Poverty Alleviation Fund
Kathmandu
Nepal
Terms of Reference
Design, Development, Implementation and Support of Poverty Alleviation Fund Management Information System (PAFMIS) Solution
PAFII-AFII-S-CQS-
Prepared By:
MIS Officer
PAF, Nepal
1. Introduction
Poverty Alleviation Fund (APF) Nepal
Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) was established in 2003 as a special and targeted programme to bring the excluded communities to the mainstream of development, by putting the poor and disadvantaged groups themselves in the driving seat of development efforts. PAF is contributing to bringing the level of poverty down to 10 per cent in 20 years in pursuant with the long term goal of Government of Nepal; and reduce poverty by half by the year 2015 as per the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With the recent addition of 15 districts, the total programme district of PAF has reached to 40 districts. Remaining 35 districts will be covered through poverty pocket approach in coming years.
Nearly a quarter of the Nepalese population still lives below the poverty line. The majority of the poor lives predominantly in rural areas and engage in traditional and subsistence farming on small plots of low quality land, have limited access to credit, infrastructure, markets and basic social services, often because of remoteness, and rely heavily on seasonal migration and remittance.
PAF Institutional Arrangement
Initially established by an Ordinance in 2003, PAF is being governed by an Act since 2006, thus PAF is an autonomous, independent and professional organization governed by a separate law. The 12-member governing board, chaired by the Prime Minister, is responsible for policy guidance and programme approval. Vice-chairperson and five members are appointed by the government from among the development professionals, while five other ex-officio members include National Planning Commission (NPC) Secretary, Chairman of the Association of District Development Committees of Nepal (ADDCN), Chairman of the Association of Village Development Committees of Nepal (AVDCN), Chairman of the National Women Commission (NWC) and Chairman of the National Dalit Commission (NDC). The PAF secretariat consists over six dozen staff, mostly professional, recruited on a competitive basis. A total of 365 partner organizations (POs) work on behalf of the poor in different districts.
The Strategy and Approach of PAF
PAF has taken the strategy of enabling the poor people through social mobilization and capacity building and by raising their access to quality basic services in cost-effective and sustainable manner with their direct involvement. PAF uses Partner Organizations (POs) to facilitate poor and vulnerable people and their community organizations (COs) or groups to implement the programme components through the support of local bodies, NGOs/CBOs and private sector organizations. PAF also seeks to build partnership with various organizations working at village, district and national levels in order to ensure holistic development intervention and create discernible impact on poverty reduction in considerably less time
PAF has followed six guiding principles: (a) Targeted to the Poor (Antodaya) (b) Social Inclusion (Samabesi) (c) Demand Driven (Maag Anusar) (d) Transparency (Pardarsita) (e) Direct Funding to Community Organisations of the Poor (Prataksha Bhuktani), and (f) Community Institutional Development (Samudaya Ko Sansthagat Bikash) Social Mobilization, Income Generation (IG), Small Community Infrastructure Development and Capacity Building are the four major programme components of PAF. The targeted beneficiaries of PAF are poor women, Dalits, Janajatis, and vulnerable communities living below the poverty line.
2. Objectives of the assignment
The main objectives of hiring the consultant for this assignment are as follows:
· Development of web enabled integrated Management Information System (MIS) solution for supporting PAF regular operations which include Project Management Information System (PMIS), Financial Management Information System (FMIS), Technical Management Information System (TMIS), Contract Management Information System (CMIS), Procurement Management Information System (PCMIS) and Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS).
· The MIS solution should integrate all independent software modules that are supporting operation of PAF.
· The MIS solution should support all activities regarding Income Generation, INFRA, COs and POs which is carried out by PAF in community.
· Establish and maintain a robust Online, Real-time, Web Based, Database Monitoring System (ORDBMS) that enables to get real time data and statistics available for timely decision, policy making, monitoring and program implementation for the PAF related activities and service delivery.
· Strengthen the monitoring capacity of the PAF organization, POs and COs at districts and village levels through online.
· Generate Decision Support reports for better monitoring of the program activities.
· Establish and maintain the database relating to activities of the PAF and poor household information and project related data.
· Facilitate the legal and periodic requirements for intense monitoring of the PAF activities.
· Modernize and strengthen the e-Governance system by implementing online web based PAFMIS at central level for PAF and department/divisions under the PAF.
· Build a sound networking system, data collection mechanism, work flow system, monitoring and reporting mechanism between Central PAF office and districts/VDC POs and COs.
· Effectively monitor and manage Revolving Fund (RF) at real-time at CO level.
· Effective and timely monitoring of physical and financial progress of IG, INFRA, CCF, etc projects of PAF.
· Knowledge management for the employees involved in the information management system.
3. Scope of the Service
The consultant needs to conduct and carryout the following activities to achieve the objectives and produce the deliverables and outputs. In this context scope of services of this consulting service consists (but not limited to) of the following:
3.1. Study the objectives of PAF organization, its activities, Projects, COs, POs, etc define /determine the monitoring and progress performance activities as per the institutional functions, Monitoring Indicators and Norms etc: The consultant need to understand thoroughly the PAF organization and its activities, Monitoring Procedure, Data collection formats/form, reporting process, Different Norms of Regulation etc. Based on the study the consultant needs to develop and determine the required information and monitoring activities as well as the indicators for PAF database management System.
3.2. Consultation with the concerned authorities of the PAF: The consultant should consult with the concerned officials/ divisional chief of PAF after signing the agreement. The consultant needs to have consultative meetings with the PAF technical team for the time schedule, planning and other implementation. The consultant also needs to consult with divisional chief, POs and COs on regular basis for their input and feedback during the design, development and implementation of PAFMIS.
3.3 PAF Input: PAF will assign a staff as project coordinator of the developing software project who will communicate with the Consultant for various inputs. Under the identification of the necessity of the Consulting firm, PAF can allocate a certain space and environment within a PAF for consulting personnel to carry out developing activities. In development of the MIS, Consulting firm will be fully supported by the concerned divisional personnel for required input in a particular module and integration.
3.4. Design and Development of Management Information System: After determining the appropriate forms, formats and information the consultant need to design and develop the (PAFMIS) for the required information to cater the needs for monitoring, administration and reporting of the PAF project and related activities. The PAFMIS should be able to produce and maintain the volume, storage and speed for instant online data entry, recording, retrieving, producing and analyzing the data and its contents. However, the system should have the following features and must satisfy the system requirements. The PAFMIS and its operation need to have the following features:
· A web-based System: The PAFMIS developed or customized by the consultants must be able to run smoothly as a web-based system. The system must accommodate all the web-based system features. It must provide the system that they should be able to make entry in the forms or formats developed for information capture from the concerned offices and institutions such as PAF office, Districts POs as well as VDC COs, if required.
· Data Entry or Uploading Functions: The PAFMIS should have the both features of data entry online as well as uploading filled form offline where there is no Internet connection from the concerned work stations. It should also ensure the adequate safety/security mechanism while making entry or uploading the forms, formats or other required information. This system should also contain the sample forms or formats which can be downloaded and filled offline and uploaded to the system, populating the concern database tables.
· Data Forms, Formats and Related Information: The consultant need to determine the data contents, forms, formats and other information system after analyzing all the requirements of the PAFMIS with PAF technical team as well as concern division chief. However, as general guideline it may contain the following:
Project Related Information: PAF carryout various income generations as well as INFRA projects like irrigation, small hydro electric generation, etc at community levels. PAFMIS should keep track of all project related information and generate the required result if needed. These project related information should be filled at CO or PO level at district or VDC level if required. Proper security and data verification and approval system is required.
Financial Information all the financial cost of the projects should be monitored such as project cost, contribution from various agencies like local bodies, community contribution, installment release as well as financial progress of each project. The system should generate various required financial report like vouchers, balance sheet, etc. PAFMIS should also keep track of all the official financial activities too, like travel cost, vehicle hire, staff salaries, tax deduction, etc. Consultant should consult with finance department of PAF for financial related information.
PAF HR and Admin related Information: The PAFMIS should have modules/functionalities to track HR related information like staff personal information, qualifications, training related information and more. The system should also have option for keeping track of admin related information and report generation too. Consultant should consult with PAF concern division chief to determine required information, input format as well as reporting formats.
Revolving Fund (RF) Monitoring Information: PAF contribute money to its COs for various Income Generation (IG) activities. The contributed money is kept as a community fund and its members take as load and again repay back as an installment. So that fund is maintained and other CO member can take load for their income generation activities. Monitoring of RF is an important part of PAF monitoring. System should keep track and generate required report on RF.
· Access Control: The software system should have different access control features as per user levels and user privileges or user roles. This access control feature should be dynamic in nature so that rights of a particular module may be assigned to any user apart from his/her level.
· Parameterization: The software system should be dynamic to adopt the parameters as defined in related acts, rules, directives etc. This will facilitate any update in parameters like interest rates, Project types, numbers, training types, and holidays etc. in future.
· Audit Trail System: The PAFMIS system should have the facility of Audit Trail. The system should be able to examine the periodic information on real time basis. It should generate the report required by the authorities to test the accuracy of the data and the system should able to produce reliable information. The audit trail system should be inbuilt in the system.
· Maker and Checker System: While making entry or uploading the data entry and feeding the forms or formats the system should have the facility of maker and checker as separate authority. The check and balance through the maker and checker system need to be the integral part of the software.
· GEA/NGIF Compliance: The PAFMIS system should follow Nepal Government Enterprise Architecture (GEA) and Nepal Government Interoperability Framework (GIF). Compliance of these features by any government software system will facilitate the data interchange among different government agencies. System should support Nepali Unicode as well as English/Nepali dates. System should have English/Nepali User Interface with a single click of a button at any level of its operation.
· Security: The PAFMIS needs to be secured through layers of security system. The software security system should enable the smooth operation of the system without hacking or other security lacking. The system should have an integral security system. The system should have following security features:
Coding level security- security issue should be taken into account while coding PAFMIS.
Access level security: various session monitoring/tracking, password encryption, etc Database level security: access to database and their roles, read/write permission, access to database, session monitoring, etc.
Network level security: access of system inside/outside PAF, IP and port filtering, etc.
· Data Storage and Back-up System: The software should have the automatic data storage system as and when the data are entered or feed in regular interval. Similarly, it also should have the back-up system on daily basis. So the software needs to have in-built back-up system to avoid any data loss.
· Disaster Recovery System (DRS): The consultant should also suggest the DRS for the database safety and loss from every probable natural disaster. It needs to include the DRS plan and the client need to take a precautionary and correcting mechanism if disaster happens. It also should contain the alternative solutions for DRS, if any.
· Data Export System: The database system should also be able to export the data to other application program such as SPSS and STATA, Excel or other useful application programs that is useful for the analysis and generation of the required report.
· Data Analysis/Graph generation Program: The database need to be developed based on the financial and operational fields from the entered data that is necessary to carry-out any analysis. It should also be able to calculate and analyses the indicators from the data and indicator content, percentage and cut offs values, average and able to generate various analysis charts/graphs.
· System Integration: PAF is designing other software modules like grievances system, toll free telephony system, SMS system. These systems need live data from the PAFMIS system. The designed PAFMIS system should fully integrate or compatible with other PAF existing system for easy data synchronization and auto data update among the various systems. In addition to this, PAF is organizing its operational data in several distributed and desktop applications which run and support core business activities independently. Though the MIS softwares run independently, they have several linkages with one another for supporting another program/component. The web based MIS solution will have to integrate all software systems, enhance the MIS capability and eliminate the existing loopholes by increasing the security system.