Development and implementation of a new public website and content management system for the ministry of social affairs

The Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA) is a key ministry working directly with Lebanese residents, notably the poor and marginalized groups and refugees. It is the leading provider of essential social services for Lebanese citizens and displaced people of different nationalities, who depend on the ministry’s social services as a primary source of assistance. The Ministry of Social Affairs is currently working hard to put into effect the “Right to Information Law” passed by the Lebanese parliament. In the frame of the Qudra 2 program, CFI is responsible for the production and the dissemination of relevant, understandable and actionable information materials. Therefore, to provide and facilitate access to information to Lebanese and Syrian vulnerable communities and to guide them as well towards social protection pathways, CFI is inviting reputable and qualified companies with a track record of success in designing and producing digital solutions to apply for the design and development of a new website for the Ministry of Social Affairs. The existing website (www.socialaffairs.gov.lb) is currently used as a general information and news directory. The technologies used in building the current website are now considered outdated and do not allow the implementation of the new ministry vision that consists of building an integrated electronic platform to enable its beneficiaries to obtain all the necessary information without calling or visiting the ministry or the social development centers spread all over the Lebanese territories as well as creating a space to implement the “Right to Information Law” by facilitating access to information. The ministry of social affairs, in partnership with CFI, has defined the requirements of the new website to include the provision of primary sections such as news, projects, and publications, as well as facilitating the journey of the beneficiaries by creating an advanced and user-friendly electronic guidance section. The guidance section will provide all the information and documents required to submit any request related to the ministry’s services and social development centers. It should also include a geographical search service for social development centers and NGOs close to the beneficiary and explain the services while considering the different technological awareness of the various beneficiaries.

3.1 General & Technical requirements:

• To build a well-structured public website that is user-friendly, responsive, multilingual and search engine friendly.
• To provide a customized content management system (CMS) supporting custom-made functions and features. The use of a free framework such as (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc.) is not accepted.
• To liaise with relevant representatives and ministry departments to understand the needs and identify corresponding content, requirements and workflow.
• To create visualized content for the ministry services along with the textual content.
• To create wireframes and prototypes to propose options for implementation.
• To filter and migrate the existing data from the current website.
• To provide In-person staff training and create digital training documents on how to use the CMS and perform basic troubleshooting.
• To provide a complete handover of the website and CMS source code at the end of the assignment.
• Ensure adherence to the WCAG 2.1AA accessibility standards and associated best practices (Visual and physical disability considerations).
• Ensure that the new website provides ease of Integration with other intranet or extranet web-based software through API, JSON, or other data query and retrieval methods.
• Develop the website based but not limited to the following technologies: - PHP (Most compatible and updated version) and MySQL - Cascading Style Sheets | SCSS / CSS - HTML5 - JQuery V3.6 or higher - Ajax - JavaScript.