Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2020-06-16
Buyer: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Country: DE
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 72000000
Submission deadline: 2020-07-14
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Υπηρεσίες τεχνολογίας των πληροφοριών: παροχή συμβουλών, ανάπτυξη λογισμικού, Διαδίκτυο και υποστήριξη
The GIZ project ‘Employment promotion in the informal sector by leveraging diaspora money transfers’ is a regional project funded by the BMZ that gives (financial and non-financial) incentives to invest remittances in friends' and families' businesses and thereby improves the employment and income situation in Africa. Members of the diaspora in Germany identify and register individuals and businesses known to them in which they trust, wish to invest and see potential. Both partners (diaspora donor and entrepreneur) apply with a joint business project. These business projects go through a verification process and then receive technical support from local coaching organisations and a further financial contribution by GIZ that matches the joint contribution from the diaspora donor and the entrepreneur (min. EUR 250 and max. EUR 2 500). The transfer of funds takes place via formal financial service providers and not via the platform.
The platform development started in August 2018 aiming to develop a functional, user-friendly and appealing online-platform. After developing, programming, testing and improving, www.widu.africa went live on 14 November 2019. Since then it is being piloted in Ghana and Cameroon until end of April 2020. Currently (20 May 2020), there are over 1 000 registrations on the platform (phase 1, Ghana and Cameroon combined) of which 300 projects have been approved and are currently in the implementation and coaching process (phase 2) and 20 projects have finished the second phase and received the WIDU grant (phase 3).
See the explainer video about the WIDU application process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQmQPfBHAGM&t=17s.
Various mechanisms (digital controls and plausibility checks, trusted third parties, transparency, random sampling) reduce the susceptibility to fraud and strengthen trust between diaspora representatives and the African entrepreneur. Due to a lean process the online platform has the potential to be applied to all African countries.
After the pilot phase (May 2020), the project will be evaluated internally and externally and based on the findings platform improvements or adjustments may be required. The registrations on the platform are expected to increase significantly with the goal to support 2 000 projects on the platform until the end of the project in Dec. 2021. In addition to Ghana and Cameroon, the platform is going to be rolled-out to Kenya, Togo, Ethiopia and Morocco within this year.
The WIDU project is expected to be extended after Dec. 2021 with additional features and integration of additional African countries. Some of the features for this extension as well as the preparation of the roll-out into max. four countries are therefore expected to be developed within this contract.
The platform is a web application running on CMS Drupal version 8, which is based on the open source PHP framework composer. To operate the website, a web server with PHP interpreter and a relational database (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL) are required. Several drupal modules are used, which are installed and kept up to date via composer. All project specific features are integrated as drupal 8 standard modules. For the output on the server a total of three custom drupal themes are used, which use PHP 7.2 + Twig according to drupal 8 standard. HTML5, CSS3 (SCSS) and JavaScript (ECMAScript 6) are used in the browser. In addition, jQuery as a program library is included to display the website.
The aim of the service delivery is to further develop, continuously optimize and upscale the WIDU platform to efficiently operate in several African countries. WIDU is a functional, user-friendly and appealing online-platform that supports both, the African diaspora in Germany in submitting remittances to their home countries for productive purposes as well as African entrepreneurs in successfully setting up or expanding micro and small enterprises on the African continent.
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1 — 5 65760 Eschborn.
The GIZ project ‘Employment promotion in the informal sector by leveraging diaspora money transfers’ is a regional project funded by the BMZ that gives (financial and non-financial) incentives to invest remittances in friends' and families' businesses and thereby improves the employment and income situation in Africa. Members of the diaspora in Germany identify and register individuals and businesses known to them in which they trust, wish to invest and see potential. Both partners (diaspora donor and entrepreneur) apply with a joint business project. These business projects go through a verification process and then receive technical support from local coaching organisations and a further financial contribution by GIZ that matches the joint contribution from the diaspora donor and the entrepreneur (min. EUR 250 and max. EUR 2 500). The transfer of funds takes place via formal financial service providers and not via the platform.
The business projects are micro/small sized companies (start-ups as well as existing micro/small businesses) with an idea to increase revenue and in turn, employment. The project is supported and managed through the digital platform www.WIDU.africa. Via the platform the application process is managed, the project is designed, goals and budgets are set, and coaching activities are managed. The projects are monitored and evaluated through data collected directly from the beneficiaries as well as trusted coaching partners, via the digital platform. The platform also provides information that helps the coaching organizations to coordinate and provide technical support to the projects. Automated e-mails to the donor and entrepreneur are triggered by events and guide the project team through the process.
The platform development started in August 2018 aiming to develop a functional, user-friendly and appealing online-platform. After developing, programming, testing and improving, www.widu.africa went live on 14 November 2019. Since then it is being piloted in Ghana and Cameroon until end of April 2020. Currently (20 May 2020), there are over 1,000 registrations on the platform (phase 1, Ghana and Cameroon combined) of which 300 projects have been approved and are currently in the implementation and coaching process (phase 2) and 20 projects have finished the second phase and received the WIDU grant (phase 3).
See the explainer video about the WIDU application process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQmQPfBHAGM&t=17s.
Various mechanisms (digital controls and plausibility checks, trusted third parties, transparency, random sampling) reduce the susceptibility to fraud and strengthen trust between diaspora representatives and the African entrepreneur. Due to a lean process the online platform has the potential to be applied to all African countries.

Eligibility requirements: 1) Trading name and address, commercial register number; 2) Eligibility declaration that no grounds for exclusion in Section 123, 124 of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (GWB) apply; 3) Eligibility declaration subcontractors if applicable; 4) Association clause if applicable.