Gambia Fiscal Management Project: Consultancy for the Procurement of Consultant for the development of the Government Cloud Strategy/Policy and Cloud Migration Plan in The Gambia

Project: P166695

Project Title: Gambia Fiscal Management Project

Bid/Contract Reference No: GM-PPPPE-194498-CS-QCBS

Scope of Contract: The consulting services (“the Services”) include; to provide technical support to the Ministry of Information and Communication Infrastructure (MOICI) and other government agencies, to develop and implement both the “Government Cloud Policy and Strategy and the “Government Cloud Migration Plan” in The Gambia.

The Consultant will conduct/deliver the following components:

A government-level Cloud Readiness Assessment through multiple working group sessions (virtual sessions due to the Covid 19 situation until travel restrictions are lifted) with the intention of identifying the current needs, priorities, risks, gaps, challenges, and strengths directly related to the cloud computing adoption process within the government sector;
A comprehensive report detailing the outputs of the Cloud Readiness Assessment and the current capacities of the government sector to adopt cloud computing technologies, including actionable recommendations on how to design, develop and implement the “Government Cloud Policy and Strategy”, the “Government Cloud Migration Plan” (roadmap) and any other aspects which may be relevant for the development of those public policies;
The draft of the “Government Cloud Policy and Strategy” which should address a number of relevant aspects (See Section 3, Activity 2, Policy 1 (Cloud Policy & Strategy)for details), including but to limited to the cloud deployment approach and model, cloud implementation guidelines, governance framework, security and privacy guidelines, etc.;
The draft of the “Government Cloud Migration Plan” which should address a number of relevant aspects (See Section 3, Activity 2, Policy 2 for details), including technical and regulatory actions to securely migrate the selected data or services to cloud environments with realistic timelines
Deliverables (See Section 4 for details) should be structured and authored in an easily understandable fashion.

Scope of Work
The Consultant will work under the direction of the MOICI project leaders to produce and deliver the following two activities:

Activity 1: Government-level Cloud Readiness Assessment Report.

The Consultant will produce a Cloud Readiness Assessment Report in full. This report will consist of the following two parts.

Part 1: Regional best practices and case studies

This part of the report will review and address the experience of successful adoption of government cloud computing strategies and policies and cloud migration plans for digital government services delivery, for example, in African countries (Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ghana, Mauritius, etc.) or any other countries which may present relevant commonalities with The Gambia’s context.

This report will, inter alia, review and address the following important aspects:

Policies & Regulations. What kind of policies and regulations frameworks (especially, relevant aspects that determined the choice of the government cloud computing approach and deployment model) were adopted—including internationally recognized standards and best practices such as the “Cloud First” or “Cloud Native” or “Smart Cloud” approach;
Cloud Platform Technical Requirements. What kind of technical requirements will be needed for an adequate development and deployment environment, as well as compute and manage resources for the government cloud computing ecosystem;
Budget and financial issues. How budget incentives, governance mechanisms, charge-back mechanism, and change management issues were addressed;
Institutional Arrangements and Governance. How governance issues were addressed and whole-of-government (WOG) approach was promoted through the use of cloud computing;
Technical Competencies. What human skills and competencies that are required and should be developed to enable a successful implementation of cloud computing technologies within the government sector;
Use-cases and Best Practices Examples. Concrete use cases of cloud computing environment in delivering scalable public services, in particular tax filling and collection, procurement, health, education, business, land use and management, and social protection services including COVID-19 responses;
Security & Data Protection. What kind of information security measures and data protection legal and regulatory provisions should be adopted to ensure an adequate deployment of cloud computing technologies within the government-sector ecosystem; and
Any other reference documents or aspects that could be useful for the policy development and cloud computing migration plan within the government-sector ecosystem.
Part 2: Government-level Cloud Readiness Assessment and Recommendations

This report will be the main part under Activity 1. The purpose of this assessment is, inter alia, to identify the current needs, priorities, risks, gaps, challenges, and strengths directly related to the cloud computing adoption process within the government sector in The Gambia.

The Consultant will deploy a comprehensive cloud readiness methodology/model which reviews, inter alia, the following core aspects:

Standards & Protocols
Policy
Legal & Regulatory Frameworks
Infrastructure
Access & Data
Training, Skills and Awareness
Networked Government
Operations
This assessment will be conducted through multiple working group sessions (virtual session due to the Covid 19 situation until the travel restrictions are lifted) with the participation of key stakeholders to assess the maturity level of the government capacity to adopt cloud computing technologies. The number of working group sessions and clusters of key stakeholders will be determined by the cloud readiness assessment methodology to be deployed. The Consultant, with the guidance and supervision of MOICI, will select the cloud readiness assessment methodology -considering the components enlisted above- and organize those working group sessions.

In the assessment report, the Consultant will provide specific recommendations with respect to the current gaps on policy, legal and regulatory issues, institutional and human resources capacity and arrangements, readiness to build and deployment cloud infrastructure (e.g. electricity provision, connection to robust telecommunications infrastructure, etc.), and roadmap options for cloud migration in light of the government current conditions. The Consultant will also recommend strategy/policy or legislation reforms to adequately implement the government cloud policy and strategy and the government cloud migration plan.

Duration of Contract: 6 Month(s)