The Leticia Platform Prototype

Request for Proposals

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) invites proposals for qualified contractors to gather requirements for, and develop a prototype of, a collaborative platform aimed to connect funders with sustainable investment opportunities initially in Colombia. Recipients of this document are invited to submit a proposal in compliance with this Request for Proposals to undertake the scope of work described herein.

What you’ll be working on:

Leticia is a digital collaborative platform aimed to support filling the conservation financing gap in the Amazon Basin by optimizing project financing channels in this region. The platform will use the most advanced technologies and algorithms to provide information on who is doing what where and intelligently connect investors and funding sources with high impact public and private projects. As a digital platform, Leticia aims to provide in one place intelligent data and tools to connect governments, investors, donors, philanthropists with carefully identified investment opportunities in high priority locations for programs such as Herencia Colombia. The platform combines location intelligence with the power of connections and collaboration integrating the industry-leading Geographic Information System (GIS) and Client Relationship Manager (CRM) platforms in one place. Additionally, the alliance with the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) allows the implementation of advanced data science algorithms using data from external partners based on unique semantic analysis capabilities. This powerful combination allows Leticia to provide a wide range of audiences with a fast and accurate response with an optimal user experience.

This RFP covers the discovery and prototyping phase for the platform, targeted to begin immediately upon signing on a consultant and meant to run for four months. You will help us map out the platform’s users and their needs, the project’s data needs, initial visual interfaces, and design a first working prototype which will inform a second platform development stage. You will be working with experts from WWF Colombia, WWF United States, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Basque Institute for Climate Change, who will provide support for the needs assessment and technology development.

Leticia Platform Background

Overview

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) through the IDB Lab and the Natural Capital Lab, the Paulson Institute and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have identified significant barriers to the opportunities that are opening up to attract new financing and to guide investors towards projects with the highest return in environmental and social terms. Among these barriers, is a lack of coordination and knowledge exchange among local actors, which leads to the inefficient use of funds, duplication of efforts, and a lack of coalition building. In addition, the selection of project locations to achieve maximum impact is difficult because conservation and prioritization data are not complemented by accurate information on local actors and project implementors. Adding to this, in most cases, investors and financiers continue to use highly analogous and inefficient methods to build their investment portfolios, identify reliable local partners and manage priorities. Finally, there are very few systematized and easily accessible mechanisms that allow an investor to measure the impact of its investment and even fewer its return in terms of social, economic and environmental impacts. This lack of investment or accountability monitoring capacity undermines transparency and interest on the part of organizations and individuals with financing capacity.

The solution proposed under the Leticia Platform is a digital collaborative platform aimed to support filling the conservation financing gap in the Amazon Basin by optimizing project financing channels in this region. The platform would use the most advanced technologies and algorithms to provide information on who is doing what where and intelligently connect investors and funding sources with high impact public and private projects.  As a digital platform, Leticia aims to provide in one place intelligent data and tools to connect governments, investors, donors, philanthropists with carefully identified investment opportunities in high priority locations for programs such as Herencia Colombia (HECO). The pilot project will be developed in Colombia to support the Herencia Colombia program.

Audiences

The platform will initially focus on the following key audiences:

• Donors such as private and public investors, development banks and international organizations, philanthropies
• National, Regional and Local Governments, initially focused on Colombia
• SINAP - The National Protected Areas System (Sistema Nacional de Áreas Protegidas)
• Civil society organizations originating and managing projects
• Businesses and startups seeking funding or sharing their solutions with the rest of the members of the platform

Existing documentation for review

• Website
• Video
• IDB overall project documentation
• IDB artificial intelligence module documentation
• Example Use Cases
• Description of Herencia Colombia - the initial focus of the project

Scope of Work

The objective of this project is to prototype the digital platform that will meet the needs of HECO’s network of users as well as have the potential to eventually be used in the other countries of the Leticia Pact.

The key activities are:

• Identification of types of platform users including needs, use cases and transactions necessary to meet the objectives of the platform
• Investigation of existing platforms
• Identification of available data sources
• Identification of the suitable data management model  
• Development of prototype user interfaces
• Development of testable prototype
• Initial testing of prototype with 25 users
• Recommendations for technical architecture for post-prototype development

Development should follow the most updated standards and processes for software development including the Digital Principles for Development. 

See the full details here.