The Sustainable Agriculture Foundation Bangladesh (SAF Bangladesh) is seeking a service provider to deliver website design and development, email account creation and data migration, and technical maintenance services in accordance with international standards.

1. Introduction

The Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (SAF) formerly known as “Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture (SFSA)” carries a remarkable 40-year legacy as a Swiss-based not-for-profit organization in Asia and Africa. Its unwavering commitment centers around a compelling vision: “a world in which smallholders, communities, and nature thrive together”. It delivers demand-led innovations in agriculture, ensuring sustainable market access. This organization spearheaded groundbreaking projects across agriculture, climate change, risk mitigation, carbon offset, nutrition, and rural economic development. These initiatives have positively impacted millions of smallholder farmers through strategic collaborations with local, regional, and international partners.

Recently, SFSA underwent a transformative rebranding, emerging as the “Sustainable Agriculture Foundation (SAF)” in different countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, etc. As a legacy organization of the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, it remains steadfast mission “scaling up collective action on markets and innovations so that farming can better serve smallholder families, rural communities, and nature”. Its ongoing and upcoming projects continue to enhance smallholder farming and agrifood systems globally.

1.1 Background

The Sustainable Agriculture Foundation is reforming as a federated network not-for-profit global foundation based in Europe, initially expanding in Asia (Bangladesh and India) and Africa (Kenya). It will uphold the complete legacy of the earlier SFSA and build a new website that can accurately represent its global presence and accommodate the independent works of different countries. Currently, all employees of this organization are using email accounts with the Syngenta domain, which will be closed within a few months. All email accounts and employees’ working data are stored in Microsoft SharePoint, OneDrive, and Outlook, which contain critical and confidential documents that need to be migrated to the new organization’s domain with the support of Syngenta’s IT team in Basel, Switzerland. A domain account—“www.susagfoundation.org”—has been purchased, and a website needs to be developed to create email accounts for all employees.

SAF Bangladesh is responsible for building a comprehensive, outstanding website and email account system for this organization and providing support to different countries with the help of an efficient and capable IT service provider.

2. Objectives

The broad objective of this assignment is to build a world-class new website representing a federated network of the not-for-profit organization Sustainable Agriculture Foundation, where independent member countries can manage their individual country’s content in a coordinated way. The specific objectives are:

1. Design and develop a new website and educate non-technical staff to manage the website and its content.
2. Create email IDs using the new domain and migrate data from the previous email and drives.
3. Provide annual maintenance services for the website, email, and data storage.

3. Scope of Work

The service provider will undertake the following tasks:

Website Development

• Design and develop a completely new website following organization’s brand guidelines and standards.
• Build on with a standard Content Management System (CMS) in WordPress which can be easily manageable by non-technical persons.  
• Use simple, cost-effective techniques to test designs with representative users before implementation of major features such as restructuring the main navigation menu.
• Optimize the site for low bandwidth users, ensure security with SSL and SEO for ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs)
• Define user roles and permissions to control access to different parts of the website and its management
• Ensure browser compatibility across different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) and devices (laptop, tab, mobile) to ensure consistent performance
• Integrate analytics tools like Google Analytics to track website performance and user behavior
• Schedule regular backups of the website and its database and ensure there is a disaster recovery plan in place to restore the website in case of data loss.
• Migrate the data from the existing website www.syngentafoundation.org where required or if possible
• Implement a basic “blog” function with integrated twitter, facebook, linkedin etc. social media posting

Website hosting

• The website may require 2GB, but this will increase significantly over the coming years. However, suggest the best reequipment by assessing our functionality.
• We prefer internationally secured servers like DigitalOcean, Azure, AWS etc., analysis of cost-effectiveness and suggest the best one.
• Website maintenance
• The contracted web development company will regularly update the website and assist with content update when the changes that have to be made are not possible from the CMS user interface. It should be endeavoured that as much changes as possible be made from the CMS user interface, including the website’s current functionality to add/customize and operate online voting modules etc.
• The contracted web development company will maintain a full backup of the website through the duration of the contract. The backup, code and source files will be delivered in full to client on closing of the contract.
• The contracted web development company will have an automated testing system that checks for broken hyperlinks on the site.
• The contracted web development company will follow the terms of the standard Service Level Agreement (SAL) provided in the proposal.
• The contracted web development company will verify regularly that the site is up and running, and will revert to the backup whenever necessary.
• The contracted web development company will give guidance on using the admin interface of the CMS.
• Monitor the server logs to see most popular pages and downloads and generate regular reports.
• Search Engine Optimization and site analysis
• The contracted web development company will ensure the search engine optimization. The SEO work will include:
• Keyword research & analysis
• Site analysis
• Competitive analysis
• Site content optimization
• Code optimization
• Search Engine submission (free search engines)
• Link exchange
• Web ranking report
• The contracted company will provide an annual and detailed reports analyzing progress, trends and areas to be improved. The reports should also include comprehensive and cumulative figures for downloads; as well as a competitor analysis (optional).

Email Accounts and Data Storage

• Create and manage employes’ email accounts (approximately 100) with organizations’ domain name
• Set up Microsoft 360 for email exchanges through Outlook and store individual employes’ data in OneDrive
• Migrate all Outlook email and OneDrive data from the earlier accounts

4. Deliverables

The final deliverable will determine later after analyzing all specific requirements, however, following are the key deliverables-

5. Duration and timeline

The initial service contract is for one year starting from 15 August 2024. The immediate action is to create email accounts and data migration for at least 30 accounts is by 25 August 2024. A detailed timeline for each deliverable will be agreed upon at the beginning of the consultancy.

6. Criteria for Submitting a Proposal

The company should have:

• Proven experience in web design and support to nonprofit and international development organization mostly agricultural sector designing visually appealing and navigation-friendly websites
• Familiarity and relevant experience in using different Content Management Systems (CMS), particularly WordPress
• Have a broad knowledge of current web development technologies and design tools in the field, and new software and other web programming languages and programs including the use of HTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, Macromedia Flash, Java
• Have excellent knowledge of recent trends in graphic design, websites, including online video publishing, and social media networking
• Understanding of End Users needs to match with adequate technical solutions
• Strong track record in website design; security and administration; Google Analytics; Search Engine Optimization
• The company must have a strong customer support team or need to delicate a customer service point having good communication capabilities in English to support in different countries like Switzerland, India, Kenya etc.

7. Application process

Interested consultants should submit the following documents:

• Cover Letter: A cover letter expressing interest and outlining relevant experience.
• Portfolio of Previous Work: A portfolio highlighting previous work related to the scope of work, with detailed information on expert resources and portfolio.
• Proposed Methodology Technical Proposal: A proposed methodology for undertaking the tasks outlined in the Terms of Reference (ToR).
• Financial Proposal: A financial proposal detailing with various options.

8. Budget

The consulting farm are requested to submit a detailed budget to support their activities.

9. Proposal Submission

Submission Deadline: 11:59 PM Bangladesh Standard Time, 17 August, 2024

 In fairness to all bidders, no extensions will be granted under any circumstances.

All submissions must be received via email to Abdur.Rouf@syngenta.com by the submission deadline. All proposals should be in PDF or PowerPoint format. For any immediate questions feel free to email by 14 August 2024.

Respondents will be solely responsible for all costs incurred in the preparation and presentation of their proposal. All proposals and supporting documentation submitted shall become the property of the client.
SAF Bangladesh reserves the right to amend or supplement this Request for Proposals by providing notice of amendments to all who have received the proposal document. Respondents may request to be notified of any amendments.

10. Rejection of Proposals

SAF Bangladesh also reserves the right negotiate with the successful respondent changes in their proposal prior to, and/or as part of awarding a contract.

This Request for Proposals neither expresses nor implies any obligation on the part of SAF Bangladesh to enter a contract with a vendor submitting a proposal.