Type of Contract: Specialized Firm
Duration of the assignment: 30 days
Duty station: Somalia, Garowe
Expected places of travel: None
Supervisor: Primary supervisor: Project, secondary:
Anticipated presence at UNDP premises: Garowe
II. Background and Organizational Context
Background:
The Puntland parliament was formed immediately after the Puntland State of Somalia declared itself as an
autonomous, self-governing entity in the Mudug, Nugal, Bari, Sool, Sanaag & Buhodle in 1998. The legislative
authority of the State is vested in the House of Representatives (HOR), comprised of 66 members who
represent every region of Puntland. The term of the HOR is five years in which the members are eligible for
re-election. The HOR has a speaker and two deputy speakers who are elected from among its members.
Since its inception, the Puntland HOR has passed over 85 laws, statutes and rules. The HOR also has
committees that oversee, scrutinize, and hold to account the Departments of the Ministries of the executive
branch, in conducting their duties.
Since the selection of the new HOR in January 2014, UNDP has ramped up its support to the legislature. The
HOR approved its Strategic Plan in Q2 of 2014, which is the policy and planning framework that guides UNDP
support for the HOR over the coming years. Other key supports provided by UNDP to Puntland HOR include
offering capacity building training for the secretariat staff and revising the Rules of the Procedure of the
House.
In May 2015, the UNDP and HoR signed a letter of agreement (LoA) to implement a wide of project activities
to support HoR’s 2015 AWP, including the refurbishment of Parliament offices and upgrading of parliament
conference hall, development of the Puntland Parliament website, strengthening of ICT infrastructure,
strengthening Parliament security infrastructure and security processes, supporting HoR to conduct
constituency visits to Puntland regions and supporting the Parliament to engage in resolution of local
disputes.
III. Objectives of Assignment
The overall objective of this assignment is to develop an official website for the Puntland State House of
Representatives. The website should support the functionalities of both a normal website and an e-library
database.
IV. Functions/Scope of work
The consultancy firm should undertake the following core activities:
A) Develop a website for the PL House of Representatives that meets the Inter-Parliamentary Union-provided
“Guidelines for Parliamentary Websites”.
B) Recommend and secure an appropriate hosting provider for the completed website (https data protocol
should be implemented).
C) Propose and install applications to allow for Live Streaming, email domain and polling.
D) Propose and implement a training program to enhance the professional knowledge of identified staff of the
secretariats of the HoR to ensure proper operation and maintenance of the websites.
Core Activity 1: Develop a website for the PL House of Representatives
The design, features/structure, and facilities available on the websites should meet the Inter Parliamentary
Union (IPU) standards (http://www.ipu.org/PDF/publications/web-e.pdf) and the websites should, based on
IPU guidelines, have the space/options for the following contents, but not limited to:
I. Essential elements of content
A- GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE STRUCTURE OF PARLIAMENT
* Overview of the composition and functions of the PL Parliament and its committees
* Full text of the Standing Orders, Rules of Procedure or similar rule-setting documents;
* Text of the PL state Constitution;
* Overview of parliamentary procedure;
* Explanation of the routine order of parliamentary business;
* Statistics on the activities of the current legislature;
* Brief history of the PL HoR;
* Texts of official press releases of the parliament;
B- LEGISLATIVE PROCESS AND DOCUMENTS
* Schematic explanation of the legislative process;
* Legislative agenda and schedule of the current session;
* Searchable database of legislative acts enacted by the current legislature;
* Status of current parliamentary business by bill number, topic, title, date, document code, parliamentary
body, etc.
* Searchable database of committee reports, records, hearings, votes and other parliamentary
documents pertaining to the current legislature;
* Searchable database of legislative acts and other parliamentary documents
* Summary or complete records of parliamentary debates/sessions;
* Special section devoted to parliamentary questions and inquiries addressed to the executive branch;
* Glossary of parliamentary procedure;
* Audio and video Web telecasting of parliamentary sessions
II. Interactivity tools and links with other Web sites
C- FEEDBACK AND OTHER INTERACTIVITY TOOLS
* A feedback utility that allows users to send their comments and questions directly to the Webmaster by
means of forms
* Preconfigured electronic mail for sending messages to parliamentary bodies and individual officers
directly from the pages of the Web site.
* Discussion forums where users can take part in on-line discussions on specific issues, usually related
to current debates in the parliament;
* Mailing lists which allow users to subscribe to automatic e-mail delivery of parliamentary information,
such as legislative texts;
III. Usability and Design Considerations
D- LANGUAGES
* The web design should support options enabling the textual information on PL parliament Website to be
available both in Somali and English languages.
E- SEARCH AND INTERNAL NAVIGATION TOOLS
* Quick search utility – this standard intra-site search tool is based on automatic indexing of documents
and allows free-text search for words and word combinations throughout the site; * “What’s New” page – a sort of announcement board with direct hyperlinks to the newest documents on the site; * Site map – textual or graphical visualization of the site’s overall structure containing hyperlinks to individual documents.
V. Final product/Deliverables
Deliverables Duty station Deliverables verification 1. Design, structuring and building of website 2. Participate the procurement of the domain name 3. Provide staff training Garowe Garowe Garowe Payment will be made upon certification by supervisor of time sheets for actual days of work and consultant performance in accordance with activities and deliverables as reported in the Activity Reports.
VI. Review/Approval time
Achievement of Deliverables will be approved by the UNDP Constitutions/Parliaments CTA
VII. Qualifications and Competencies
* A combined minimum of five years web development/design experience
* Experience with Flash, Photoshop or similar graphics editing software; Cross Browser experience
required, experience on Windows, Linux, Apache Web Servers; proficiency in at least one server-side
scripting language (Phyton, PHP, Ruby, ASP, C#, VB, etc), prior experience with JAVA/JSP preferred;
full understanding of Object Oriented Programming principles; proficiency with MSSQL or MySQL or
similar; exposure to code management system – CVS preferred; proficiency with HTML, CSS, Java Script
(DOM scripting), Java Script Frameworks, AJAX
* Knowledge of the following are assets: Wiki Architecture (moin, mediawiki); Mapping (Googlemaps api /
openlayers) Flash development; Various Frameworks for web development (Plone, Cheetah, Cake,
Rails); Social Networking Sites;discussion Forums, and their integration into feeds / streamed content;
Agile development;
* Familiarity with Parliamentary websites
* Ability to deliver products within set time frames and budgets.
* A University Degree in Computer Science, Graphic Design or equivalent discipline is an asset but not a
prerequisite Fluent in written and spoken English and Somali
VIII. Other Information
Consultant will need his or her own laptop and to be fully ensured including for medical evacuation
Time Allocation
Application Process: Consultants or Consultancy firms should send a technical proposal (2 pages), a financial proposal, and summary of relevant past experience of the firm and/or consultants, All application and CV’s can be directed to puntlandparliament@gmail.com , Deadline 15th of August-2015,
For further information please contact +252 90 7798968 or +252 90 7728961