Tender open for project to advance Benin’s digital govt strategy

A contractor is being sought to build a new, high-performance development environment using a modern Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) architecture as part of ongoing endeavours to improve the digitalization of public services in Benin.

Known as “Beninnovation,” the project is expected to further advance the digitalization of public services and strengthen the country’s position as a regional leader in digital innovation in West Africa, according to the tender announcement.

The bidding process is overseen by the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), which is doing so on behalf of the Beninese government. GIZ is also supporting a move to boost civil registration for digital transformation in Cameroon.

Bids for the Benin project are currently being received, and the submission deadline is January 20, 2025.

The selected contractor will provide IT services that comprise consulting, software development, Internet and support, for the project which is expected to last 10 months.

Specially, the successful bidder will among other things build a development environment suitable to both experienced developers and non-technical users to facilitate creation of digital public services and accelerate the pace of innovation, as well as ensure full-service interoperability with existing systems to facilitate secured exchange of data between services, and improve scalability and resource management.

The provider will also be required to strengthen security and control access by integrating in the architecture the management user identities, control access to resources, ensure data privacy, and support Benin’s digital transformation goals by creating a solid foundation for the development and maintenance of digital public services.

This tender is part of a wider project for building Benin’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) which has already registered major gains. Such progress is seen in the domains of civil registration which recently had a boost with over 2,000 biometric registration terminals, digital ID issuance such as through the WURI project which has been enhancing access to public services, digitization of government services and a data exchange architecture using Estonia’s X-Road model with some services implemented by Cybernetica, designing national digital government frameworks and developing digital services for citizens and businesses.

This component of the Benin DPI project underscores the involvement of the private sector in establishing a streamlined digital services ecosystem that also allows for “a co-creation space that will enable stakeholders to successfully co-create new ideas and services.”

In November, Benin’s Digital Affairs Minister, Aurélie Adam Soulé Zoumarou, announced that as part of the country’s digital transformation ambitions, the government plans to spend around $26 million in 2025 on different digital transformation projects, as reported by Ecofin Agency. This amount of money represents over 56 percent of the country’s state budget for that year.

Article Topics

Africa  |  Benin  |  biometrics  |  digital government  |  digital ID  |  digital public infrastructure  |  GIZ  |  tender