Terms Of Reference Recruitment of a Consultancy firm to Provide & Manage the Cloud Hosting Platform for the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA)
Client Smart Africa Secretariat
10th Floor, Career Center Building
KG 541 ST, Kigali, Rwanda,
+250 788-300-581/784013646
PO Box: 4913 info@smartafrica.org www.smartafrica.org

RFP#: 088/SA-SADA/RFP/02/2023
Release date: 24th February 2023
Closing date: 24th March 2023; 17:00 pm (Local time, Kigali)
Contact For any questions or enquiries, please write to: tenderenquiries@smartafrica.org
For Submissions: procurement@smartafrica.org

1. ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND
1.1 Smart Africa
Smart Africa is a bold and innovative commitment from African Heads of State and Government to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the continent, ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through affordable access to Broadband and usage of Information and Communications Technologies.
The Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali, Rwanda on 28th-31st October 2013 culminated in the adoption of the Smart Africa Manifesto document by seven (7) African Heads of States (Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Mali, Gabon, Burkina Faso) in which they committed to providing leadership in accelerating socio-economic development through ICT’s.
On 30th -31st January 2014, The Smart Africa Manifesto was endorsed by all Heads of State and Government of the African Union at the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa. This development places the Manifesto at the heart of the ICT agenda in Africa beyond just the 7 original signatories at the Summit to all the 54 African countries. The Smart Africa Alliance has since grown to include 31 African countries that represent 750+ million people.
The Smart Africa Manifesto aims to put ICT at the center of national socioeconomic development agenda of member countries; improve access to ICT especially Broadband; to improve accountability, efficiency, and openness through ICT promoting the introduction of advanced technologies in telecommunication; to put Private Sector first, and to leverage ICT to promote sustainable development.

Similar Jobs in Rwanda
Learn more about Smart Africa
Smart Africa jobs in Rwanda

1.2 Smart Africa Digital Academy
The continent’s working-age population is set to increase by two-thirds, from 370 million adults in 2010 to over 600 million in 2030. The share of this population with at least a secondary education is set to increase from 36% in 2010 to 52% in 2030. As 15 to 20 million increasingly well-educated young people are expected to join the African workforce every year for the next three decades, delivering the ecosystem for quality jobs and future skills to match will be imperative for fully leveraging the continent’s demographic dividend.
The Smart Africa Alliance aims to transform Africa into a single digital marketplace. To effectively undertake this, the Secretariat launched a Capacity Building initiative geared towards connecting, innovating, and transforming the continent into a knowledge economy thereby driving global competitiveness and job creation. This initiative also aims at enabling Member States to become more competitive and meet the job demand, by equipping young people with the necessary skills for the future of work.
The Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) provides opportunities for exchange to policymakers and regulators to promote the digital transformation in Africa. With its various learning programmes and formats SADA wants to improve participants’ skills for drafting inclusive, gender-sensitive, and climate-smart ICT regulations. SADA also reaches a wider audience from entrepreneurs to engaged citizens with the aim of improving their digital literacy with an aim of bridging the digital dive so that they can fully benefit from the new potentials offered by digital technologies.

2. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The Smart Africa Secretariat is inviting proposals from reputable and qualified companies/agencies, with a track record of success providing Cloud Hosting services for world-class, dynamic, and responsive digital web-based applications and portals. The hosting provider will provide cloud hosting for the various SADA portals as listed below:
The selected solution will support the following use:
• Hosting for the SADA platforms and additional tools and support for seamless integration of existing portals with simultaneous access
• Hosting for any other Smart Africa digital portals with the required availability, quality of service, security and performance level for a rich user experience
• Deployment and management of the SADA digital platforms
• Providing 24/7 technical support & maintenance of the cloud hosting provider
• Project management & maintenance plan
Deployment & Management of the SADA digital platforms
• Providing 24/7 technical support & maintenance for the cloud hosting server
• Project management & maintenance plan

3. SCOPE OF WORK
The Consulting firm will be expected to undertake the following tasks:
1. Provision of a cloud hosting server preferably on the Linux Operating System
2. Three (3) years hosting plan for the SMART AFRICA digital web portals and related digital platforms.
3. Secured server environment (OS hardening, endpoint protection, anti-malware, anti-DDOS);
4. Provision of Secure Sockets Layers Certificate for three years
5. Remote desktop access
6. 24x7 technical support
7. Daily, Weekly and Monthly backups
8. Ensure the cloud hosting server has uptime of up to 99.9% availability

Server Specifications
Component Specifications
Processor 4 - 8 vCPU
Storage 1 TB SSD
RAM 8 GB
Bandwidth 3-4 GB
Control Panel Cpanel / WHM
Server Location Africa Region
Estimated Monthly Data Transfer
~10,000 – 20,000 Visits/Month
~4 Pages/Visitor
~200,000 Page Views/Month
1.8 Redundant Factor
= 4,000 GB/Month (Data Transfer/Month)

4. PROVIDER’S LOCATION
The selected provider should be located within Africa, and the cloud solution provider should be a reputable cloud operator with regional data centers on the African continent.

5. CONTRACT DURATION
The Contract duration is 36 months renewable based on satisfactory performance.
6. COMPANY PROFILE AND EXPERIENCE
In addition to the human resources required to assemble its team, as described below, the firm must meet the following minimum requirements to be considered for the evaluation:
• Relevant experience in deploying Open Source based Content Management Systems (CMS) that are powered by dynamic database-driven websites in a cloud environment for Government or International Organizations
• Have a deep knowledge of current web development technologies and design tools in the field.
• Have excellent knowledge in troubleshooting cloud-based servers to ensure optimal use and configuration
• Expertise in help desk management & ensuring 24/7 reliability for dynamic high traffic web-based applications and digital platforms
• Experience in project management for complex website development projects and facilitating organizational input to deliver on time and within budget.

7. EVALUATION CRITERIA
The following model will be used to evaluate all respondents and proposals submitted:
a) Technical Evaluation Criteria
Item Assigned Points Point Range
Understanding of Project Requirements and Work schedule
• Experience in deploying and managing large, complex cloud hosting services (3 projects evidence)
• Proposed cloud hosting & management workplan
• Proposed sample maintenance contract 15
10

10 /35
Staff Experience
1. System Administrator
• 5 Years of proven experience in Cloud hosting management
• 3 similar projects 5
15 /20
2. I.T. Security Expert
• 5 years proven experience in I.T. Security
• 3 similar projects 5
15
/20

Firm Experience
• Length of time providing similar services (5-10 years)
• Three Recommendation letters (signed) 10
15 /25
The financial proposal of only those firms which secure a minimum score of 70/100 in the technical evaluation will be opened.
St= Score for the Technical Evaluation
b) Financial Criteria
Once the technical criteria have been evaluated, the costs of all bids will be listed from low to high. Computing the cost criteria score will be accomplished by use of the following formula:
= Sf
The Applicant getting maximum marks on 70-0 weightage (70% for technical and 30% for financial) will be considered for the assignment. The weights given to the Technical (T) and Financial Proposals (F) are T = 0.70 and F = 0.30
The Final Score (S) is calculated as follows: S = St*T + Sf*F
8. Submission Requirements For Technical And Financial
PROPOSALS
A specific outline must be followed to facilitate the Smart Africa Secretariat’s review and evaluation of the responses received.
A response to this RFP must include the following sections in the order listed:
1. A cover letter confirming the firm’s interest to provide the services required
2. Administrative documents (Company registration certificates, Tax clearance certificates, Cloud Service Provider official reseller document). Failure to submit will lead to automatic disqualification of the offer.
3. A technical proposal containing the following content:
o Executive summary
o Business experience/Profiles
o Mockup and prototype reflecting understanding of expectations
o Work Plan / Schedule
o Mission team experience/profiles
o Updated Curriculum Vitae for the team and evidence of previous assignment, as well as design portfolio (for design expert)
o Firms’ portfolio of similar websites previously designed
o Recommendation letters signed and stamped

4. Financial Proposal containing the following tables.
o Summarized Total Cost VAT Inclusive (Value of tax indicated on final cost)
o Breakdown of a remuneration package
o Breakdown of reimbursable expenses (Cloud Hosting Fees)
o All companies should quote in Rwandan Francs (RWF) as currency.
o All bidding firms/ companies should Indicate their preferred payment terms
Notes:
1. All Financial Proposals/offers should be password protected and Smart Africa will request for it for bidders who have been qualified in the technical evaluation.
2. Only firms eligible to apply to this assignment, no individuals will be accepted.

9. Submission Process
Soft copies of both Technical and financial proposals must be sent to: procurement@smartafrica.org showing each the nature of the offer concerned (technical or financial offer), the firm’s name not later than 24th March 2023 at, 05:00 pm local time (Kigali) prompt to the Procurement Unit of Smart Africa Secretariat on above email address, with reference in subject: 088/SA-SADA/RFP/02/2023 «Provision & Management of Cloud Hosting Services to the Smart Africa Digital Academy »
10. Validity:
Proposals and quotes must remain valid for 180 days after the date of closing noted above. After, the closing date and time, all proposals received by the Smart Africa Secretariat become its property.
11. Anti-Corruption:
Smart Africa is committed to preventing and not tolerating any act of corruption and other malpractices and expects that all bidders will adhere to the same ethical principles.
12. Enquires:
Any enquires will be received and addressed 5 days or mor before the closing date for the submission of any proposal through tenderenquiries@smartafrica.org .

13. Rights Reserved:
1. This RFP does not obligate the Smart Africa Secretariat (SAS) to complete the RFP process.
2. SAS reserves the right to amend any segment of the RFP prior to the announcement of a selected firm.
3. SAS also reserves the right to remove one or more of the services from consideration for this contract should the evaluation show that it is in SAS’s best interest to do so.
4. SAS also may, at its discretion, issue a separate contract for any service or groups of services included in this RFP. SAS may negotiate a compensation package and additional provisions to the contract awarded under this RFP.
5. Smart Africa reserves the right to debrief the applicants after the completion of thTerms Of Reference
Recruitment of a Consultancy firm to Provide & Manage the Cloud Hosting Platform for the Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA)
Client Smart Africa Secretariat
10th Floor, Career Center Building
KG 541 ST, Kigali, Rwanda,
+250 788-300-581/784013646
PO Box: 4913 info@smartafrica.org www.smartafrica.org

RFP#: 088/SA-SADA/RFP/02/2023
Release date: 24th February 2023
Closing date: 24th March 2023; 17:00 pm (Local time, Kigali)
Contact For any questions or enquiries, please write to: tenderenquiries@smartafrica.org
For Submissions: procurement@smartafrica.org

1. ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND
1.1 Smart Africa
Smart Africa is a bold and innovative commitment from African Heads of State and Government to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the continent, ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through affordable access to Broadband and usage of Information and Communications Technologies.
The Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali, Rwanda on 28th-31st October 2013 culminated in the adoption of the Smart Africa Manifesto document by seven (7) African Heads of States (Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Mali, Gabon, Burkina Faso) in which they committed to providing leadership in accelerating socio-economic development through ICT’s.
On 30th -31st January 2014, The Smart Africa Manifesto was endorsed by all Heads of State and Government of the African Union at the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa. This development places the Manifesto at the heart of the ICT agenda in Africa beyond just the 7 original signatories at the Summit to all the 54 African countries. The Smart Africa Alliance has since grown to include 31 African countries that represent 750+ million people.
The Smart Africa Manifesto aims to put ICT at the center of national socioeconomic development agenda of member countries; improve access to ICT especially Broadband; to improve accountability, efficiency, and openness through ICT promoting the introduction of advanced technologies in telecommunication; to put Private Sector first, and to leverage ICT to promote sustainable development.

Similar Jobs in Rwanda
Learn more about Smart Africa
Smart Africa jobs in Rwanda

1.2 Smart Africa Digital Academy
The continent’s working-age population is set to increase by two-thirds, from 370 million adults in 2010 to over 600 million in 2030. The share of this population with at least a secondary education is set to increase from 36% in 2010 to 52% in 2030. As 15 to 20 million increasingly well-educated young people are expected to join the African workforce every year for the next three decades, delivering the ecosystem for quality jobs and future skills to match will be imperative for fully leveraging the continent’s demographic dividend.
The Smart Africa Alliance aims to transform Africa into a single digital marketplace. To effectively undertake this, the Secretariat launched a Capacity Building initiative geared towards connecting, innovating, and transforming the continent into a knowledge economy thereby driving global competitiveness and job creation. This initiative also aims at enabling Member States to become more competitive and meet the job demand, by equipping young people with the necessary skills for the future of work.
The Smart Africa Digital Academy (SADA) provides opportunities for exchange to policymakers and regulators to promote the digital transformation in Africa. With its various learning programmes and formats SADA wants to improve participants’ skills for drafting inclusive, gender-sensitive, and climate-smart ICT regulations. SADA also reaches a wider audience from entrepreneurs to engaged citizens with the aim of improving their digital literacy with an aim of bridging the digital dive so that they can fully benefit from the new potentials offered by digital technologies.

2. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The Smart Africa Secretariat is inviting proposals from reputable and qualified companies/agencies, with a track record of success providing Cloud Hosting services for world-class, dynamic, and responsive digital web-based applications and portals. The hosting provider will provide cloud hosting for the various SADA portals as listed below:
The selected solution will support the following use:
• Hosting for the SADA platforms and additional tools and support for seamless integration of existing portals with simultaneous access
• Hosting for any other Smart Africa digital portals with the required availability, quality of service, security and performance level for a rich user experience
• Deployment and management of the SADA digital platforms
• Providing 24/7 technical support & maintenance of the cloud hosting provider
• Project management & maintenance plan
Deployment & Management of the SADA digital platforms
• Providing 24/7 technical support & maintenance for the cloud hosting server
• Project management & maintenance plan

3. SCOPE OF WORK
The Consulting firm will be expected to undertake the following tasks:
1. Provision of a cloud hosting server preferably on the Linux Operating System
2. Three (3) years hosting plan for the SMART AFRICA digital web portals and related digital platforms.
3. Secured server environment (OS hardening, endpoint protection, anti-malware, anti-DDOS);
4. Provision of Secure Sockets Layers Certificate for three years
5. Remote desktop access
6. 24x7 technical support
7. Daily, Weekly and Monthly backups
8. Ensure the cloud hosting server has uptime of up to 99.9% availability

Server Specifications
Component Specifications
Processor 4 - 8 vCPU
Storage 1 TB SSD
RAM 8 GB
Bandwidth 3-4 GB
Control Panel Cpanel / WHM
Server Location Africa Region
Estimated Monthly Data Transfer
~10,000 – 20,000 Visits/Month
~4 Pages/Visitor
~200,000 Page Views/Month
1.8 Redundant Factor
= 4,000 GB/Month (Data Transfer/Month)
4. PROVIDER’S LOCATION
The selected provider should be located within Africa, and the cloud solution provider should be a reputable cloud operator with regional data centers on the African continent.

5. CONTRACT DURATION
The Contract duration is 36 months renewable based on satisfactory performance.

6. COMPANY PROFILE AND EXPERIENCE
In addition to the human resources required to assemble its team, as described below, the firm must meet the following minimum requirements to be considered for the evaluation:
• Relevant experience in deploying Open Source based Content Management Systems (CMS) that are powered by dynamic database-driven websites in a cloud environment for Government or International Organizations
• Have a deep knowledge of current web development technologies and design tools in the field.
• Have excellent knowledge in troubleshooting cloud-based servers to ensure optimal use and configuration
• Expertise in help desk management & ensuring 24/7 reliability for dynamic high traffic web-based applications and digital platforms
• Experience in project management for complex website development projects and facilitating organizational input to deliver on time and within budget.

7. EVALUATION CRITERIA
The following model will be used to evaluate all respondents and proposals submitted:
a) Technical Evaluation Criteria
Item Assigned Points Point Range
Understanding of Project Requirements and Work schedule
• Experience in deploying and managing large, complex cloud hosting services (3 projects evidence)
• Proposed cloud hosting & management workplan
• Proposed sample maintenance contract 15
10

10 /35
Staff Experience
1. System Administrator
• 5 Years of proven experience in Cloud hosting management
• 3 similar projects 5
15 /20
2. I.T. Security Expert
• 5 years proven experience in I.T. Security
• 3 similar projects 5
15
/20

Firm Experience
• Length of time providing similar services (5-10 years)
• Three Recommendation letters (signed) 10
15 /25
The financial proposal of only those firms which secure a minimum score of 70/100 in the technical evaluation will be opened.
St= Score for the Technical Evaluation
b) Financial Criteria
Once the technical criteria have been evaluated, the costs of all bids will be listed from low to high. Computing the cost criteria score will be accomplished by use of the following formula:
= Sf
The Applicant getting maximum marks on 70-0 weightage (70% for technical and 30% for financial) will be considered for the assignment. The weights given to the Technical (T) and Financial Proposals (F) are T = 0.70 and F = 0.30
The Final Score (S) is calculated as follows: S = St*T + Sf*F

8. Submission Requirements For Technical And Financial
PROPOSALS
A specific outline must be followed to facilitate the Smart Africa Secretariat’s review and evaluation of the responses received.
A response to this RFP must include the following sections in the order listed:
1. A cover letter confirming the firm’s interest to provide the services required
2. Administrative documents (Company registration certificates, Tax clearance certificates, Cloud Service Provider official reseller document). Failure to submit will lead to automatic disqualification of the offer.

3. A technical proposal containing the following content:
o Executive summary
o Business experience/Profiles
o Mockup and prototype reflecting understanding of expectations
o Work Plan / Schedule
o Mission team experience/profiles
o Updated Curriculum Vitae for the team and evidence of previous assignment, as well as design portfolio (for design expert)
o Firms’ portfolio of similar websites previously designed
o Recommendation letters signed and stamped
4. Financial Proposal containing the following tables.
o Summarized Total Cost VAT Inclusive (Value of tax indicated on final cost)
o Breakdown of a remuneration package
o Breakdown of reimbursable expenses (Cloud Hosting Fees)
o All companies should quote in Rwandan Francs (RWF) as currency.
o All bidding firms/ companies should Indicate their preferred payment terms
Notes:
1. All Financial Proposals/offers should be password protected and Smart Africa will request for it for bidders who have been qualified in the technical evaluation.
2. Only firms eligible to apply to this assignment, no individuals will be accepted.

9. Submission Process
Soft copies of both Technical and financial proposals must be sent to: procurement@smartafrica.org showing each the nature of the offer concerned (technical or financial offer), the firm’s name not later than 24th March 2023 at, 05:00 pm local time (Kigali) prompt to the Procurement Unit of Smart Africa Secretariat on above email address, with reference in subject: 088/SA-SADA/RFP/02/2023 «Provision & Management of Cloud Hosting Services to the Smart Africa Digital Academy »

10. Validity:
Proposals and quotes must remain valid for 180 days after the date of closing noted above. After, the closing date and time, all proposals received by the Smart Africa Secretariat become its property.

11. Anti-Corruption:
Smart Africa is committed to preventing and not tolerating any act of corruption and other malpractices and expects that all bidders will adhere to the same ethical principles.
12. Enquires:
Any enquires will be received and addressed 5 days or mor before the closing date for the submission of any proposal through tenderenquiries@smartafrica.org .

13. Rights Reserved:
1. This RFP does not obligate the Smart Africa Secretariat (SAS) to complete the RFP process.
2. SAS reserves the right to amend any segment of the RFP prior to the announcement of a selected firm.
3. SAS also reserves the right to remove one or more of the services from consideration for this contract should the evaluation show that it is in SAS’s best interest to do so.
4. SAS also may, at its discretion, issue a separate contract for any service or groups of services included in this RFP. SAS may negotiate a compensation package and additional provisions to the contract awarded under this RFP.
5. Smart Africa reserves the right to debrief the applicants after the completion of the process due to the expected high volume of applications and avoiding the compromise of the process.

e process due to the expected high volume of applications and avoiding the compromise of the process.