Consultant (information management; software developer: e-management tool)

Background

The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) is a multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder platform to enable societies to increase their resilience to natural, technological and environmental disasters and to reduce associated environmental, human and economic and social losses. A range of United Nations organizations and international partners participate in cooperation with Governments and civil society organizations. In adopting ISDR, the United Nations General Assembly (Res/54/219) endorsed the establishment of an institutional framework for its implementation consisting of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Disaster Reduction (IATF/DR) and the inter-agency secretariat (ISDR secretariat).

The main functions of the secretariat are policy coordination, advocacy and information management, at the international and regional levels, to ensure synergy between disaster reduction strategies and those in the socio-economic and humanitarian fields.

In January 2005, the World Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR, 18-22 January 2005, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan) took place and represents a landmark in worldwide understanding and commitment to implement a disaster risk reduction agenda. This commitment was captured in the Hyogo Declaration and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters adopted at the WCDR.

The Hyogo Framework constitutes the essential guide for implementation of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction in the coming years and it constitutes an unprecedented conceptual shift that takes account of the complexity of action in disaster risk reduction and the large variety of actors whose inputs are required in the pursuit of this objective. It provides the basic concepts and prescribes and expected outcome; details three strategic goals for disaster risk reduction and a set of five priority areas for action; and assigns tasks to stakeholders at difference operational levels to reach the expected outcome.

At present the Regional Office for Asia and Pacific, located in Bangkok, Thailand uses a “paper-based” and segregated management approach for most of its activities and there is room to improve the use and sharing of the information through an electronic solution. Data and information generated through project management, finance management, office management, reporting and communications are being logged into files, folders, Excel sheets, and then printed, bound and saved into drawers rarely used again for other purposes. The knowledge created in the analysis and insights captured from this information are not being properly managed and transferred to assist overall work plan delivery of the office.

Under the Office managed and EU funded project on “Building resilience of communities to tsunamis in the Indian Ocean,” ISDR AP office has now been tasked, together with its partner, UNDP regional office, to develop a knowledge sharing system between Bangkok and the national officers based in India, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. While reviewing the requirements for this activity, it became clear that before the office can undertake such a development, it would also need to improve its own internal knowledge management practices.

In order to respond to the above recurring issues it was hence proposed to develop a simple modular system, based on a new UN ISDR Asia Pacific Intranet that will provide specific “modules”. The approach is to a) respond to the increasing need to generate and manage information in our daily work at the office, and b) to respond to this need, by first maximizing the use of information we already generate, and secondly maximizing the use of new information we will newly gather and manage.

Objectives
Overall objective is “to develop a simple, modular 'e' solution for addressing the needs of the UN/ISDR Asia Pacific office for effective administrative and programmatic management, monitoring and delivery of its work plan.”

Outputs of the work assignment
The following attributes are needed to be responded whilst developing the tool:

1. Simple - the solution needs to be straightforward, and more practical than elegant. The solution should be tailored for internal use;
2. "e" - the solution needs to based on an Intranet of the office, accessible both within Bangkok, outside (password protected) while staff are on mission, and by Geneva (password protected) for monitoring purposes;
3. Modular - the approach should address the most pressing issues first and roll out solutions for them, with the option of adding more modules with more linkages as we go along;
4. For Asia and Pacific office – the solution needs to be tailored firstly for the use of the Asia and Pacific office of ISDR. Its usability or applicability elsewhere is something for the future to be considered, but not its first priority;
5. Administrative and programmatic – the solution needs to respond to both sides of office management and link them in ways that are practical.

The goal of the tool is to provide necessary administrative and programmatic information to ISDR Asia Pacific team members on real time basis to enable them to take necessary actions related to work plan delivery.

Some of the outcomes that the proposed tool should provide include:

- In time planning of resources needed for work plan delivery;
- Overview of resource use and project objective completion;
- Overview information on how long tasks will take to complete;
- Historical information on how projects have progressed, and in particular, how actual and planned performance is related;
- Improved monitoring of project and programme implementation;
- Early warning of any risks to the project;
- Tasks lists for people, and schedules and allocation of tasks and resources;
- Information on workload, for planning holidays/missions;
- Improved mission planning, and partnership development;
- Improved response rate to requests by partners for consultants and experts.

Some of the outputs that the tool proposes to develop include:
- Country profiles;
- Events calendar and event management database;
- Agreements database;
- Leave schedule and leave management;
- Work plan funding tracking tool
- Funding allocation planning tool.

Open Source
The planned E-management solution needs to be developed on open source preferably PHP & MYSQL. The successful development of this project requires development and implementation of database driven dynamic website.

Specific Functions/Tasks/Duties
In order to achieve the above mentioned outputs the consultant has to perform his/her duties under the overall guidance of the Senior Regional Coordinator and in close cooperation with the Regional Programme Officers working on information management of the Inter-Agency secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR), and in order to contribute to the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters, the E-Management developer, within limits of delegated authority, will responsible for the following duties:

- Perform as technical lead for development of E-management tool for Asia Pacific;
- The incumbent would be responsible for undertaking a Systems requirement study within a period of 15 days from the initiation of the contract;
- Responsible for developing the wireframes and designing f the pages for the tool;
- Lead role in coding of various modules in the system;
- Development of the database for the system;
- Accumulating past information and feeding into the system;
- Developing all the modules of the system as projected in the concept note (to be shared with the selected contactor);
- Undertake analysis of well-defined modules within the system; develop enhancements and new features to existing systems;
- Technical documentation of all application modules of the system;
- Set up and maintain the in-house production server hardware and software
- Undertake rigorous testing, debugging and deployment of the system;
- Ensure data security and integrity
- Liaise with the hosting service provider and ensure smooth hosting of the portal;
- Liaise with technical teams of partner organizations and address the issues of system integration and interoperability;
- Responsible for developing user manuals, technical documentation and training modules for the use of E-management tool;
- Perform any other related tasks assigned by the ISDR Secretariat.

Work Plan and realistic delivery dates
Delivery: Keeping in view the demanding needs of the office, the E-Management tool needs to be deigned & delivered within a period of 6 months from the date of initiation. This includes the complete debugging and testing of the system along with hosting on specified server.

2008:  July to December
SRS
User page ideations (Aug)
Programming (Aug - Oct)
Alpha Ver & test (Nov)
Hosting, Training & Documentation (Dec)
Beta ver released (Dec).

Management
The consultant would need to spend maximum 30 working days at the UN ISDR office Bangkok, in order to develop the systems requirement study and providing training to the staff once the tool is ready to be used. However during the programming cycle the consultant need not necessary be hosted at the UN ISDR office. The incumbent would need to approve the System Requirement Study, wireframes, DB structures & page designs before initiating the coding of the system.

Minimum Requirements
The following qualifications and experiences are required for the completion of the assignment:

Qualifications
Education: University degree in Computer or Information Systems, Mathematics, Statistics or other related field; or the equivalent combination of education, certification and experience in relevant area.

Experience: Minimum of five years of progressively responsible professional experience in computer applications and in the design, implementation, operations, maintenance of complex systems; experience both at the national and international level and/or in the public and private sector preferred.

Language: Fluency in written and spoken English is essential.

Other skills: The incumbent should have expertise in the following: Web: Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Knowledge of disaster risk reduction issues, development, or humanitarian assistance is an asset.

Core Competencies
Professionalism: Sound knowledge of web application development and programming, basic systems analysis and design techniques, testing, debugging, and documentation standards, database design, storage and internal. Demonstrated skill in designing and implementing applications within relational database systems’ environment. Good analytical and problem solving skills and ability to handle a range of systems-related issues. Experience in development of knowledge management systems, document management systems and search engines implementation.

Managing: Effective project management skills and ability to lead a project to completion; ability to provide technical guidance to new/junior staff.

Client Orientation: Ability to identify and analyze clients' needs and develop appropriate technology to meet business requirements.

Commitment to Continuous Learning: Willingness to keep abreast of new developments in the field information technology.

Judgement: Demonstrated sound judgement in applying technical expertise to resolve a range of issues/problems.

Communications: Strong communication (spoken and written) skills, including the ability to advise and train users in the use of complex systems/applications and related matters and effectively prepare specifications and other written reports documentation in a clear, concise style.

Planning & Organizing: Ability to organize, plan and implement work assignments, juggle competing demands and work under pressure of frequent and tight deadlines.

Teamwork: Strong interpersonal skills and ability to establish and maintain effective partnerships and working relations with people in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity.