 as well as new pipeline projects in the horizon that contain mapping and database development activities, the continuation of mapping, information management, data visualization capacity is paramount to keep up with the increased demand of the service and products across the board from senior management to donors.

With the AIMS system rolled out for ABADEI implementing partners targeting first lot of IPs and current UNDP regional office staff members in 2022 Q2 and the system’s full hand over by UNDP Syria to UNDP Afghanistan team to administer, manage and continue the completion of full roll out throughout Afghanistan for new IPs and new staff members, UNDP Afghanistan will need to maintain the expertise and capacity within CO and ABADEI team to manage system administration and further new developments based on user feedback which are required to build an agile online data collection and monitoring platform which will support smooth bottom up reporting, enhance user experience and meet the growing demand of evidence-based data analytics of progress on the ground to enable informed decision making by ABADEI management and UNDP CO.

Duties and Responsibilities

The objective of the assignment:

Against the above background, and towards the maintenance of the agile and effective reporting and monitoring of UNDP’s ABADEI programme, the specialized services of Information System Development expert will need to continue development and management support to integrate user feedback and enhance system interface, after the handover of the AIMS system by UNDP Syria team to UNDP Afghanistan. The following three main outcomes are expected.

Improvement of IP activity and results progress tracking, IP coordination, and creation of evidence base for ABADEI / country programme progress, and emerging risks to programme implementation.
Moving from evidence base to almost real time monitoring, creation of analytics, collective analysis, intelligence and understanding for informed decision making and conflict sensitive adaptive programming.
Ensure timely programme delivery, progress reporting, transparency on achieved results and communication thereby building UNDP accountability to its stakeholders and donors.

Specifically, the scope of work will cover the following functions:

Enhancement of a feature-rich, modern, dynamic, and state of the art ABADEI Information Management System (AIMS) to support ABADEI programme’s monitoring and reporting. The expected system modules and features include but are not limited to:

Programme, outcome, and output management
Indicators and metrics management and mapping
Donor/agreement management and mapping
Partner management and mapping
Sector/category management and mapping
Comprehensive and dynamic access layer and role management for various groups of users
ABADEI M&E and Information Management focal persons
ABADEI Programme Management Unit
ABADEI regional offices
UNDP CO/ABADEI procurement focal persons
Partners ­– RPA, IP, LVG, Participating UN Agency (PUNO)
UNDP CO senior management and RBAP, donors

Project/activity management
Indicator-based progress monitoring
Multilayer verification/approval mechanism for projects/activities as well as their corresponding indicators.
Multilayer verification/approval mechanism for indicator-based progress reporting.
Comprehensive reporting and analytics plus interactive and GIS-powered maps.
Data export functionality.
User-friendly, clean, and mobile friendly UI design.

Architecting, design, and re-development the ABADEI AIMS based on the highest industry standards and latest technologies.

API-based development using repository pattern, services, and separation of concerns.
SPA with one of the popular client-side technologies like Angular (preferably)/React/Vue.
Git repository with clear, concise, and clean commits.
API documentation using Swagger.
High-quality, scalable, maintainable, and clean source code.

Developing technical manuals, user manuals, training guides, video tutorials and presentations for different end-users, administrators, and data verifiers.

Update the existing AIMS User Guide to new feature enhancements
Preparation of presentations about AIMS focusing on new feature enhancements.

Key Deliverables

#

Deliverable/Outputs

Estimated Duration to Complete (in days)

Target Due Dates

Schedule of Payment after due approvals

1

Analytical report of system specifications and translation of system requirements to task specifications for development / programming in close consultations with AIMs focal point and ABADEI M&E team.

Presentation on identification and analysis of needs and recommendations for the AIMS information System improvement.

Blueprint of Software model and specifications (system architecture) based on the above identified and analyzed requirements.

End of 1st month

20%

2

New Beta version of the AIMs software with some of the system’s core functionalities developed.

Programme, outcome, and output management module
Donor/agreement management module
Partner management module
Sector/category management module
Location (region/province/ district/community) management module

End of 2nd month

20%

3

System’s additional core functionalities/features developed.

Indicators and metrics management module
Project/activity management module with indicators, metrics and location mapping
Project/activity progress management

End of 3rd month

20%

4

Dynamic access layer and role/permission management for various groups of users developed.
ABADEI M&E and Information Management focal persons
ABADEI Programme Management Unit
ABADEI regional offices
UNDP CO/ABADEI procurement focal persons
Partners ­– RPA, IP, LVG, Participating UN Agency (PUNO)
UNDP CO senior management and RBAP, donors

Multilayer verification/approval mechanism for below components developed:
projects/activities as well as their corresponding indicators.
indicator-based monthly progress reporting
Comprehensive reporting and analytics module with intuitive data visualizations and interactive maps developed.

End of 4th month

20%

5

Technical/administration manuals, user manual and training guides, video tutorials and presentations for different end-users, administrators, and data verifiers developed.

End of 5th month

10%

6

Presentation on processes and additional essential features identified and developed. Ensuring faster and continuous delivery of the working software features being developed.

System development finalization with all the identified features, user feedback integrated with system components, and interfaces.

Completion of system testing and fixing of any software bugs.

System deployment completed.

Complete source code provided, and git repository ownership transferred.

End of 6th month

10%

Payment Modality:

The consultant(s) will be remunerated upon the completion of each deliverable as mentioned above.

Institutional Arrangements:

The consultant will work in close collaboration with UNDP Afghanistan’s Development Effectiveness Unit and ABADEI Programme Management Unit and will report to the Head of DEU.
It is expected that IC brings his/her own software licenses.
The deliverables submitted are subject to review by UNDP and will be accepted upon necessary amendments made by the consultant, for final approval.

Duration of the Work:

Total number of effective person-days: 132 days spread over the period of 6 months.

Duty Station:

This is a home-based assignment.

Competencies

Core Behavioral Competencies:

Innovation

Ability to make new and useful ideas work

People Management

Ability to improve performance and satisfaction

Communication

Ability to listen, adapt, persuade, and transform

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in computer science with a specialization in Management Information systems or relevant fields with a strong background (Required).
Master or relevant certification in Data Science (Preferred).

Academic Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in computer science with Specialization in Management Information System or relevant fields with a strong background (Required).
Master or relevant certification in Data Science (Preferred).

Required experience:

At least five years continuous relevant work experience in Management Information System Design and Development for large scale / national level development programmes.
Afghanistan experience is highly desirable.
Ability to work well in a cross-cultural environment.
Fluency and good writing skills in English language; and communication in local languages.

Ready to work under hard situations and short notices.

Technical Competencies Required

Professional knowledge in management information systems development for M&E purposes.
Professional knowledge in web and mobile applications development.
Professional knowledge of front-end and back-end technologies including HTML5, CSS3, ASP. NET Core, SQL, Ms. SQL Server, and any of the related frameworks/libraries.
Practical knowledge of innovative approaches in mobile software development including Restful Web APIs, PWA, Angular/React/Vue, etc.
Advance practical knowledge of Ms. Access and Ms. Excel and the related data exchange mechanisms.
Advance programming skills with good software development practices (based on standard software development principles).
Knowledge of M&E fundamentals (highly recommended).

Similar Work Demo:

Candidate is required to provide additional demo and showcase similar works they developed from previous experience.

Language:

Fluency in written and spoken English is a requirement

Required experience:

At least five years continuous relevant work experience in Management Information System Design and Development for large scale / national level development programmes.
Afghanistan experience is highly desirable.
Ability to work well in a cross-cultural environment.
Fluency and good writing skills in English language; and communication in local languages.

Ready to work under hard situations and short notices.