National Expert for Concept Development of E-learning platform on raising financial literacy levels within population

Consultant

Contract

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Background

The 2030 Agenda: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda), adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit, presents an ambitious, complex, and interconnected vision for sustained and inclusive economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection, fostering peaceful, just, and inclusive societies. Realizing this vision will require mobilizing and effectively utilizing a diverse range of public and private resources. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda, which outlines a framework for financing the 2030 Agenda, calls for integrated approaches to finance that are driven at the national level.

Access to finance and financial education: UNDP works with countries to expand people’s choices for a fairer, sustainable future, to build the world envisioned by Agenda 2030 with planet and people in balance. During implementation of the projects a rights-based approach of “Leaving no-one behind” in all activities and projects is maintained, including development finance and provision of acceptable level of access to finance for all groups of population. Increasing access to finance is a key component in terms of reducing poverty and raising equality within the population, including gender equality and empowering women and girls. According to UNCTAD “Access to finance as a driver for the post-2015 development agenda” policy brief increasing access to finance is contributing to 2030 Agenda and to SDGs 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, their targets and indicators. Many public and private institutions undertake a range of actions to increase the diversity and accessibility of financial services for different target groups (women, rural population, SMEs etc.) through innovative channels and instruments. However, in parallel of these actions it’s very important to raise the level of financial literacy and financial education among the population. It helps people to make rational and informed decisions during managing their personal finance, receiving loans, or using innovative financial instruments. Financially literate people can understand and to use financial services (including innovative mobile and technological services) provided by financial organizations and to assess the possible benefits and risks of those services.

Armenian context: In the result of compound crisis of COVID-19 pandemic and conflict in and around NK in 2020, population in Armenia particularly those engaged in entrepreneurial activities, faced many challenges concerning access to finance to ensure sustainable operation during times of crisis and, to having extra expenses because of irrational financial decisions. Many people didn’t have access to basic financial services or didn’t have enough knowledge and information on how to use digital financial products and services in the best way. That’s why many uninformed decisions were made during the pandemic, such as receiving extra loans, taking out another high-percent loan to cover old ones, withdrawing deposits from the banks, not using mobile financial services properly etc. In addition to that, it became obvious that there is a need to develop user-friendly and easy digital financial instruments and services which can be used by population to have access to finance.

The Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) is the institution responsible for advancing financial inclusion, access to finance, consumer protection and financial literacy in the country. There are lots of development activities initiated both by the CBA to increase financial literacy levels within Armenian population but still there is a huge room for improvement in the financial literacy level of the population and SME-s to make rational decisions and choose right instruments and services. Particularly, the CBA and the Ministry of Education and Science have launched the “Financial Education in Schools” program in 2014 which was a part of the National Strategy for Financial Education in Armenia (NSFE). The NSFE defined schoolchildren as one of the priority target groups for financial education which was reflected in the action plan for the implementation of financial education in schools. One of the most important part of “Financial Education in Schools” program is the training of teachers. For four years (2018-2021), around 11 000 teachers delivering financial education have been trained covering all school (1400+) in Armenia.

Currently teachers are trained via traditional face-to-face classroom approach which is:

• costly and not-efficient especially under COVID-19 restrictions (printing materials, travel, accommodation, food, logistics).
• not friendly for continuous integration of innovative tools, for after-training communication and networking opportunities, for continuous monitoring and evaluation of effectiveness.

In this regard the creation of the comprehensive infrastructure for raising financial literacy among the population and SME-s is becoming very crucial. The CBA is planning to design and deploy a unique and comprehensive e-platform for training of teachers at schools on financial topics. In addition to this, there is a growing need for implementing a line of different activities for increasing financial literacy of SMEs. These activities will have a long-term and large-scale positive impact on the levels of financial literacy among different target groups of population, with particular focus on women and girls contributing to the implementation of the SDGs 1, 2, 5, 16, 17 in Armenia.

Objective:

Development of a Concept for E-learning platform on raising financial literacy levels within the target population. The assignment requires consultations with relevant stakeholders to address financial literacy, institutional, decision making and technical barriers for designing and development of technical requirements for E-learning platform to raise financial literacy levels within population. The task will also have a particular focus on the elaboration of the concept for building the E-learning platform in an efficient way to contribute to the increase of levels of financial literacy levels within the population as well as to the implementation of the SDGs in Armenia.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Expert is expected to work under the overall supervision of UNDP Armenia Innovation and SDG finance portfolio Lead and the Project Coordinator of “Unlocking finance for Armenia 2030”. Coordination and close collaboration with the CBA are also expected. The Expert will be responsible for:

Task 1. Develop a concept of the e-learning platform which will provide access to around 11,000 teachers delivering financial education in all schools (1400+) in Armenia.

• Conducting of the human-centered research to identify/validate the correlation of needs, capacities and issues,
• Analysis of the potential users of the e-learning platform, including the challenges and issues which the potential users can face as well as possible solutions for those challenges and issues,
• Elaboration of the concept paper describing the best and the most efficient tool for the e-learning platform, including the description of the type of information channel (a website or a platform and/or a fully equipped e-learning tool),
• Budget forecast for the recommended platform, including all costs breakdown with the detailed description.

Task 2. Develop the technical requirements for the e-learning platform

• Design of the content, the architecture and the structure of the e-learning platform
• Description of the data management system, including data types, structuring and description, logging & control, mechanism of the users’ access,
• Security specifications of the e-learning platform
• Design of all the business processes flow chart of the e-learning platform
• Description of the analytic, reporting, networking, study group creation tools

The requirements should be based on the below mentioned specifications. The suggested E-learning platform shouldn’t be based on an open-source software such as WordPress.

a) State of the art platform

The platform should be feature-rich and able to stay up to date with the ever-changing Learning &Development landscape. Expected functionalities should include user registration, easy and interactive navigation through the course lessons, ability to set and take up quizzes, set up timers for courses, display course progress, give certifications, and so on. Most features should be automated.

b) User Access and Mobile App Friendly

Easily accessible on desktop and mobile devices, 24/7. Users should be able to undertake trainings/courses on their own schedule and pace, independent of device or operating system and with limited bandwidth.

c) Content Compatibility

The platform should be flexible, easily customizable, able to easily upload existing training materials or build courses from scratch while remaining user-friendly. It should cater for various content formats such as word, excel, pdf, videos, animations, ppts and provide the possibility of uploading various content formats easily into the platform. The platform’s ability to have a visual content is paramount. The content capture and delivery will include:

• Word document, PDF, XML, PowerPoint presentations
• Video streaming to pure audio transcript
• Quizzes
• Surveys
• Completion Certificates

d) Reports and Analysis

The platform should provide for the auto-generation and auto-emailing of reports (daily, weekly, or monthly), and a dashboard for the various user levels including management for review.

The comprehensive analysis and reporting solution should:

• offer insights on the performance of the learners and ultimately the effectiveness of
• courses on offer
• support background monitoring for specific user levels
• gauging the learning trends of users and tracking compliance of the learners.

The reports can be categorized (but not limited to):

• Course Reports
• Schedules (upcoming courses), Enrolment, Assessment
• User Reports
• Active Users, Login activities, User’s progress, Performance Comparisons using various parameters
• Organization Training
• Complete course report by unit/theme/location or gender, Certification, Curriculum, policy etc

• Custom Reports

• Tailored to meet specific requirements/requests such as: quick and easy access to quiz’ analysis, learner tracking, to check the amount of time spent on a particular lesson or the number of attempts made to pass a quiz, challenges faced on courses, knowledge retention tool to conduct impromptu checks/pop-up quizzes.

f) Security and Reliability

The platform security should be top notch assuring content confidentiality as well as protecting the users’ personal data. It should comply with the security requirements of the CBA. It should also take into consideration encryption and adherence to ISO security standards and cater for integration into the existing Centre firewall. A high-level reliable platform with minimal downtime, is required while taking into consideration disaster management and contingency planning. The system should be able to allow both the administrators and the vendor to carry out frequent security measures including denial-of-service attack testing.

The Expert will be responsible for the following key deliverables:

Description of deliverables

Due dates

1.

Inception report, including detailed workplan for the assignment and methodology with incorporated comments and recommendations from the Project Management is developed

May 2022

2.

Initial Draft of the Concept of the e-learning platform, including human-centered research and the concept and budget forecast of the platform is developed

June 2022

3.

Initial Draft of Technical requirmenets, including platform architecture, security measures and other specifications is developed

July 2022

4.

Final Concept of the e-learning platform and Tecnical requirements is developed

August 2022

Payment terms:

Lump sum payable modality will be applied for this assignment. Payments will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner in the following instalments.

• Deliverable 1 – 20% of total amount
• Deliverable 2 – 20% of total amount
• Deliverable 3 – 40% of total amount
• Deliverable 4 - 20% of total amount

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

• Strong knowledge of emerging e-Learning theories, concepts, and standards;
• Understanding of the Armenian context and Armenian user needs to match with adequate technical solutions;
• Extensive knowledge of e-platforms’ architecture; with particular focus on web-based platforms;
• Ability to describe and design repeatable processes; clearly communicate ideas and expectations;
• Ability to describe and design a new software product from the ground up, while working closely with stakeholders and software engineers;
• Continuing education to stay up-to-date on emerging technologies and best practices
• Proven ability to work under pressure and handle multiple activities and tasks concurrently
• Excellent drafting, communications and presentation skills

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Builds strong relationships with stakeholders, focuses on impact and result and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities
• Ability to lead effectively, mentoring as well as conflict resolution skills
• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
• Proven networking, teambuilding, organizational and communication skills

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree in Software Engineering, IT, Computer Science, Math or other relevant disciplines related filed;

Professional experience:

• At least 7 years of professional experience in web designing, ICT development or other
• relevant field, including at least 3 years of experience in the field of eLearning design and/or digital technology application
• Experience in developing technical proposals and eLearning platforms.
• Experience in working as a software architect in at least 3 projects of similar scope and complexity
• Experience in development of technical requirements and documents and reports in similar projects

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Armenian is required

CANDIDATES WILL BE EVALUATED BASED ON THE FOLLOWING METHODOLOGY:

Candidates will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants' technical qualifications, experience and financial proposal.The contract will be awarded to the candidate whose offer has been evaluated and determined as technically responsive/compliant/acceptable to the requirements of the ToR and received the highest cumulative (technical and financial) score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

Technical Criteria - 70% of total evaluation - max. 70 points

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation - max. 30 points.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE APPLICATION.

• Financial Proposal and Availability form: OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP (A total lump sum option is applicable for this assignment)
• CV shall include Education/Qualification, Processional Certification, Employment Records /Experience

General Conditions of Contract is available here: GENERAL CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT

Note: Please note you can upload only one document to this application (scan all documents that should be included in the application in one single PDF file and upload it).

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Added 1 year ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org