Tender Published date: 11.10.2021

Last Date of Tender Submission: 25.10.2021

1. Background:

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the greatest health crisis in a globe that claimed 4,849,430 people’s life among 237.56 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported by WHO on Oct 8, 2021. COVID-19 badly hit Nepal and second wave is more severe and rapidly transmitted. SitRep 607 of MoHP reported that 800,997 positive cases and 11,210 COVID-19 death.  In Nepal, still a majority of population do not have access to vaccines. Experts are projecting the third wave of infection with new variants having more infectious and causing severe health problems even for young populations. After five months of second wave starting from April 1, 2021, different form and restriction of lockdown were imposed and now it is almost opened normally. However, there is nearly 1000 new infection in Nepal now, which is still a high risk of transmission, according to public health experts. Plan International Nepal was carried out an assessment on impact of COVID-19 in 2020 and found that COVID-19 was causing a severe impact on health system as well as economic distress to poor, vulnerable and marginalized communities especially people working on daily wages, returnee migrant workers, landless and self-employed people. People have suddenly lost their income sources when the markets and economy came to a standstill with little signs of immediate revival. As a result, vulnerable families have hard times meeting their basic needs. While they are struggling to meet minimum basic requirements. This leads to a higher level of negative impacts on both health and finance of the households.

In Sindhuli district, there were 244 active cases on Oct 8, 2021 and total 2,695 positive cases were reported after April 1. Marginalized communities in Sindhuli are struggling to continue their livelihoods amid the raising fear of COVID transmission. They are torn between minimizing the health risks and meeting their basic needs. Additionally, as the schools were closed, students were not able to continue their education. People from poor families do not have access to internet facilities for online classes. Due to connectivity issues, schools are also not able to operate distant learning classes in the district. Hence, the ‘Education and economic recovery of the COVID-19 affected population in Marin Rural Municipality of Sindhuli district Nepal’ is being implemented to support most vulnerable communities impacted by COVID-19 to recover learning and for girls and children. The project is being implemented to increase access on basic needs of COVID-19 affected population and support to most vulnerable families through Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) programming where the project has taken restricted commodity voucher and cash for work as major CVA interventions.  As a result of this interventions, affected communities and households are expected to meet basic household needs as well as children will be able to continue their school education.

The project is entitled as “Education and economic recovery of the COVID-19 affected population in Marin Rural Municipality of Sindhuli district Nepal”. The project duration is from August 1, 2021 until April 2022. HANDS Nepal Sindhuli is working as partner NGO of Plan International Nepal to implement this project.

2. Objective: In order to make the CVA interventions (restricted commodity voucher and cash for work) more efficient, effective and promote digital CVA programming for more increasing accountability of the interventions among relevant stakeholders. HANDS Nepal is seeking for a digital solutions provider for the effective implementation of the project in terms of digital accountability compliance and data management for CVA interventions as mentioned above. Hence, the overall objective of the service provider is to ensure the efficient delivery of services related to digital documentation processes, digital card issuance and related payment services for the commodity vouchers package based on Minimum Expenditure basket (MEB) proposed by Cash Coordination Group (CCG) of Nepal and support to cash for work interventions through beneficiaries data management (registration, face detected system for daily attendance, display daily data in real time dash board, final payment for beneficiaries through digital means). More specifically,

• To provide IT support to Hands Nepal for effective implementation of the project through technical support of commodity voucher assistance including beneficiary’s data recording, commodity voucher preparation and ensure digital accountability and compliance management of 90-100 HHs (Potentially increase number of beneficiaries to 150 HH)
• To support cash for work for beneficiary’s data management, daily attendance of cfw participants, digital payment for in cash for work (CfW), dash board management for real time management, face detected system for daily attendance and accountability to 100-120 program participants who will work for 10 days for the selected/approved schemes for Cfw interventions. 

3. Scope of work and services:

The commodity voucher is valued minimum expenditure basket (MEB) with reference to cash coordination group (CCG) of Nepal per day per person, which be provided to 90 people initially through selected vendors in the project location. The number of beneficiaries might be increased to 150. The number beneficiaries will be selected by HANDS Nepal after consultation of Marin RM, Sindhuli. Similarly, 100 most COVID-19 affected HHs will involvement in cash for work interventions who will work for 10 days, which might be increased. The overall scope of the consultancy service is to provide IT support for CVA and CfW interventions to the target Plan International Nepal beneficiary households using card-based digital electronic voucher delivery mechanisms with beneficiary’s registration and tracking in on/offline mode (offline mode is required since the project location is weak in mobile/internet network). Hence this IT service provider shall;  

• Provide consultation and technical assistance to HANDS Nepal and Plan International Nepal to develop high-quality and secured digital e-voucher program design and roll out as appropriate.
• Support to build the technical capacity of HANDS Nepal’s staffs and vendors to execute e-voucher (digital card-based technology) service for commodity voucher and Cfw.
• Provide software platform and enumerator training to conduct household survey, vendor registration; prepare and manage database of beneficiaries, local traders/vendors and the transactions. Final payment to the selected vendors will be based on the payment sheet provided by the digital service provider for this project. 
• Support to manage duplication of beneficiaries need throughout the project period and provide final list of beneficiaries. 
• Should follow the beneficiaries’ registration template provided by Plan International Nepal/ HANDS Nepal and modify in the system accordingly.  
• Beneficiaries face detection during registration and during encashment as well as redemption of the voucher need to be ensured especially for cash for work beneficiaries.
• Prepare and provide digital face detection registration system for workers of cash for work intervention, which should be offline and online compatibility.
• Drop-out of beneficiaries need to be managed through the system during the course of the project. As per requirement of project, new beneficiaries will be added later but within project period.
• Printing of QR code or cards to distribute the targeted beneficiaries detailing value of commodity voucher and CfW.
• The designed mobile application and web-based platform should be designed in such a way so that can be re-used in similar natured future programming of Plan International Nepal. 
• Mobile app and web should be hosted in secure server/data center with SSL login for web hosting and after completion of the project need to be handover to HANDS Nepal accordingly
• Designing IEC materials on e-voucher program (video-based documentation/ related to social media & others) so that the beneficiaries and stakeholders are familiar with the system and translate them in multiple languages such as English and Nepal. 
• Deliver training/orientation to local traders/vendors about the exchange of e-voucher via digital method using smart phone application even in offline modes. 
• Provide web-based app to view transaction records in real-time data with analytics and disaggregated report generation capabilities (as per the requirement of the project and Plan International Nepal). 
• Coordinate with partners and vendors in both the districts for project related to technical matters especially distribution process both for commodity voucher and cash for work. 
• Provide a system that can record and generate disaggregated beneficiaries report on the type and amount of goods and services availed for the exchange of voucher values.
• Provide daily transaction report of the distribution (voucher and cfw) with details that can be visualized in the platform. 
• Provide all the technical support required for distribution throughout the project period.
• Prepare and submit final payment sheet to the vendors based on the transactions between beneficiaries and vendors. 
• Ensure gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), safeguarding, and social protection sensitivity are integrated into e-voucher program design.
• Develop written SOP's (both in English and Nepali language) with support from Plan International Nepal and in collaboration with Hands Nepal’s team.
• Ensure that program implementation is responsive to communities and partners and consistent with Plan International Nepal’s relevant program guidelines, principles, values, quality standards, and strategic plan.
• Technical execution of the e-voucher transfer programme in collaboration with Plan International Nepal and partners,
• Adhere to Plan International Nepal’s Data Privacy Policy as HANDS Nepal is working in partnership with Plan.
• Regular monitoring of transactions till the end of the project and report any suspicious transaction activities and rectify the issue as appropriate. 
• Ensure to access Plan International Nepal and HANDS Nepal to the user data via the web-based interface including provision to add users in the web-based interface.
• The application must be able to integrate with and securely transfer saved data to encrypted cloud storage environment.
• The application must be accessible on most popular internet browsing devices and mobile application should be compatible to normal android phones.;
• The application must be able to transfer data into the standard Microsoft Office file formats such as EXCEL & DOC without prior modification to print the reports
• The application must be able to track beneficiaries and local vendors activities and must allow for data to be transferred and stored in a private cloud storage environment aligning with Plan International Nepal platform.
• Service provider must print a e-voucher card including toll free telephone support service in Nepali Language.
• All the digital system, applications, dash board, payment system etc. required for this Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) project will be finalized in consultation with Plan International Nepal (technical staffs), HANDS Nepal project staffs and digital service provider. 

4. Duration of consultancy service: Around 90 days (Oct 25, 2021 to Jan 24, 2022 or mutually agreed time frame)

5. Qualification for Consultant Firm

• Minimum of 2 years of experience in electronic voucher systems development including Mobile App and Web development
• Have successfully carried out implementation of electronic voucher systems in organizations 
• In-house software development team comprising of Project Manager, Business Analyst System Analyst, developers and Quality Assurance
• Earlier experience of working in development sector.

6. Selection Criteria

Based on following criteria/minimum requirement proposal will be analyzed:

7. Deliverables and Payment Milestones (Final deliverables and milestones will also be discussed in detail as applicable)

8. Supervision

The PC of E and E Recovery Project/Hands Nepal, Sindhuli  and PC-Resilience of Plan International Nepal, ERO will be focal person for supervision of this task. Programme Specialist, Emergency Response Manager and STA-CCA/DRM of Plan International Nepal will be key contact point for the overall deliverables.

Details of contact persons for this task

Consultancy firms and individual consultant(s) are requested to submit their proposals which should contain the following:

• Consulting firm profile: Legal information, objective, relevant experience including CVA, CfW and working under COVID-19 context, capacity of firm and key achievement
• Capacity of firm: HR, IT and Web storage and digital data security
• Proposed HR for this task: ½ page description of team leader, IT expert, management staff and support staff (Max. 4 only). Brief qualification, skill, expertise and experience. (Annex-1: CV with profiles of the team members demonstrating their academic and professional qualifications and experiences in similar work profiles of the team members are to be included with written consent).
• Understanding of ToR: Objective, scope and methodology for the task 
• Data security and ethical consideration
• References from previous clients
• Gantt chart with a fixed delivery time (work schedule)
• Financial proposal (in .pdf sign copy and MS excel) – fixed budget including appropriate government taxes
• Annex -2 Should have 

1. A. VAT registration certificate
2. Required legal documents and 
3. Tax clearance certificate 

Annex 3

1. A. Evidences of work experiences on designing and printing of e-voucher.
2. B. Evidences of work experience in humanitarian sector in designing CVA/CfW programs and SOPs.

10. How to apply

Interested consultancy firms and consultants should upload their application in following link.

CLICK HERE

11. Intended Users

The intended users of this digital platform are Hands Nepal, Sindhuli, Plan International Nepal, local selected vendors of Sindhuli district project beneficiaries.

12. Property Rights 

All information, data and reports produced will ultimately be the sole property of Plan International Nepal/Hands Nepal and no part of the property in any form or way can used for other purposes by the consultant, unless exclusive permission is obtained from Plan International Nepal or Hands Nepal Sindhuli.