Consultancy for Updating and Reviewing of Operational Intern...

I. About PITA:

The Palestinian Information Technology Association of Companies represents more than 180 major ICT companies in Palestine’s emerging technology and startup ecosystem. PITA has become the driving force in advancing the ICT sector’s interest, and the leading information source about this sector in Palestine.

Based in Ramallah, PITA was founded in 1999 by a group of Palestinian entrepreneurs with the vision of creating a non-profit organization to advance the interests and positive societal impact of Palestine’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector.

Through its programming, contents, events and global outreach, PITA is now poised to not only continue advancing its mission towards innovation, but also to serve as the region’s drive for its start-up ecosystem. PITA’s mission is to lead the ICT sector towards an innovation-based economy and its strategic goals are; the emergence of an open, secure cloud, the consumerization of IT, and ability to do business in a global, borderless environment, makes Palestine an ideal place to discover, innovate and disrupt traditional thinking.

II. Scope of Work:

PITA intends to update its internal manuals, develop and create new operational manuals and procedures in order to ameliorate its performance and be more responsive, transparent and accountable to its internal and external personnel, BoD, donors, and all related stakeholders by setting standards, promoting knowledge sharing and collaboration within the ICT sector and under PITA’s umbrella.

With that being said; PITA is seeking the service of a consultancy firm for updating its internal regulations and manuals already created, and creating new manuals, specified within this assignment.

III. Objectives:

The purpose of hiring the services of the consultancy firm is to review and develop the operational manuals/procedures for Financial Management, Human Resource (HR) Management, Office Administration, Procurement and Organizational procedures, and creating new guidelines that are needed with the aim for improved operational efficiency and effectiveness contributing towards appropriate internal controls, transparency and accountability to PITA’s programs and activities, and relations with donors and stakeholders.

Key Informants:

• PITA’s different departments that operate in both WB and GS.
• PITA’s Board of Directors.

The assigned consultancy firm will ensure that the development and the drafting process of this task align with PITA’s General Assembly Members’ and its external and internal stakeholders’ best interests and needs.

 IV. Specific Tasks to be Undertaken by the Consultancy Firm:

The objective of this assignment is to update PITA’s internal manuals and procedures; and as a prior step; the consultancy firm will be conducting a gap analysis to thoroughly assess and evaluate the existing manuals and institutional procedures for determining the areas that require adjustments.

The developed manuals are the following:

1. Inception Meeting: Carry out an inception meeting with PITA’s team to understand the aims and requirements of this assignment; and develop a basic understanding on the concept, scope of work and required deliverables.
2. Document Review: Conduct a review of the following existing PITA by-laws and manuals and share with PITA for review:

• Financial Manual: This manual should provide detailed definitions, guidelines, processes, and templates related to financial management and procedures.
• Procurement Manual: This manual should provide detailed definitions, guidelines, processes, and templates related to procurement procedures and guidelines.
• Human Resources and Personnel Management Manuals: These manuals should provide detailed definitions, guidelines, processes, and template related to human resources and personnel management.
• Organizational Manual: This manual should provide detailed definitions, guidelines, processes, and templates related to PITA’s organizational structure and strategic planning.
• Administration Manual: This manual should provide detailed definitions, guidelines, processes, and templates related to administration management and procedures.

3. Gap Analysis: Conduct a gap analysis to assess and evaluate existing manuals and institutional procedures against PITA’s bylaws and best practices; determining the areas that require adjustments. Considering that PITA is in the process of drafting new bylaws, the consultant will be responsible for updating all manuals to match the new bylaws, which are expected to be completed during the implementation of the manuals’ development activity.
4. Revise Existing Manuals: Based on the approved outline, develop, and update the available manuals related to HR, Finance, Procurement, Organizational and Office Administration. After incorporating the received feedback, share the final approved version of the outlines, specifying the content and guidelines for each section within the manuals.
5. New Manual Development: PITA will be adding the following manuals and policies to be created by the consultancy firm:

• Code of Ethics to govern the decision-making processes used by individuals and organizations within the ICT sector. This code is to provide a general idea of the ethical standards that will help PITA identify which actions are appropriate and which are not by providing guidance about professional values and choices.
• Gender Action Plan on the measures to be taken to mainstream gender issues within projects, activities and all procedures to be taken within PITA and how to prevent sexual exploitations and harassments in the workplace and implemented activities.
• Risk Assessment and Management Plan for PITA’s operations and projects; including risk identification, analysis, evaluation, treatment, monitoring and review and risk reporting tools.
• Sanctions and Penalties Code to help individuals and organizations in the ICT sector avoid conflicts of interest, conflict between members, partners and third parties, and ensure fairness and transparency in all implemented activities and projects.
• Guidelines concerning relationships with Partners and Third Parties: Financial and Administrative principles for entering into relationships and interventions with various partners and third parties.
• Employee Training Policy for staff and newly hired employees, in order to foster a culture of continuous professional development and help employees replenish their knowledge and acquire new skills to do their jobs better.
• Fraud Policy for Private sector institutes in Palestine; procedures to be followed if a fraud is suspected, employees’ responsibility when detecting fraud, and fraud prevention.
• Policy to protest and dispute contracts/ bids. This will ensure effective and efficient expenditure of public funds, and fair and expeditious resolution of protests to a solicitation or award of procurement contracts.

6. Template and Form Development: Develop standard templates/forms/tools for each updated and new created function, separately attached to each manual as an appendix in easy to use and editable form. Also provide brief guidelines on how and when to fill each section of the standard templates.
7. Prepare and Conduct a Validation Workshop: The validation workshop will be held to obtain feedback from PITA on the draft versions.
8. Finalize Drafts: Based on the feedback received during the validation workshop, all versions will be finalized and formulated.
9. Training Package: Prepare a training package for PITA’s staff for all revised and new-created manuals.

V. Deliverables

The Consultancy Firm should inform PITA periodically on progress achieved against the agreed action plan for the assignment. Specifically, the Consultancy firm is required to submit the following items:

1. Inception report and an action plan; a clear action plan shall be submitted to the PITA upon signing the contract and that is subject to approval.
2. Survey data, meetings, group discussion materials.
3. Drafts of the updated manuals and the new created manuals (In Arabic and English); shall be submitted to PITA.
4. Validation workshop for feedback and engagement.
5. Final versions of the manuals based on the results of the workshop (In Arabic and English); shall be submitted in its final edited format.
6. Training workshop on the use of the updated and created guidelines.

VI. Type of the Contract:

Short Term Consultancy, fixed budget contract.

VII. Duration of Contract and level of effort:

The assignment is expected to be accomplished over a period of 3 months.  The expected start date is April 2023, with an end date of June 2023 upon a satisfactory submission of the deliverables outlined in the ToR.

VIII. Qualifications of the Consultancy Firm:

In order to accomplish the objectives of the assignment and the scope of work, the consultancy firm is required with the following qualifications and competences of its team:

• At least five (5) years of previous proven work experience in developing institutional operational manuals and regulations for business associations and NGOs. Experience within the ICT sector is preferred.
• Human resource capacity for the proposed assignments from the West Bank and Gaza Strip; staff with the needed credentials, knowledge and skills should be provided for each required assignment (Financial, HR, Procurement, etc.), and the proposed human resource must also include staff with strong communication/reporting and editing/proof-reading skills.
• Understanding of local labour laws, safeguarding requirements (organizational code of conducts), procurement rules and internationally accepted best practices and standards.
• Strong competence in development strategies, procedures or standards pertaining to procurement, disbursement and social safeguards.
• Knowledge and experience on gender issues, and strong analytical skills, including legal analysis.

Staff/Human Resource for the proposed Assignment:

• The proposed staff must have requisite academic qualifications, preferably postgraduate in related field. The staff proposed for finance related manuals must have academic qualification related to financial and accounting subjects, similarly the proposed staff for HR related Manuals must have HR related academic qualification in Human resources and management, while the staff proposed for procurement related manuals must have academic qualification in related subjects and so on.
• Previous working experience of proposed staff in similar assignments with umbrellas, ICT companies and I/NGOs will be given preference.

IX. Selection Process and Criteria:

The following documents are to be submitted:

1. A Technical Proposal detailing the interpretation of the TORs and highlighting the methodology and workplan that will be followed during the implementation.
2. A Financial Proposal indicating the daily rate for reviewing and providing the required deliverables, in USD with all costs excluding of VAT
3. CV(s) of staff who will be engaged for this assignment reflecting at least the academic qualification, previous relevant experience, current location etc. Each CV should not exceed four (4) pages and should be annexed in the Technical Proposal.
4. Documented evidence, such as: Copy of manuals previously developed, contract award or reference letter from the clients stating scope of services and deliverables related to previously completed similar assignments.
5. Registration certificate of the consultancy firm, clearly mentioning the date and the type of establishment.

The consultancy firm will be evaluated through a competitive selection process, and the following overarching criteria will be followed:

• Adequacy of the methodology proposed. 20%
• Staff skills, credential and knowledge as reflected in the ToR and CVs. 15%
• The proposed work plan in responding to the ToR. 20%
• Quality and relevancy of previous work – as reflected in sample manual/guidelines submitted or previous contract/reference letter submitted. 15%
• Financial Offer. 30%

Please note that the price quotation should be submitted in:

1. English language.
2. The Price must be in USD EXCLUDING VAT – and PITA is not responsible for any currency differences.
3. The price offer must be valid for a period of 6 months.
4. The individual/company bears all responsibility in the case that he/she submits a price offer and is unable to provide a valid source of deduction or any official certificates that require the payment process.
5. PITA has the right to withdraw or cancel the solicitation, without incurring any costs and without any justifications.
6. The supplier to whom the quotation is awarded bears all responsibility in the case that they submit a quotation and is unable to issue invoices or bring a valid source of deduction or clearance from the Added Tax Department or any of the reinforcements necessary for the payment.
7. The payment with the selected firm will be made after signing the contract, completing the required service by submitting the work completion report, and providing the financial payment request. If the service provider is an individual, 10% of the total amount will be deducted as income tax to be submitted to the Ministry of Finance.
8. PITA reserves the right to reject any offer without stating the reasons and to solicit offers from abroad in the case of rejection of the submitted offers and in case of violation and non-compliance with the required specifications.
9. The amount due to the supplier shall be paid by Checks or bank transfer from the bank account of the project, after submitting the necessary.
10. PITA is not obligated to the lowest prices without giving reasons, and it is also entitled to split or cancel without giving reasons, Therefore, the offers will be evaluated from a technical and financial point. Assuming that the evaluation percentage of the Financial proposal (30%).
11. Any clause or any of the general conditions relating to PITA that have been inadvertently omitted and is not mentioned within these Terms of Reference, is subject to PITA internal standard procedures or the Palestinian Procurement and Supplies Law or any financial procedures related to that.

Please stamp and sign all pages of the quotation.

X. Applications:

Interested consultants shall submit the following documents in sealed envelopes to the following address: Al-Irsal Street; Ougarit Building; 4th Floor, indicating on the cover page “Consultancy for Review and Development of Internal Operational Manuals and Policies” no later than Thursday, Dec 29th 2022.

If you have any further inquiries, you can contact our office at  +970 2 297 1990