DevIndicator system improvement & open sourcing for use by partners farmer organizations At Vi Agroforestry

Introduction

Vi Agroforestry is a Swedish NGO that has been operating in East Africa since 1983. The organisation has its headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden and a Regional Office in Nairobi, Kenya. With country offices in Kampala (Uganda), Dar el Salam (Tanzania), and Kitale (Kenya).

Vi Agroforestry has recently completed implementation of a five programme and is currently implementing her strategy 2023-2027 that aims to have smallholder farmer families in Sub-Saharan Africa having sustainably improved their livelihoods through increased climate change resilience, food security, higher incomes, and greater equality between women and men by 2027. The strategy is implemented through ASILI-B programme that work with strategically selected farmer-based organisations and other programme partners to support the implementation of locally led, demand driven innovative and sustainable solutions. The programme use advocacy to promote policy coherence through multistakeholder dialogues, to find a win-win solution in agri-food systems.

Over the years of operation, Vi Agroforestry continues to develop methods and approaches for greater impact. Technical manuals on various areas such as Sustainable Agricultural Land Management (SALM), Value chain development, Gender, among others have been developed to better support implementing partner organisations as well as staff within Vi Agroforestry. Vi Agroforestry has been a pioneer in the use of ICT technologies in small-holders agroforestry programmes. This includes use of cloud-based M&E systems, smart-phone supported data collection systems, feature phones support SMS and Voice system, and geographical information systems.

Background to the Problem

Vi Agroforestry uses a web-based M&E system (hereafter referred as ‘DevIndicator’) that links partner organisation projects to Vi Agroforestry programme for work planning, budgeting, and tracking of Project/Programme implementation. DevIndicator is built on open-source technologies of PHP, MySQL, Apache, JavaScipt and Linux CentOS. It is hosted on Vi Agroforestry cloud server at (https://devindicator.visystem.net/login).

Vi Agroforestry intends to use the DevIndicator system as a partner organization project – ASILI B programme linkage in the interim before migrating to Microsoft Azure system. During the period when Vi Agroforestry will be using DevIndicator the system needs to be fast, efficient, and secure. It should also have an improved reporting and analytic component. As Vi Agroforestry transitions, partner organization and other farmer organization should have the ability to build their PMERL system using DevIndicator without encumbrance from Vi Agroforestry or any other agent.

Objective

The main objective of the consultancy is to assist Vi Agroforestry improve the performance parameters of the existing DevIndicator system while creating an open-source framework that enables independent usage by partner organisations.

Project Scope

The consultancy involves upgrading the existing DevIndicator web application by.

1. Migrate the source-code from Laravel version 5 to Laravel version 8.
2. Upgrade the database to Mongo DB to improve the response time.
3. Improve the reporting and analytics component of the system.
4. Extend the code to offer Software as a Service to partner organization.
5. Create a GitHub repository for the source code including relevant documentation to enable self-hosting by partner organisations.
6. User test with partner organisations

Deliverables

The Deliverables shall be submitted in electronic format to the Regional ICT and Carbon Advisor and shall include the following:

• A report on the activities carried out within the framework of this ToR
• A functional upgraded DevIndicator interface and backend running on Vi Agroforestry cloud-server.
• A functional GitHub repository

Management Arrangements

Organizational Setting: The consultant will work under the guidance of the Regional ICT and Carbon Advisor

Contributions: The Vi Agroforestry team put at the consultant’s disposal all available materials and necessary information for tasks achievement.

Required skills and experience.

Education:

• Relevant to the assignment an advanced diploma/degree in IT technologies, statistics, or another relevant field
• Other training around the assignment will be an asset.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of professional experience in database management
• At least 2 years of professional experience in web-application development
• At least 2 years of professional experience in information management or monitoring data is required