Anunțuri de Angajare

SCOPE OF WORK

Position:                                 ICT Consultant / Business Analyst (further Consultant)

Project:                                  USAID Moldova Institutional and Structural Reform Activity (MISRA)

Location:                                Chisinau, Moldova

Period of Performance:        February - June 2024

Total Level of Effort:            up to 70 days

Work Plan Activity:             (WP FY24) Task 1.2.3.: Upgrade of the governmental notification service (MNotify)

Background

The USAID Moldova Institutional and Structural Reform Activity (MISRA) is a five-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Nathan Associates Inc. MISRA’s objective is to stimulate a sustainable and inclusive recovery from the regional crisis, improve the institutional, business, and trade enabling environment in Moldova by supporting Moldova’s public institutions and the private sector to accelerate the implementation of trade liberalization mechanisms, adopt structural and investment climate reforms, accelerate financial sector reforms, improve economic governance in the public sector, and enhance strategic communications between the private and public actors. MISRA builds on prior and ongoing USAID and US Government activities in the business enabling environment and trade facilitation space to strengthen Moldova’s economic growth and resilience, and by doing so, increase transparency and accountability.

The main objective of the Component 1 “Strengthening Public Economic Governance Institutions for Resilience and Accountability” is to support public institutions to implement streamlined procedures and systems, interagency coordination and good governance, and digitalization to improve transparency, public service delivery, and access to information.

Activity Overview

MNotify is a public service developed by the e-Governance Agency (EGA) to manage notifications from more than 30 clients (i.e., government institutions). The notifications are mainly sent by e-mail, but also through MCabinet and WebPush.

While MNotify multichannel delivery is impressive, its practical application has shown that MNotify users should be more versatile to associate particular contacts with particular notification categories or client systems, a feature which is not available in the current version. For example, a user might want to receive notifications for social payments through a particular e-mail address, while notifications related to taxes and invoices would be delivered faster through SMS messages and push notifications. It is also necessary to extend the channels of communications, such as WhatsUp, Viber, and the Government of Moldova’s new EVO mobile app, i.e., using its mobile push notification capability.

To enable the utilization of channels for paid services like SMS, MNotify needs to incorporate a billing subcomponent. This feature would facilitate the tracking of messages sent through these channels, attributing them to the initiating client for comprehensive auditing and cost recovery purposes.

MNotify is part of the e-Governance infrastructure, and it is integrated with MPass, MLog, MConnect, and Identity Resolver (IDR). The IDR can reconcile identities such as: vehicle numbers to the vehicle owner; or legal entity identifier to a person or business; etc. However, such services are not effectively integrated to be user friendly and fully functional.

While the basic architecture is relatively strong, completely asynchronous, and event-driven based on Kafka, there are aspects that can be improved, such as observability (e.g., better logging, metrics, and monitoring), resilience (e.g., retrying deliveries), and greater agility.

MISRA will support EGA in upgrading the MNotify module to ensure on-time, quality communications of the government’s public services, including the public services developed through MISRA.

Under this scope of work, the Consultant will analyze the current MNotify service and prepare terms of reference for new or enhanced functionalities in close coordination with the EGA and MISRA teams.

Responsibilities and Tasks

The Consultant will be responsible for carrying-out the following tasks:

1. Analyze the existing MNotify service by reviewing the functionalities and the technological platform and recommend appropriate enhancements.
2. Interview MNotify stakeholders and collect their ideas for new or enhanced features of the system.
3. Based on the analysis and interviews, in coordination with EGA and MISRA, prepare the terms of reference for improving MNotify.
4. Contribute to the preparation of the request for proposals (RFP) for improving MNotify.

Deliverables

1. Assessment report based on the conducted analysis.
2. Draft terms of references for improving MNotify for review by EGA and MISRA.
3. Final Terms of References for improving MNotify.
4. Bi-weekly Progress Reports.
5. Final report summarizing the work completed, findings, and recommendations, using the MISRA template.

All deliverables must be submitted in editable electronic format, in Romanian.

Consultant Qualifications

• University degree in economics, computer sciences, engineering, telecommunications, business administration, public administration, or other relevant field.
• Minimum of 7 years of experience in the IT area.
• Knowledge of the Republic of Moldova’s e-Governance architecture and platforms.
• Excellent understanding of software development lifecycle.
• Excellent understanding of systems’ design process.
• Knowledge of the regulatory framework in the ICT field.
• Proven track record of business analysis and writing technical specifications and terms of reference for platforms and services, preferably with experience working with the public sector.
• Knowledge of international best practices for development and implementation of comparable platforms in other countries is an advantage.
• Excellent communication skills, written and spoken, in both Romanian and English.

Supervisory Responsibilities and Reporting

The Consultant will report to the Lead of MISRA’s Component 1 Team.

How to Apply

We welcome your CV and preferably cover letter at Moldovajobs@nathaninc.com. Please apply by December 27, 2023, with “ICT Consultant – Upgrade MNotify Service” in the subject line. This short-term position will remain open until filled.