UNICEF recrute un consultant en assurance qualité – Conception et développement des systèmes USR, MIS et de livraison de Baxnaan en Somalie

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, Protection

www.unicef.org/somalia

How can you make a difference?

 1.1 Background :

Poverty in Somalia is widespread, fuelled by economic challenges and on-going humanitarian crisis. Estimates suggest 7 in 10 Somali people live below the international poverty line, making Somalia the third poorest country in the region. A further 1 in 10 people are vulnerable to falling below the poverty line during a shock.  In addition, chronic food insecurity and the resulting severe malnutrition among children under five years of age are a particular concern in Somalia. In the absence of a formal national social protection system, Somalis currently rely on traditional safety nets and humanitarian support. Remittances represent an important component of income for the bottom 40 percent of households. Aid programs provide some support to households but tend to have a short-term focus and are generally designed as emergency response. Few programs support the long-term shift from emergency relief to resilience building, and aid programs are mostly delivered outside government structures and lack a common strategic vision.

Against this background, the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) approved its Social Protection Policy in September 2019, with the objective to gradually transition to a nationally owned social protection system. The social protection system focuses on mitigating vulnerability, better aligning humanitarian and developmental objectives, and reducing reliance on short-term humanitarian aid.

The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (MoLSA), at the federal level, is the lead implementer of national social cash transfer programmes under this umbrella. The Shock Responsive Safety Net for Human Capital Project (SNHCP), with funding of the World Bank and support of the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF was developed to provide cash transfers to targeted poor and vulnerable households and establish the basic building blocks of a national shock-responsive social protection system. The project includes three parallel and integrated components:

Component 1 : Nutrition-linked Unconditional Cash Transfer Programme

With support of the World Food Programme (WFP), this component is providing unconditional cash transfers to households with children under 5 that are chronically poor and vulnerable to drought, food security and malnutrition and link them, as required, to complementary nutritional support programs. The objectives of the component are: (i) support households to strengthen their resilience and avoid negative coping mechanisms in the short-term; and (ii) promote human capital investment in the medium to long-term by linking beneficiary households to complementary nutrition services and continuing to smooth consumption gaps even after the impacts of drought are no longer present. Selection of the project districts and communities has been finalized following consultations with Federal Member States (FMS) and district authorities. Selection and registration of households (HHs) is underway.

Component 2 : Delivery Systems and Institutional Capacity Building

Implemented with support of UNICEF, Component 2 aims to establish the key building blocks of a social protection delivery system, support  policy development, strengthen institutional capacity of MoLSA and relevant government agencies  to manage and implement Baxnaano, and form the foundation for a more comprehensive social protection system in Somalia. It will include the development of a unified social registry, the delivery systems of the Baxnaano programme: e.g. targeting, payment delivery, grievance and redress mechanism (GRM), communication, and a program management information system (MIS).

Component 3 : Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation and Knowledge Management

This component established a Project Implementation Unit (PIU) within MoLSA to support and manage overall implementation of the SNHCP, strengthen MoLSA’s coordination arrangements, promote learning and knowledge management through robust M&E, and support the design of a pilot productive safety net activity targeted at youth.

This assignment is part of Component 2: Delivering Systems and Institutional Capacity Building :

1.2 Objectives :

The assignment seeks to provide technical quality assurance for the processes and deliverables for the design and development of the USR, as well as the developing the delivery systems & MIS of Baxnaano. The assignment will therefore review the deliverables submitted under the three assignments described below.

Unified Social Registry : UNICEF has recruited an international consulting firm to develop the Unified Social Registry (USR) for the Government of Somalia. This firm will: define a conceptual model for Somalia’s USR that is founded on international best practice but relevant to Somalia’s ; define how to operationalize the model developed above; define the processes and procedures involved in the USR; detail how different features and functions of the USR model will be implemented; identify human resource and institutional capacity strengthening  needs for implementation; develop the data repository and software applications; pilot test it, and provide trouble shooting support to government and implementers.

Delivery Systems for Baxnaano : A separate contract with a consulting firm has been issued to develop the delivery systems for Baxnaano and will be expected to: lead the development of the functions and processes for the  BAXNAANO along the delivery chain; develop a user-friendly Programme Operations Manual (POM) based on the documented business processes once the functions and processes have been agreed upon and validated; define the scope, develop functional / non function requirements, assess options, and validate the approach for the Management Information System (MIS) software of the programme.

BAXNAANO MIS : A third contract will be procured to develop the Management Information System (MIS)’s software of BAXNAANO (the Programme MIS). This software development will be based upon the system requirements that will be developed under the Delivery Systems for the BAXNAANO contract.

Scope of work :

Under the supervision of the Project Coordinator, the Quality Assurance Consultant is expected to :

1. Participate in and contribute to technical discussions between the contracted consulting firms and the government ;
2. Provide technical guidance and oversight on the overall architecture of the USR, BAXNAANO and MIS ;
3. Provide oversight and quality assurance on all deliverables submitted for the three components mentioned above (USR, BAXNAANO and MIS) ;
4. Supervise the quality related aspects of all activities related to the technical software development of the BAXNAANO MIS ;
5. Monitor and provide feedback to the Project Coordinator on vendors adherence to agreed Software Development Lifecyle Approach, including Agile, Continuous Integration / Continuous Development (CICD), and DevOps.

3.1 Quality assurance activities related to development of the USR :

1. When necessary, participate in technical committee meetings involving MoLSA, the World Bank, the Consulting firm, and UNICEF for the design and development of USR and ensure that comments and inputs from the various stakeholders are incorporated well into the Consulting Firm’s approach and outputs ;
2. Review the USR Functional Requirements Specifications Document (FRD) and the System Design Document (SDD) submitted by the consulting firm and provide inputs needed to finalize and sign off. The FRD will set out the functional and non-functional requirements of USR while the SDD shall describe architecture, user interfaces and data models ;
3. During the development, testing and deployment phase of the USR, act as the lead person from UNICEF technical team side to coordinate reviews, walkthroughs and validation for both the web-based and mobile applications. This should include an iterative and continous process of User Experience Testing (UET), validating or modifying features and functionalities as needed to ensure the final design meets the overall business requirements ;
4. Support MoLSA to conduct User Acceptance Test (UAT) of the optimized USR based on UAT checklist prepared by the Consulting firm, setting out all the features for the software that are to be confirmed by the MoLSA. The Consultant will also review the UAT report from the consulting firm and provide feedback for sign off of the report for live users.
5. Review and provide feedback to the consulting firm on the following:  system administration manual; (ii) user manual for both the USR MIS web and mobile application; and (iii) source code manual for both the mobile and web application.

3.2 Quality Assurance activities related to the Design and development of the BAXNAANO delivery systems :

6. Participate in technical committee meetings involving MoLSA, World Bank, the Consulting firm, and UNICEF for the design and development of the delivery processes of the BAXNAANO and ensure that comments and inputs from the various stakeholders are incorporated well into the Consulting Firm’s approach and outputs ;
7. Review the BAXNAANO concept note on the proposed delivery processes and provide inputs for finalizing a user friendly Programme Operations Manual ;
8. Review the Functional Requirements Specifications Document (FRD) and the System Design Document (SDD) of the Programme MIS of the BAXNAANO based on the agreed Programme Operations Manual.

3.3 Quality Assurance activities related to the development of the MIS of the BAXNAANO :

1. Provide technical guidance to UNICEF in the selection of a suitable firm to develop the Programme MIS for the BAXNAANO ;
2. When necessary, participate in technical committee meetings involving MoLSA, World Bank, the selected Consulting firm, and UNICEF for the design and development of the modules of the BAXNAANO’s MIS and ensure that comments and inputs from the various stakeholders are incorporated well into the Consulting Firm’s approach and outputs ;
3. During the developing, testing and deployment phase of the Programme MIS, act as the lead person from UNICEF side to cordinate reviews, walkthroughs and validation of  both the web-based and mobile applications to confirm the functionality and ensure final design changes in line with the User Experience Testing protocols ;
4. Support MoLSA to conduct User Acceptance Test of the optimized Programme MIS based on User Acceptance Test (UAT) checklist prepared by the Consulting firm setting out all the features for the software that are to be confirmed by the MoLSA. The Consultant will also review the UAT report from the consulting firm and provide feedback for sign off of the report for live users ;
5. Review and provide feedback to the consulting firm on the following:  system administration manual; (ii) user manual for both the web and mobile based applications of the software; and (iii) source code manual for both the mobile and web application.

3.4 Quality Assure that the USR, Programme MIS & BAXNAANO delivery systems work in unison as an integrated suite of tools :

14. Support MoLSA to conduct User Acceptance Test (UAT) on the interface between the USR and the Programme MIS that support the delivery processes of BAXNAANO.

3. Duration and Conditions :

The assignment requires an Individual Consultant to contribute an anticipated 130 days over a period of 16-months. The consultant will be home-based with an expected maximum of 3 in-country missions over the duration of the assignment to Somalia to provide in-person technical support. Frequent interactions are expected with UNICEF, the three institutional firms and the SNHCP project implementation Unit (PIU) staff based in MoLSA.

The assignment will cover the period from December 2020 to March 2022 (16 months). The Consultant shall submit monthly progress reports and will be paid against specific deliverables as outlined below.

4. TIMELINE AND DELIVERABLES  :

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An academic degree at master’s level or higher in Computer Sciences, Information Technology, Management Information Systems or ;
• At least ten (10) years’ experience in information systems architecture, software development and system engineering ;
• Demonstrable experience in design and implementation of social registries and/or Beneficiaries Operation Management Systems (MIS) ;
• Strong technical knowledge/expertise on data security and data protection ;
• Experience in managing the delivery of social or beneficiary registry platforms is a plus ;
• Significant experience in design and implementation of Cash Transfer’s Management Information Systems ;
• At least two project experiences working as the Business or System Analyst for the design and implementation of IT system of similar size and nature ;
• Proven experience of conducting system requirement study/gap analysis, developing data/process flow diagrams to effectively map the business requirements into MIS ;
• Excellent knowledge and experience in system design and development methodologies (software development life cycle), including Agile, Continuous Integration / Continuous Development (CICD), and DevOps ;
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset ;
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The functional competencies required for this post are…

Core Values :

• Care ;
• Respect ;
• Integrity ;
• Trust ;
• Accountability.

Core competencies :

• Communication – Level III ;
• Working with People – Level III ;
• Drive for Results – Level III.

Functional competencies :

• Formulating strategies and concepts (I) ;
• Analyzing (II) ;
• Applying technical expertise ((II) ;
• Learning and researching (II) ;
• Planning and organizing (II).

View our competency framework at : UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Kindly include technical proposal with expected completion dates and an all-inclusive financial proposal. 

Remarks :

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.