National Consultant – MConnect Integrator/ Trainer

Vacancy Number: Pr17/01642

Location:Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline: 10 Nov 2017, 16:00 (GMT+2:00)
Application Extended deadline:
17 Nov 2017, 15:00 (GMT+2:00)
Application Extended deadline:
24 Nov 2017, 16:00 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:Individual Contract
Starting date: 30 Nov 2017
Reference to the project: Enhancing Democracy in Moldova through Inclusive and Transparent Elections
Expected Duration of Assignment:312 working days during November 2017 – December 2019
Submission Instructions:

Proposals should be submitted online by pressing the "Apply Online" button, no later than 14 November 2017.

Supporting Documents:
Terms of Reference
Individual Consultant Procurement Notice
Offeror's Letter confirming Interest and Availability
Personal History Form (P11)
UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Contacts:

Ms. Diana Zaharia.




Background

“Enhancing democracy in Moldova through inclusive and transparent elections” (EDMITE Project) is a newly approved project that sets the overall goal to achieve an enhanced transparency and inclusiveness of the electoral process in Moldova through a modernized IT system, improved legislation and intensified public participation, addressing the root causes of the current challenges hampering the further development of the democracy and the advancement of the electoral process in the Republic of Moldova.

The Project aims to contribute to: (1) achieving a more accurate State Register of Voters (SRV), improving the quality and accessibility data by re-engineering the Civil Status Service (CSS) systems, fully developing the State Address Register and facilitating data exchange and interoperability between different central public institutions via governmental platform for data exchange MConnect; (2) enhancing the inclusiveness of the electoral process through developing a remote voting tool and adjusting the State Automated Information System “Elections” (SAISE) to keep up with the technical and political developments; (3) legal reform in the area of elections to erase ambiguities and respond to the technical developments; and (4) enhancing political participation of citizens by setting up and implementing the voter information and civic education programmes.

Except for the CEC which is the main Beneficiary of the Project, EDMITE will continue to expand the previously partnering set-up with other central public institutions, like the Agency for Public Services (Cadaster Department, Population Registration and Documentation Department), the Electronic Government Center.  These are different state actors that center the population registration process and are responsible for important data sets necessary for fair and credible Elections.  Specific interventions are aimed to improve their systems and processes in order to enable them to supply the required data in a reliable quality and a required time frame, thus achieving an inclusive and transparent electoral process.

In the past years, the Electronic Government Center (EGC) made significant progress in modernizing governance using ICT, establishing a robust world-class core ICT infrastructure for electronic services, including MCloud reliable hosting facility, MConnect innovative interoperability and data exchange Platform, MSign digital signature, MPay electronic payments system, etc.

The new draft legal and regulatory framework on data exchange and interoperability, currently in the process of approval, is one of the major activities that positively marks the collaboration between UNDP and EGC. The purpose of the draft law is to implement the governmental interoperability framework of state information systems, through the establishment of a legal and normative basis for the use of an interoperability platform, which should regulate the data exchange process based on the interconnection and interoperability of the content/ information resources and the procedure for granting access to registers and databases of national importance for all public sector entities, in compliance with their legal competences and in accordance with the legal provisions. The envisaged interoperability platform proposed by the new law is MConnect. It was created and piloted three years ago as a technical solution to ensure data exchange among the information system held by the ministries, by other central administration authorities subordinated to the Government, as well as by autonomous public institutions, following the Government Decision No.404 as of 02.06.2014[1].  MConnect is under the state ownership as a component of the Shared Government Technology Platform MCloud.

With the scope to ensure work efficiency, the institutions that will use the electronic data exchange and interoperability platform, apart from granting the access to MConnect and MCloud will also need to get connected to certain electronic services, like MSign, MPass and MPay infrastructure. These integrations will allow the institutions to modernize their services, in accordance with their business processes and supply better data. The same goes for the Central Electoral Commission and many other institutions (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, Agency for Public Services) that supply data to the State Register of Voters, contributing to the inclusiveness and transparency of the electoral process.

For the next two years, EDMITE Project will support the EGC in expanding the knowledge base of the operations linked to the integration of the institutions listed above to the data exchange and interoperability platform MConnect. The Project will support the EGC by establishing an “Interoperability Integration Team” and will provide necessary certifying trainings for this team and the EGC staff. Further on, the “Interoperability Integration Team” will assist the Focal Points in those ministries and government institutions relevant for the electoral process, addressed by EDMITE Project, in connecting the State IT Systems administered by these government entities to MConnect, as well as to MAccess, MSign, MLog, and where needed to MPay. This practice will be done on side, in a learning by doing exercise, transferring the knowledge of the “Interoperability Integration Team” and the relevant EGC staff to the Focal Points.

[1] http://lex.justice.md/index.php?action=view&view=doc&lang=1&id=353238

Scope of work

The project intends to contract a National Consultant – MConnect Integrator/ Trainer   (hereafter the Consultant) to be part of the Interoperability Integration Team and support EGC relevant staff in connecting a series of line ministries and other central public administration entities (as per the list indicated below) to the data exchange and interoperability platform MConnect. The Consultant will provide support to the EGC and the UNDP Project as it follows:

  1. Expertise in defining data exchange at technical level;
  2. Expertise in configuring relevant interoperability platform components on-site for the line ministries and other central public administration entities that supply data for electoral processes (the full list of entities is pointed in the Consultant’s responsibilities and provided in the table of deliverables);
  3. Expertise in developing standard-based web-services using the data exchange and interoperability platform for line ministries and other central public administration entities that supply data for electoral processes (the full list of entities is pointed in the Consultant’s responsibilities and provided in the table of deliverables);
  4. Expertise in developing training materials for data exchange platform integration cases;
  5. Conduct integration trainings on demand;
  6. Technical advice for the software adaptability and accessibility for the needs of the persons with different types of disabilities, linguistic minorities (where relevant), other targeted and vulnerable groups.

The Consultant will have the following responsibilities:

  • Apply the methodology for data exchange at technical level existent in the State IT Systems administered by the following line ministries and central public administration entities: Agency for Public Services/ Department of Cadaster, Department of Population Registration and Documentation, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, to be used by the data exchange and interoperability platform;
  • Develop and/ or implement standard-based web-services using the data exchange and interoperability platform in the following line ministries and central public administration entities: Agency for Public Services/ Department of Cadaster, Department of Population Registration and Documentation, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Ministry of Education, Culture and Research;
  • Develop training materials for data exchange platform integration cases to be further used as institutional memory;
  • Assist the EGC and the UNDP Project to ensure that the data exchange and interoperability platform, is adaptable to the use of the persons with different types of disabilities, targeted and vulnerable groups of people, in accordance with the current EGC legal and regulatory framework, and where possible, respond to the WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) recommendations (http://www.w3c.org/WAI).

For detailed information, please refer to Annex 1 – Terms of Reference.

Requirements for experience

Academic Qualifications:

  • University degree with 3 years of continued studies (BA level or equivalent) in data analysis or other related field; MA or equivalent in the same fields will be considered an advantage.

Experience:

  • At least two (2) years of working experience in XML/JSON and related technologies, especially XSD/JSONSchema and good data validation rule practices;
  • At least two (2) years of developing web applications, using .NET/ Java technologies;
  • Experience in electronic data exchange and interoperability would be a strong advantage;

Competencies:

  • Familiarity with the Government Interoperability Framework Program (Government Decisions No. 404 and No. 656);
  • Knowledge of the EU Interoperability Framework for Pan-European Services;
  • Familiarity with the work of central public administration institutions of the Republic of Moldova;
  • Understanding of the web/ software accessibility issues and ways to insure web/ software accessibility for persons with different type of disabilities, linguistic minorities, vulnerable and targeted groups;
  • Knowledge of English, Romanian and Russian languages for the purposes of the assignment;
  • Knowledge of one or more additional languages relevant for Moldova, including Bulgarian, Gagauzian, Romani, Ukrainian or sign language is an asset.

Personal qualities:

  • Proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular, respecting differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other status; 
  • Responsibility, creativity, flexibility and punctuality, ability to meet deadlines and prioritize multiple tasks.

 Proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular, respecting differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other status.

UNDP Moldova is committed to workforce diversity. Women, persons with disabilities, Roma and other ethnic or religious minorities, persons living with HIV, as well as refugees and other non-citizens legally entitled to work in the Republic of Moldova, are particularly encouraged to apply.

Documents to be included

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

  • Offeror's Letter confirming Interest and Availability
  • Proposal: explaining why they are the most suitable for the work including previous experience in similar Projects (please provide brief information on each of the above qualifications, item by item);
  • Financial proposal (in USD, specifying a total requested amount per working day, including all related costs, e.g. fees, phone calls etc.);
  • Duly completed and signed Personal History Form (P11), personal CV and at least 3 references.

Financial proposal

  • Contracts based on daily fee

The financial proposal will specify the daily fee, travel expenses and per diems quoted in separate line items, and payments are made to the Individual Consultant based on the number of days worked.

Travel

 All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel.  In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

 In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.


 

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