TERMS OF REFERENCE Implement a Cotton Management System (CMS) for the Bottom Up Program in Ethiopia

Solidaridad Network is an international solution-oriented civil society organization working through eight regional expertise centers to transform markets to make them more sustainable and inclusive.   Our eight regional expertise centers include Asia, Eastern and Central Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, Southern Africa, South America, West Africa and our global Secretariat in the Netherlands. Solidaridad Eastern and Central Africa, one of the regional centers, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya with country offices and programmes in Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. We bring together supply chain players and engage them with innovative solutions to improve production, ensuring the transition to a sustainable and inclusive economy that maximizes the benefit for all. We facilitate strengthening of local capacity in developing countries, support the creation of enabling environments for economies to thrive, and improve market access.

The Bottom Up! Project was launched by Solidaridad Network with the support of the EU to contribute to a sustainable, inclusive and transparent value chain that generates business growth, improves working conditions, and promotes labour and environmental standards and responsible purchasing practices in the cotton and garments industry in Ethiopia and Europe by 2022

Bottom Up! intends to carry-out a data collection exercise through a digital tool to Profile cotton farmers on areas of Farmer Bio Data, improved agronomic practices, IPM data, ginnery infrastructure data, which also incorporates Geo analytics adopting polygons, costing cotton farm data and processing data, environmental and social practices, all these is in efforts to develop an intelligent Cotton Management System (CMS) that will rely on the most recent developments in ICT for gathering agribusiness data and managing farmers databases to provide a decision-making support to different system users. Once implemented this system will allow regional and national stakeholders (Smallholder farmers, large farms, ECPGEA, ETIDI, Ministry of agriculture) identify program impediments, better target interventions to address them and measure the impacts of these interventions. It will also benefit external stakeholders – donors, partners, service providers, by providing insightful decision-making analysis and reports.

The cotton management system dubbed CMS will utilize a combination of data from computerized sources (such as ODK/Kobo aggregate server, Solidaridad in-house suits, CSV, and other data files). Solidaridad is requesting for an Expression of Interest (EoI) as per the activities outlined below.

ACTIVITIES

• Develop a comprehensive data model and design methodology
• Develop a tailored solution, owned and branded as per Solidaridad’s standards
• Carry out consultation with data users (Program stakeholders). To the extent possible, all the comments received during the consultations should be incorporated in the refined methodologies.
• The system should run on a secure Relational Database Management Server
• Deploy a Web-based platform (incorporating Mobile version) to synthesis data collected and generate reports and dashboards.
• System to have a three-tiered security protocol, with Data access security protocols as per EU data laws
• Design a time conscious Project charter and project plan that will govern the development and deployment of this software in a timely manner
• Design a comprehensive Project budget plan to cover the development and deployment of the solutions
• Identify and employ appropriate methodologies and approaches to guide the deployment and ensure prompt and credible results at the end of this assignment
• Adhere to the organization’s policies and procedures in project implementation
• Design a comprehensive training module for the software and provide training to the users.

ASSIGNMENT DELIVERABLES

The Cotton Management System dabbed CMS will be designed and implemented with the objective of systematically collecting data for analysis and reporting:

• System to manage data analysis and reporting,
• System to Monitoring and evaluation capacity by project managers and ICT manager
• System to have dashboard functionalities with map interactive capabilities
• System to allow for real-time data analysis
• System to be web based with possibilities for a Mobile integration
• System to allow for upgrade and integration with other digital solutions

For the purposes of the project, the system design should comply with technical standards of Digital Solidaridad Sustainable Solution (D3S) methodologies. This process should be coordinated closely with the project manager, as the intended owner of the CMS, and/or its successor (PMEL) to avoid duplication and ensure relevance of the monitoring data. Solidaridad will provide relevant documentation from the baseline as may be necessary.

 EXPECTED OUTPUTS

•  An expression of interest (EOI), deployment methodology
• Detailed Project Plan in the implementation of the solution
• Detailed Budget of the activities in an excel sheet
• Inception meeting to present methodology and thereafter minutes of the meeting,
• Weekly progress reports (narrative)and to present/validate progress/reports,
• Monthly final report and proceeding minutes of validation workshops.

SUPERVISION OF THE ASSIGNMENT

Directly report to REC East and Central Africa.

ASSESSMENT

Solidaridad will evaluate the proposals received based on the demonstrated understanding of these Terms of Reference, and capacity to deliver to meet these needs, as well the estimated budget and timeline.