Consultancy for Development DCI extensions for the Social Registry of Rwanda Tender at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

Reference number: 83494786

1. Context

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federally owned international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. The GIZ Office in Kigali covers GIZ’s portfolio in Rwanda and Burundi. GIZ Rwanda/Burundi implements projects on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union and other commissioning authorities in the following priority areas: Sustainable Economic Development, Good Governance, Climate, Energy and Sustainable Urban Development, Digitalization and Digital Economy, Mineral Governance, Peace and Security in the Great Lakes Region.

1.1.DCI

The Digital Convergence Initiative, DCI, launched in 2021 under the Global Partnership for Universal Social Protection (USP2030), seeks to accelerate universal social protection through digital transformation and interoperability. DCI is supported by the EU's multi-Donor Action, co-financed by BMZ, and implemented by GIZ with partners like Expertise France, FIIAPP, ILO, and the World Bank, DCI aims to harmonize data sharing to improve program outcomes. This initiative aligns with the goal of achieving USP2030 by standardizing and integrating social protection systems globally, fostering collaboration among stakeholders, and leveraging digital solutions for inclusive, efficient social protection.

As part of DCI’s commitment to enhance social protection delivery systems, DCI has been working on developing standards for the integration of seven key interfaces with Social Protection Management Information Systems. These interfaces include Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), Integrated Beneficiary Registry (IBR), Social Registry, Disability Registry, Farmer Registry, ID-Systems, and Payment Systems.

The consensus-based interoperability standards focus on common processes, data elements, and APIs to enable organizational, semantic, and technical interoperability. The standards also align with the layers of the EU interoperability framework.

As part of EU Action, DCI is developing a knowledge product on best practices for consensus-based development, implementation, and management of interoperability standards. DCI is seeking one or a group of consultants with specific expertise to develop the knowledge product in collaboration with GIZ.

1.2. Social Protection in Rwanda

Social protection in Rwanda became a formal sector in 2008, after the first national social protection policy was developed in 2005, and the first economic development and poverty reduction strategy (EDPRS 1) was developed shortly after in 2007. To alleviate poverty through inclusive development, citizen participation, and support for overcoming socio-economic shocks, the country developed additional social protection-enhancing instruments, such as the 2011 national social protection strategy and the updated version of the national social protection policy released in 2020. 

Rwanda’s Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) recently updated the social protection sector strategic plan (2024 to 2029), which is still undergoing some revisions. This new SP-SSP aligns with Rwanda’s Vision 2050 and the new National Strategy for Transformation (NST2) and upholds Rwanda’s commitment to reducing poverty, as enshrined in the country’s constitution. The SP-SSP seeks to reduce poverty, empower vulnerable households, and build resilience in overcoming various socio-economic shocks. These goals are captured in the SP-SSP overarching objectives: protect people in poverty, promote people to move out of poverty and prevent people from falling (back) into poverty. The plan will halve poverty by half over the next 5 years by implementing well-defined strategic priorities (see Table 1).

1. Table 1: SP-SSP Strategic Priorities between 2024 – 2029

Under the “protect” objective, the SP-SSP intends to enforce measures that safeguard poor households without labor capacity by ensuring they have access to minimum living standards through access to essential services and income support. Similarly, the plans will, under the “promote” objective, foster an enabling environment that offers income-generating opportunities to households with capacity labor so that they pursue improved livelihoods and move up the poverty ladder. Additionally, poor households’ human capacity will be enhanced to pursue economic opportunities in the job market or as entrepreneurs. Lastly, the “prevent” objective ensures that no one falls back into the poverty trap. This will be achieved by putting in place mechanisms to track households’ progress and putting investments at their disposal to help them be resilient in the face of shocks that may affect their livelihoods. 

The plan also recognizes the importance of cross-sector alignment for successful and comprehensive poverty alleviation programming. It integrates aspects of private sector development, financial inclusion and access to health services. With ongoing technological advances in Rwanda, the SP-SSP recognizes the role digital technologies and data can play in its realization. More specifically, the existing digital solutions in the social protection domain are crucial to the plan monitoring and evaluation system. The plan refers to three major systems that will serve as a reference for impact measurement for social protection interventions countrywide. They include the social registry information system owned by MINALOC, the monitoring and evaluation information system owned by LODA and the soon-to-be-developed graduation management information system.

1.3. Project background

Rwanda is actively pursuing the digital transformation of its social protection systems to enhance service delivery and improve outcomes for its vulnerable populations. Rwanda developed over the last years its own social registry system (called “Imibireho” Dynamic Social Registry (DSR)).

The Imibireho-DSR was a crucial step in the digitalization of the social protection sector. However, as the interoperability of the Imibireho-DSR with other administrative systems and with social protection MIS’s is work in progress with integrations at different levels of progress including some not initiated yet, the current digital social protection landscape is still characterized by fragmented and siloed systems that limit the efficient sharing of data from other administrative systems and coordination with various social protection programs. 

The Digital Convergence Initiative (DCI) aims to support the activities to address these challenges by supporting the interoperability between the social registry and other government systems and enabling business transformation of service delivery. DCI will thus support seamless data sharing, improve the tracking and management of beneficiaries, reduce the need for manual data collection and ultimately enhance the effectiveness of social protection programs. The initiative also seeks to align Rwanda’s digital infrastructure with global standards to ensure the sustainability and scalability of the solutions implemented. The DCI initiative for Rwanda is embedded into the broader GIZ social protection program in Rwanda, collaborating closely with the World Bank to foster sustainability.

1.4.GovStack and other Enterprise Architecture approaches

The adoption of GovStack or similar enterprise architecture methodologies can play an important role during the implementation of this initiative. 

GovStack as an example defines a methodology for the establishment and usage of building blocks to support platform based development.development. Rwanda has already implemented several building block based DPGs, among others:

• Government Business Intelligence Solution
• Government Enterprise Service Bus considered as information mediator building block 
• Government Content Management Solution
• Government Workflow Solution
• Payment Platform Mojaloop, RSwitch

In addition it builds capacities throughout the digitization of Government services – on the governmental as well as non-governmental side and focuses on: 

• Awareness building:  across public and private stakeholders by trainings, participation on conferences, workshops, especially with:
  • Local private implementation partners
  • Government clients
  • Government institutions
• Capacity Building: enabling civil servants to understand and use the GovStack approach for improved service implementation
• Operationalize the adoption of the GovStack approach by establishment of implementation capacity.
• Technical support: support of ministries to adopt the GovStack approach by using four building blocks and supporting in the implementation of use cases to create evidence for the rapid adoption rate.

Utilizing the approach described, Govstack adheres to seven core principles during the stages of design, development, and roll-out.