Uganda: Consultancy to develop a web-page for NBI's 20th Anniversary campaign

1.Introduction

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) is a regional intergovernmental partnership of 10 Nile Basin countries, namely Burundi, DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, The Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. It was established on 22 February, 1999, by Ministers in charge of Water Affairs in the Nile Basin countries to work towards a Shared Vision Objective: To achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources”. The shared belief is that countries can achieve better outcomes for all the peoples of the Basin through cooperation rather than competition. At the heart of this challenge is the imperative to eradicate poverty.

NBI provides the Member States with the only basin wide and impartial platform to discuss with trust and confidence how to jointly take care of and utilize the shared Nile Basin water resources for win-win socio-economic benefits and to promote regional peace and security.

The Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-COM) of Water Affairs in the NBI Member States is the highest decision-making body and provides policy guidance to the NBI. The Nile Technical Advisory Committee (Nile-TAC), comprising technical representatives from the partner states offers technical support and advice to the Nile-COM on matters related to the management and development of the common Nile Basin water resources.

Professional day to day management of the NBI is by three centers namely a regional Secretariat, the Nile Basin Initiative Secretariat (Nile-SEC) located in Entebbe, Uganda; the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO) based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program Coordination Unit (NELSAP-CU) based in Kigali, Rwanda. In each country, the National NBI Office headed by the respective Nile-TAC member serves as the focal point for all NBI-related activities.

What NBI does

NBI provides Member States with services under three core functions as follows:

• Facilitating Basin cooperation. This function is undertaken to provide a common platform for countries to engage, consult and deliberate with each other and other Nile stakeholders on a regular basis. It aims to build broad political and civic support for transboundary water cooperation in the basin.
• Water Resources Planning and Management. This function provides critical services in building basin wide technical competencies and capabilities and support science/knowledge based decision making to monitoring, protecting and sustaining the Nile water resources.
• Water Resources Development. This function mainly focuses on identification and preparation of cooperative water resources investments that demonstrate to the basin population the benefits accruing from cooperation.

To achieve the Shared Vision Objective, NBI prepared a 10 year strategy. The 10-year Strategy identifies six strategic priorities (referred to as ‘Goals’) which NBI’s activities will focus on over the coming 10 years. The strategic priorities are: water security, energy security, food security, environmental sustainability, climate change adaptation, and strengthening transboundary water governance. The strategy is implemented through respective NBI Centers 5-year Strategic Plans.

Nile Day 2019/NBI’s 20^th anniversary

Each year on February 22, Nile Basin citizens and friends of the Nile gather to commemorate the establishment of NBI, celebrate the benefits of Nile cooperation and exchange experiences, share views and ideas on issues related to the cooperative management and development of the shared Nile Basin water and related resources. The occasion is also used by Member States to re-affirm their commitment to Nile Cooperation. This is in addition to enhancing awareness of NBI’s achievements. The Day also provides an opportunity to celebrate the rich and varied cultures which exist within the Nile Basin.

February 22, 2019 marks a major milestone for the institution as it coincides with 20^th anniversary of NBI’s founding. It offers an opportunity for both reflection on the successes and challenges of the past 20 years of Nile cooperation, and consolidation of Member States’ commitment to the Basin cooperation agenda laid out in NBI’s 10-Year Strategy.

To fully utilize this opportunity and generate increased momentum for both the technical and political cooperation tracks in the basin, Nile-SEC proposes to undertake a year-long campaign starting in January 2019. A communication and stakeholder engagement campaign will be developed to support entire campaign.

Objectives of the Event/Year-long campaign

• To enhance awareness of NBI’s achievements during the past two decades and to enhance buy-in for the Basin cooperation agenda, as spearheaded by NBI in the next decade (2017 – 2027).
• To provide context to NBI’s current goals and strategies for the future
• To generate increased momentum for both the technical and political cooperation tracks in the Basin
• To attract support and collaboration of strategic partners in managing the shared Nile Basin water resources for the betterment of lives and livelihoods

2.The Assignment

As part of the campaign to enhance awareness, the NBI Secretariat (Nile-SEC) plans to develop a dedicated webpage and is therefore seeking the services of an experienced consultant to design and construct a comprehensive and user friendly web page that offers a visible web platform to inform, raise awareness and share relevant information about the upcoming NBI 20^th Anniversary campaign.

The webpage will be launched in January 2019 during an event organised in each NBI Member State.

2.1Objective of the consultancy

The objective of this consultancy is to design a webpage in order to:

· Provide timely, relevant and accessible information about the NBI 20^th anniversary; what it is and why it matters, in a simple and compelling way.

· Enhance awareness and visibility of NBI and Nile cooperation to a larger public audience.

· Promote and share NBI’s achievements over the last two decades with a larger audience.

· Offer a platform for recording and keeping a record of the information generated as part of 20^th Anniversary celebrations for future reference.

2.2Scope of Work

The consultant shall be required to create (design, develop, test, implement) a web platform within the designated timeline and in line with NBI’s corporate design guidelines, which meets the following criteria:

Technical considerations

· Interactive, appealing, highly user-friendly and responsive web design based on NBI Design Corporate Design guidelines (which will be shared with a consultant)

· Developed as content management system based on Wordpress, Joomla or Drupal.

· Developed so as to render appropriately on a wide variety of different browsers, optimized for tablet and smartphones and low bandwidth connections

· Configure the webpage as a subdomain of the main NBI website

· Tentative site architecture will be agreed with NBI during the requirements phase of the development

Webpage Features

The following features shall be integrated in the design

· Search functionality: The solution should provide users with the ability to search for and locate content based on keywords and key phrases, date, country etc

· Multi language functionality

· Event calendar with time ticker to the main event on February 22, 2019 and other campaign related activities thereafter.

· Social Media Integration covering at least Twitter, Facebook , YouTube and Flicker

· Display of live tweets about the event

· Multimedia Functionality: this will include easy to use features to manage photo galleries, video uploads, podcast management

· Mass mailing /Customer relations management functionality

· Quick loading sliders for display of images, videos and text

· Site security features

· Site admin features

· Online Form management/ submission capability

2.3Deliverables

· A web page that is responsive, fully developed, functioning and running online without any flaws

· A web page that is designed and programmed in a way that enables Nile-SEC to manage its content. This includes handover of admin rights to Nile-SEC in such a way that content can be changed autonomously

· Configuration documentation and guidelines, which clearly state how to manage the web page

2.4Competencies and Qualifications

· A proven track record of developing websites, which respond to contemporary global design trends, are user friendly and easy to maintain as well as to deliver in a timely manner.

· Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology or Computer science

· A relevant technical qualification in web design will be an added advantage

· At least five years’ experience in website construction, development and maintenance (should have constructed at least three sites in the last 2 years)

· Extensive understanding of Content Management Systems and Joomla in particular

· Demonstrable technical proficiency in relation to emerging internet trends, technology, and tools.

· Good knowledge of web programming languages such as PHP, Java, JSP, XML, XHTML, HTML JavaScript, C#.

· Extensive knowledge of image and other multimedia editing tools.

· Proficiency with key software and tools such as Freehand, Adobe, Illustrator and Photoshop.

2.5Implementation

The selected candidate will be supervised by Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Specialist with the support of the IT Officer who will provide technical backstopping.

All interested applicants should send the following to embonye@nilebasin.org with copy to nbianniversary@nilebasin.org not later than 17:00 hours 8th November 2018 (a)Application letter; (b) Curriculum vitae; (c) Links to at least two (2) sample websites. further details can be found on Nile Basin Website