Maintenance, support & development services for online legal databases, and related websites and technologies

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

By DCAF as the Client related to the

Maintenance, support & development services for online legal databases, and related websites and technologies

Reference number: TLD – 04/2022

• Requested services: the provision of development, maintenance and support services for online legal databases and related websites technologies for the Middle East and North Africa Division
• Contracting organisation: Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance – DCAF – www.dcaf.ch
• Deadline for submission of tenders: Friday, 13 May 2022
• Expected start of contract: Wednesday, 15 June 2022

I. Introduction

DCAF – the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance is an international organisation dedicated to promoting good governance of the justice and security sector. It promotes the development of efficient security forces that are properly controlled and overseen by executive and legislative authorities and are fully accountable to citizens and their elected leaders.

As part of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Division’s project on formal and informal oversight of the security sector according to democratic principles and the Rule of Law, DCAF runs 3 online security sector legal database for Tunisia, Libya and Palestine, 2 related websites (subdomains) for the Libyan legal database.

The databases provide up-to-date access to current, revoked, and draft legislation governing the security sector in these respective countries. DCAF has published more than 6,200 legal texts (constitutions, constitutional amendments, laws, regulations, decrees, decisions, etc.) altogether on these databases to provide core security providers, government, legislators, judicial authorities, supervisory institutions, civil society, and media with direct and accurate access to the legal framework governing the security sector.

II. Mandate overview

DCAF is calling for applications for the provision of maintenance and support services, as well future development services, for the MENA Division’s online legal databases and their related websites and technologies. These include:

• Tunisia legal database: https://legislation-securite.tn/
• Libya legal database: https://security-legislation.ly/
  • Libya infographic: https://infographic.security-legislation.ly/
  • Libya criminal justice system (LCJS): https://lcjs.security-legislation.ly/
• Palestine legal database: https://security-legislation.ps/

The 3 Legal Databases are made of the following technologies:

1. Elm & ReactJs;
2. The Linux ecosystem and toolset;
3. AWS Cloud Hosting, in particular using AWS Aurora PostgreSQL, Lambda Functions, S3, Cloud Formation, AWS Amplify, Appsync & GraphQL and AWS Cognito; and
4. PostgreSQL & S3 to store data.

The Infographic and the LCJS are built using PHP on a Linux ecosystem/toolkit hosted on Platform.sh, with the former (Infographic) using Drupal 8 and the latter (LCJS) using Grav.

Maintenance services for the databases and the websites involves:

1. Ensuring that the websites are always updated and compatible with system and browser updates. All updates shall be enacted within a month of their release.
2. Ensuring the websites’ security and protecting it against hacking attempts.
3. Performing small cosmetic and content updates.

Support services for the databases and the websites involves:

1. Providing immediate support if there are server or other hosting issues.
2. Providing support in performing “small tasks” (those requiring less than 2 hours to complete) for making minor cosmetic changes to static text and visuals of the websites, as well as for uploading content to the websites where the current design of the websites does not allow DCAF to upload the content.
3. Providing advice and other technical support.

Development services for the databases and the websites will be conducted according to a fixed rate budgeted through dedicated Statements of Work detailing the tasks needed to be done and an estimate of the number of hours required to achieve the specified objective. Such works involves:

1. Grouping substantial tasks (those requiring more than 2 hours to complete) into a list and establishing a schedule with DCAF for completing the tasks.
2. Migrating all 5 platforms to DCAF’s centralized hosting solution (on Infomaniak) from AWS and Platform.sh, and to WordPress for the CMS in the long-term, and giving advice on the feasibility.

Proposals should be for a minimum duration of 18 months broken down into two phases:

1. Maintenance and support services only until the end of December 2022.
2. Maintenance, support, and development services thereafter until December 2023.

III. Selection criteria and required qualifications

Prospective providers should ideally be a team in which the members have as many of the skills listed below as possible:

Skill / Description

• Technical Lead Experience / An individual with demonstrated experience in programming, Linux and cloud technologies as the legal databases use quite a few common and popular technologies that require significant experience to use well together.
• Linux Ecosystem and Toolset / An individual with demonstrated experience using the Linux ecosystem and toolset day to day including bash, Git and other custom utilities, upon which the development workflow depends.The legal databases are built on linux machines and the linux ecosystem and require engineers to use this toolkit as working on windows machines is not feasible.
• Elm or React and Typescript / An individual with demonstrated experience in programming with Elm (as the legal databases use Elm for the user front-end and ReactAdmin for the admin back-end). Experience in Typescript, React or Vue would also suffice.
• AWS Cloud / An individual with experience of AWS Cloud using as many of the following technologies as possible:
  • AWS CloudFormation and/or CDK (more recently)
  • AWS S3
  • AWS Lambda functions
  • AWS Aurora or AWS RDS PostgreSQL
  • AWS CodeBuild
  • AWS CodePipeline
  • Alternatively, an individual with at least one of the following official AWS certifications to somewhat substitute for experience:
  • AWS Certified Solution Architect Professional and demonstrated experience in programming
  • AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
• AWS Amplify, Appsync & GraphQL / An individual with experience developing on AWS Amplify/Appsync, including:
• GraphQL
• AWS Resolver Mapping Template Programming
• AWS Cognito & React Admin / The legal databases use AWS Cognito for the admin back-end. An individual with experience building backend administration systems using AWS Cognito.
• Database / An individual with experience programming SQL on PostgreSQL as the legal databases use AWS Aurora PostgreSQL to store structured law data.

In addition to the above skills for the Legal Databases, the following skills are required for the Infographic and LCJS.

Skill / Description

• PHP / An individual with experience in programming PHP using a linux ecosystem/toolkit as the Infographic and the LCJS are built using PHP on a Linux ecosystem/toolkit. Using Windows is not feasible.
• Drupal / An individual with experience in programming Drupal, as the Infographic is built using Drupal 8.
• Grav / As the Infographic is built using Drupal 8 and the LCJS is built using Grav, an individual with experience with any static site builder.

In their proposal, the Provider is to indicate fulfilment of the following selection criteria:

• The Provider must display sufficient experience the abovementioned skills.
• The proposal must contain a detailed budget calculation for maintenance and support services, as well as a Rate Card detailing the hourly costs for conducting potential development works.

The Provider will be selected based upon:

• Technical suitability and proficiency (75 points): demonstrable expertise and experience of a sufficient resources.**
• The most value for money (25 points)**

IV.Timeframe and procedures

Prospective providers should submit a full tender referencing the items above and specifically outlining fulfilment of the criteria to fulfil the Mandate in sections II and III by 8^th May 2020.

The following timeline applies to this procedure:

1. Call for proposals officially announced – 19 April
2. Deadline for questions about this project by email – 26 April
3. Deadline for replies on questions from DCAF – 3 May
4. Deadline for receiving proposals – 13 May
5. Final selection of company – 31 May
6. Project start (upon signature of the contract) – 15 June

V. Modalities

Service providers shall provide details of their preferred payment modalities, if they so wish. The payment modalities will however be established in the contract to be signed by DCAF and the selected Provider, and it shall be in line with DCAF’s own rules and procedures. All payments would generally be made against a detailed invoice, within a period of 30 days from the date of invoice submission. The contract is subject to DCAF’s terms of business, especially its commitment to non-corruption, transparency and accountability.