REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
Immeuble CCIA, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
African Natural Resources Centre
E-mail : M.HARRATHI@AFDB.ORG Telephone : +225 27 20 26 32 13
Development of the Knowledge Hub of the Financial Modeling for the Extractive Sector (FIMES) project in Transitional Countries in Africa
- The African Natural Resources Centre of the African Development Bank hereby invites individual consultants to express their interest in the following Assignment: Consultancy Services for the “Development the knowledge hub of the project : Financial Modeling for the Extractive Sector (FIMES) in Transitional Countries in Africa” ;
- The services to be provided under the Assignment : Under the supervision of the KNOWLEGDE HUB COMMITTEE made up of staff from the African Natural Resources Centre (ANRC), the department of the AfDB in charge of IT (CHIS), and the consulting firm recruited to provide training and capacity building in the framework of the FIMES project. The selected consultant will develop the online Learning and Knowledge Exchange Platform of the FIMES project (FIMES Knowledge Hub) ;
- The ANRC invites individual consultants to express their interest in developing the FIMES Knowledge Hub. Interested consultants shall provide information on their qualifications and experience demonstrating their ability to undertake the Assignment (documents, reference to similar services, experience in similar assignments, etc.).
- The eligibility criteria, the establishment of a short list and the selection procedure shall be in conformity with the AfDB’s Procurement Policy for Recruitment of individual Consultants, available on the Bank’s Website at https://www.afdb.org/en/projects-and%20operations/procurement/resources-for-borrowers/policies-procedures ;
- Please note that interest expressed by a consultant does not imply any obligation on the part of the Bank to include the consultant in the shortlist ;
- The estimated duration of the Consulting Services is 6 calendar months and the estimated starting date is August 2021.Interested consultants may obtain further information at the following addresses during the Bank’s working hours: 08:00 – 17:00. Ms. Promise ADERIBIGBE, (P.ADERIBIGBE@AFDB.ORG) with copy to Mr. Arron TCHOUKA SINGHE (A.TCHOUKASINGHE@AFDB.ORG) ;
- Expressions of interest must be received by E-mail to the address below no later than 22nd July 2021 at 17:00 Hours Abidjan local time and specifically mentioning Expression of Interest : Development of the knowledge hub of the project : Financial Modeling for the Extractive Sector (FIMES) in Transitional Countries in Africa. To the attention of : Ms. Promise ADERIBIGBE, P.ADERIBIGBE@AFDB.ORG with copy to Ms. Maali HARRATHI E-mail : M.HARRATHI@AFDB.ORG
TERMS OF REFERENCE :
Building the knowledge hub of the Financial Modeling for the Extractive Sector (FIMES) in Transitional Countries in Africa
Project countries : Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Madagascar, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.
- Background :
The African Development Bank Group (hereinafter “the Bank” or “AfDB”) supports national efforts aimed at industrializing and integrating Africa, has embarked on an ambitious journey to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth in its Regional Member Countries (RMCs). By envisioning the future of development finance in Africa, the AfDB is focusing on mobilising domestic resources to drive infrastructure and structural transformation.
The AfDB Ten Year Strategy and the High 5s identify natural resources as a critical factor in the transition to green growth in Africa. In response to the challenges facing sustainable management of African natural resources, the AfDB created the African Natural Resources Centre (ANRC) in 2013 to provide advisory services and technical assistance to RMCs to harness natural resources for sustainable development. The Centre performs its mandate through the following: knowledge generation, dissemination, policy advocacy and country support. The Centre has been awarded a two-year grant under the Transitional Support Facility for a project on strengthening domestic resource mobilisation through financial modelling for the extractive sector (FIMES) in transitional countries. The FIMES project seeks to build the capacity for financial modelling and, in turn, strengthen DRM, institutional capacity and resilience in selected transitional, resource-rich countries in Africa, namely: Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Madagascar, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Zimbabwe.
Knowledge-building and exchange will be through a dedicated virtual knowledge hub serving as online learning platform for blended learning constituted of self-paced courses and virtual live classrooms.
The AfDB, through the African Natural Resources Centre, is seeking the services of an individual consultant with the requisite experience and competence in building comprehensive knowledge hubs embedding a Learning Management System, where training materials including models can be stored and shared and online training and learning can be realised. The consultant will provide the IT skills needed to translate the FIMES training and capacity-building programme into a virtual platform accessible everywhere and anytime by registered users.
- Objectives :
The main objective of the project is to build a scalable online learning and knowledge exchange environment that will support the objectives of the FIMES project, which is to enhance the ability of governments in the focal countries to improve domestic resource mobilisation from the extractive sector using financial modelling, and be scaled up to support other knowledge exchange activities post-FIMES.
By providing a scalable online platform for e-learning and knowledge exchange to FIMES learners, the platform will specifically :
- Enable course providers to register and build and publish their courses ;
- Enable to host virtual classrooms in form of webinars ;
- Enable to host virtual workshops and conferences ;
- Enable learners to register and explore the content and learn ;
- Enable learners to rate courses and make recommendations for improvements ;
- Enable learners to discuss and exchange documents and information ;
- Enable learners to upload and download files and learning content ;
- Provide a corner for tutors or supervisors to interact with learners and give feedback ;
- Enable statistics and dashboarding on the platform ;
- Be scalable to accommodate other courses from the ANRC, ECVP or the BANK after completion of the FIMES project, and therefore ensure sustainability of the platform.
- Key Features :
The features of the virtual Knowledge Hub should facilitate the achievement of its objectives, which is mainly to provide a scalable platform for convivial learning and knowledge exchange and support capacity enhancement of its users.
As such following features will be necessary :
- Modern & easy to use interface ;
- Course Authoring ;
- Custom branding and custom fields ;
- Exam engine ;
- Custom reporting and custom homepage ;
- Administrative reporting ;
- Course catalogue ;
- Display transcripts ;
- Training and eLearning online and offline ;
- Integration APIs and links with other social media used by the AfDB ;
- Mobile user support ;
- Multimedia capable LMS able to build-in and/or upload videos, graphical contents and podcasts ;
- Registration Management ;
- File exchange ;
- Email Integration ;
- Testing and grading ;
- Defined user roles ;
- Data import/export ;
- ILT support ;
- Goal setting ;
- Asynchronous self-paced learning ;
- Blended learning ;
- Virtual classrooms and e-conferencing ;
- Gamification ;
- Personalized dashboard ;
- Collaborative tools and activities ;
- All-in-one calendar ;
- Convenient file management ;
- Simple and intuitive text editor ;
- Notifications & Track progress ;
- Customizable site design and layout ;
- Multilingual capability ;
- High Interoperability ;
- Regular security updates ;
- Detailed reporting and logs ;
- Embed external resources ;
- Multimedia integration ;
- Marking workflow ;
- Peer and self-assessment ;
- Integrated badges and Certificates ;
- Chat & Discussion forums ;
- Test & Quizzes ;
- Projects collaboration ;
- SCORM compliance.
- Tasks for the Consultant :
The individual consultant is expected to perform the following tasks :
Activity :
- Building the Virtual Learning and Knowledge Exchange Platform :
The Learning and Knowledge Exchange platform are a CMS-based platform that will provide functionalities for interaction with learners and teachers and management of the FIMES project. It will serve as the knowledge hub for the FIMES project, to facilitate collaboration amongst FIMES national beneficiaries, stakeholders and facilitate work amongst the AfDB team and the consultants. It will be flexible enough to integrate the LMS and provide additional functionalities that may not be available in the LMS. It will provide an interface with external modules and applications and ensure scalability and extension of the knowledge hub in the future. The platform should be easily transferrable and hosted in a domain easily accessible through the AfDB corporate website, embedded or through a straight link.
Technical information and updates on financial modelling will be shared via the hub. The hub will have the capacity to host virtual conferences and media content (infographics and videos). The hub will continue to exist after the end of the project, in order to facilitate the growth of a community of practice on financial modelling in Africa and support other knowledge activities of the ANRC and the Bank.
The Platform is designed to support learning by facilitating knowledge sharing amongst the beneficiary countries to strengthen data quality, enhance institutional coordination and support the use of financial modelling in contract negotiation and management. Therefore, it will also serve as a repository for documents and information that can be shared between the project beneficiaries and stakeholders.
- Building the LMS portal :
The LMS will be developed with the guidance of the AfDB project team, and in collaboration with the financial modelling and training consultants’ consortium, who will supply the content and publish training courses and materials in the LMS to support knowledge exchange and peer learning for the project beneficiaries. The portal will be used to deliver online courses to the 160 beneficiaries in the eight countries.
- Integrating the LMS into the Knowledge Exchange platform :
The LMS portal will be integrated into the Knowledge Exchange platform, from which it will accessible by registered users. To publish content, upload and download materials and train and learn. It should provide possibilities for offline learning.
All activities will be performed by the consultant with the supervision and guidance of the AfDB project team, and in collaboration with the national institutional focal points in the eight countries, and the respective AfDB country offices.
- Role of the AFDB :
The AfDB will oversee the development of the Knowledge Hub as an integral part of the FIMES project. It will operate through a committee of 4 members led by the ANRC, the Bank’s IT department (CHIS) and the FERDI-CCSI Consortium that is delivering capacity building and training activities of the FIMES project to beneficiaries. The committee will provide all contents for the Knowledge Hub including but not limited to texts for the website, course materials (in text, Graphics and Video formats). The committee will also develop the Competency Management Framework of the Hub and guide the consultant to integrate it in the Knowledge Hub.
- Deliverables :
The expected deliverables from the consultant include :
- Inception report with an analytical and conceptual design of the platform and LMS portal ;
- The online knowledge hub made up of the knowledge exchange environment and the LMS portal ;
- User guide document and videos to facilitate usage of the platform ;
- A technical description documents ;
- Short completion report.
- Duration :
The duration of the assignment is 6 months (3 months for completion of the first version of the platform and 3 months for supporting in its utilisation and improving based on users’ feedback). The guarantee period is not included in the 6 months. It will part of the After Sales Support that consultant will provide after delivery of the hub.
- Criteria for Selection of Consultant :
- Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in computer sciences or related discipline ;
- Over ten years of professional experience in online platforms including experience in building online training delivery platforms ;
- Demonstrated ability to design and/or customise Learning Management Systems ;
- Demonstrated ability to design online knowledge hubs with multimedia and social media capabilities with state of art tools and processes ;
- Demonstrated ability to produce infographics and carry out data analysis and aggregation for use by a broad audience ;
- Strong programming skills in the use of advanced software development language that integrates with EXCEL and Sequential Query database language would be required such as Python, C#, C++, JAVA, PHP, etc. ;
- Strong project management capabilities with high organizational and ability to handle complex tasks with tight deadlines ;
- Excellente communication and facilitation skills ;
- Fluency in French and English languages.
EVALUATION CRITERIA :
The consultant will be selected in accordance with the African Development Bank’s Implementation Manual relating to the Procedures for Acquisition of Consultancy Services. The candidates shall be evaluated based on following criteria :
| Criteria | Score (%) |
| Consultant’s qualifications relevant to the assignment | 30 |
| Understanding the terms of reference and scope of work demonstrated though | 20 |
| the EOI. | |
| Experience in developing Learning and Knowledge Exchange platforms | 30 |
| Knowledge of the region (environment of the assignment) | 10 |
| Language and communication skills: ability to deliver project outputs and | 10 |
| effective communication in English and French | |
TOTAL : 100
Applicants are to submit a brief technical proposal in line with objectives and scope of work. Submissions should include EOI, CV (see template in Appendix), copies of transcripts and academic certificates.
CONDITIONS OF SERVICE :
The African Development Bank’s conditions for retaining short-term consultants will apply.
Appendix
Please attach an updated Curriculum Vitae on the basis of the template below :