IT Consultant to Develop Add-on Tool for QGIS to Produce PFES Map

A. DAI ORGANIZATION AND VALUES

DAI Global LLC. is a development company with corporate offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, EU, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Palestine and implementing project operations worldwide including Vietnam. DAI tackles fundamental social and economic development problems caused by inefficient markets, ineffective governance, and instability. DAI works on the frontlines of global development, transforming ideas into action and actions into impact. We are committed to shaping a more livable world.

DAI and its employees are committed to confronting racism and holding ourselves accountable for positive change within the company and in the communities, cultures, and countries in which we live and work. DAI is committed to attracting and retaining the best employees from all races and backgrounds in our continued effort to become a better development partner.

DAI upholds the highest ethical standards. We are committed to the prevention of sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment as well as other ethical breaches. All of our positions are therefore subject to stringent vetting and reference checks.

B. PROJECT BACKGROUND

DAI is implementing The USAID Sustainable Forest Management Project (the Project) in Vietnam to work with the Government of Vietnam (GVN), with MARD as its main counterpart, to reduce carbon emissions associated with deforestation and degradation of natural foests, and increase carbon sequestration by improving timber plantations management. The Project will implement a “Green Prosperity” approach that strengthens local communities’ ability to protect their natural resource base and reduce emissions while building a strong foundation for sustainable livelihoods and equitable economic growth.

The Project will work in seven provinces (Lao Cai, Son La, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Quang Tri, Quang Nam) and focus on five objectives:

1. Improve and expand community forest management
2. Increase conservation-friendly enterprises in forest-dependent communities
3. Increase functionality of law enforcement system for forest crimes
4. Improve production forest management practices
5. Mobilize domestic resources for forest management and protection

The Project will be implemented during the period 2020-2025 by DAI in collaboration with RECOFTC and Preferred by Nature as partners, with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) as the counterpart and the Management Board of Forestry Projects (MBFP) as project owner.

C. OBJECTIVE

Currently, the Provincial Funds are constructing PFES maps using Mapinfo software with the support of the v5PFES tool running on Mapinfo platform. The update and standardize process of the annual forest change by the Forest Protection Department from shapefiles to Mapinfo tab format are encountering errors including font errors, coordinate system deviations, unable to update new watersheds, unable to automatic export/import tables of PFES areas, tables of PFES for each watershed, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to have a new tool to update the PFES map using the open source QGIS software, in order to ensure the consistency of the data fields, the coordinate system of the forest change monitoring map and PFES map. By this SOW, we are looking for an individual programing consultant based in Hanoi to develop an add-on to QGIS to meet this requirement.

D. SCOPE OF WORK AND TASKS

The selected consultant will have to work as a team member with two other consultants of GIS and forestry to develop add-on to QGIS and carry out other activities as below:

1.     Develop mock-up

Basing on user story and use case developed by the GIS and forestry consultants, the IT consultant will lead the development of mock-up for the add-on to develop PFES map. The mockup will be reviewed by the Project, VNFF and also the other two consultants in the team before IT consultant can start programming for the add-on.

2.     Coding to develop add-on to QGIS.

The consultant has responsibility to carry out this activity. The PFES mapping add-on to be developed will be run on open source QGIS platform. The add-on/tool should have the following functions:

2.1.  Standardize data

• Extract data from updated forest cover changes in FORMIS system;
• Change font from TCVN3 to Unicode encoding back and forth. This is a well-known error when converting data from FORMIS system. The consultant will need to be familiar with this error and coordinate with the GIS consultant to solve this problem
• Standardize data from FORMIS as inputs for PFES maps.

2.2.  Mapping PFES

• Construct data structure (data fields structure);
• Support to identify forest areas provide environmental services of environmental services users regulated in Decree 156/2018/ND-CP: Identify natural area of watershed area, forest area of environmental services providing area of services users; update annual area providing forest environmental servicesarea;
• Update payment areas, watershed areas;
• Update the forest area which has not been paid for PFES due to the investment from the government budget, other sources, household production of acacia plantations, etc;
• Check and identify errors between data fields;
• Update forest owner ID;
• Update the communes with limited condition;
• Update the K factor;
• Determine the payment level for each forest plot;
• Update the forest change/payment change for every year;
• Update changes in forest owners and contract recipients.

2.3.  Construct table structure and query table

• Table of forest plots eligible for PFES payment from every basin to every village/hamlet according to the form No. 01, 02 Appendix V Decree 156/2018/ND-CP dated November 16, 2018 of the Government detailing the implementation of a number of articles of the Law on Forestry;
• PFES payment table for each forest plot inside the watersheds area;
• Annual table of revenue and expenditure according to form No. 08, Appendix VI of Decree 156/2018/ND-CP;
• Table of annual schedule of revenue and expenditure according to the form No. 10,11, Appendix VI of Decree 156/2018/ND-CP;
• Prepare and present the report on PFES payment results according to the form No. 16, Appendix VI of Decree 156/2018/ND-CP.
• Export to data table summarizing total forest area in watershed by forest types regulated in Circular 33/2018/TT-BNNPTNT

2.4.  Data management

• Divide map layers by administration boundary and watershed;
• Create folder to manage database;
• Color map by forest types, forest source, payment level;
• Integrate satellite image interpretation to identify, early warning of forest lost in the PFES payment area.

2.5.  Export PFES maps (for printing)

• On the basis of the PFES map/database built in sections 1.2 and 1.4, extract the PFES payment map and its attributes related to the forest owners including: households, individuals, communities, groups of households, forest owners are organizations and commune People's Committees assigned by the Government to manage forests.
• Build automatic layout editing features to facilitate the extraction and printing of complete PFES maps. Including components such as: main payment map; a map of the location of the payment area relative to the provincial, district and commune boundaries; annotate the elements displayed on the map; signing frame.

2.6.  Source code and update:

• The vendor is required to hand over to the Project the full source code of the plug-in. This will be useful for the Provincial Funds in upgrading the plug-in when there is a change in the regulations on PFES payments and the development of a payment map or when the project implementation period ends, the Provincial Funds will no longer have financial support from the Project. On the basis of the shared plug-in source code, the Foundation's IT department or the Fund's consulting unit will later update and develop new features to respond to arising tasks. This will reduce the costs incurred by the Fund and ensure that the plug-in will have high inheritance and long-term use.
• The source code should be open and can be used any party as open source of QGIS.

3.     Develop guidelines/Manual of add-on use

The IT consultant must lead to develop manual for administrators.  With guidelines for users which will be developed by GIS and forestry consultant, the IT consultant will need to provide comments.

The manual can be in MS Word or PDF file, but it should be user-friendly use designed.

4.     Develop training documents

The consultant will support other team members to prepare training documents to train provincial funds and VNFF. The training documents should include exercise for practicing the add-on during the trainings. The training documents can be in MS Word, PFD or any other Project acceptable format.

5.     Fix bugs and errors after training

After the training and 3 months use by provincial funds/VNFF, the IT consultant will have to lead in revising and finalizing the add-on for any further recommendations or comments, fixing bugs and errors. The final version of the add-on must receive no objections/comment from provincial funds, FPD, PPMU and the Project before handling over to them. The tool will be verified and approved by VNFF.  

6.     Provide maintenance service

The maintenance services will be provided for one year by the IT and GIS consultants after handling over to VNFF, HB fund. The IT consultant must be available to provide maintenance service if there is any error, problem while using by provincial funds and VNFF.

E. LOCATION

Hanoi.

F. CONSULTATION TIME (LOE) AND DELIVERABLES