Position: Website Improvement Consultant (The NGO Forum on Cambodia)__Deadline:22-March

Location:  Phnom Penh

 

Cambodia National Budget Website Upgrade
Dashboard, Accessibility, AI Chatbot, and Citizen Engagement Application for the Cambodia National Budget Website
Location:    Cambodia, Phnom Penh-based preferred
Duration:    April – August 2026

1.    Rationale
The NGO Forum on Cambodia (NGOF), established in the 1980s, is a membership-based organization with around 70 member NGOs and 240 partners. NGOF promotes information sharing, dialogue, and joint advocacy to advance human rights-based, inclusive, and environmentally sustainable development in Cambodia, with a strong focus on land governance, natural resource management, and responsible investment. NGOF also represents and facilitates civil society’s engagement in key national Technical Working Groups and serves as secretariat for several CSO networks to ensure community voices inform public policies and reforms.

Established in 2006 under NGOF coordination, the National Budget Project led to the formation of the Budget Working Group (BWG), a coalition promoting budget transparency and public participation in public financial management. Recognized as a key civil society platform engaging with the Ministry of Economy and Finance under Cambodia's Public Financial Management Reform, and comprising 22 member organizations as of 2022, BWG is strengthening its governance and strategic role in budget formulation, implementation, monitoring, and advancing transparency and accountability.

NGOF/BWG publish budget laws and related public finance documents through the Cambodia National Budget website. Feedback from users indicates that while the content is valuable, it can be difficult to understand and time-consuming to navigate, especially for non-specialists.

Key challenges include:
a.    Complex content and terminology for non-experts.
b.    Outdated design and information architecture; users struggle to locate key items quickly.
c.    Limited accessibility and bilingual support (Khmer/English).
d.    Lack of interactive support (search, filter, compare, and ask questions in context).
e.    Performance and maintainability constraints caused by outdated technical components.
f.    Limited mechanisms for citizens to engage directly with their representatives to support accountability and follow-up on budget-related issues.

Therefore, NGOF seeks to engage a qualified Website Improvement Consultant/Firm (hereafter called the "Consultant") to design, develop, and deploy a practical, phased improvement program focused on:
a.    The design and deployment of a modern, responsive website with an improved dashboard and content discovery experience.
b.    Simplified content presentation and bilingual user guidance (Khmer/English).
c.    The design and implementation of an AI-powered chatbot connected to a curated knowledge base to provide answers with cited sources.
d.    The design and implementation of an integrated citizen engagement application enabling citizens to communicate with their representatives (commune councilors, district councilors, and provincial parliament offices), linking budget transparency to public participation and accountability.

Note on Unified Consultancy: The citizen engagement application and the budget dashboard share an identical technical stack, a common data model, and a deeply integrated user experience. NGOF/BWG therefore awards both components to a single Consultant/Firm to ensure architectural coherence, data integrity, UX consistency, and responsible data governance, while reducing total project cost and supervisory burden. See Section 11 for full technical justification.

2.    Objectives of the Assignment
The overall objective is to redesign, develop, and deploy the Cambodia National Budget website so users can more easily discover, understand, and use budget laws and related documents, while enabling NGOF/BWG staff to manage content efficiently, and enabling citizens to engage meaningfully with their elected representatives.

Specific objectives:
a.    Make budget-law information easy to discover, understand, and share.
b.    Improve accessibility and language inclusion (Khmer/English) across all features.
c.    Enable interactive exploration (preview, compare, glossary, and chatbot Q&A).
d.    Design and implement an AI-powered chatbot grounded in a curated knowledge base of budget documents, with cited sources and clear fallback behavior.
e.    Design and implement an application for citizens to engage with their representatives (commune councilors, district councilors, and provincial parliament offices) through structured feedback and queries, with tracked responses.
f.    Strengthen website performance, security, privacy, and long-term maintainability.
g.    Provide a clean admin workflow and analytics dashboard for continuous improvement.

3.    Scope of Work and Responsibilities
The Consultant is expected to design, develop, test, and deploy all deliverables using a user-centered, phased approach. The scope includes (but is not limited to) the following components:
A.    Discovery, UX, and Technical Design (Phase 1)
a.    Conduct stakeholder interviews and review current site content, structure, and user pain points.
b.    Propose an improved information architecture and navigation.
c.    Produce wireframes/prototypes for key flows: dashboard, document library, document detail page, comparison, glossary, chatbot, citizen engagement application, and admin workflows.
d.    Define metadata standards and content templates (Khmer/English), including required fields such as title, year, promulgation date, amendments, tags, issuer, and status.
e.    Conduct light usability testing with representative users (including citizens and intended users of the engagement application) and iterate designs accordingly.
f.    Produce a technical design and architecture document covering hosting, deployment, security, privacy, and maintenance approach for both the website and the citizen engagement application.

B.    Website Design, Development, and Deployment (Phase 2 )
Design, develop, and deploy a modern, responsive website with the following features:
1)    Modern Dashboard (Key Information at a Glance)

• Dashboard with summary cards (e.g. latest Budget Law, most downloaded documents, recent updates and amendments).
• Timeline visualization: clickable timeline for budget laws and amendments by year; filters update the timeline and results in real time.
• Search and filters: keyword search (optionally full-text search) and filters by year, document type, topic, issuer, tags, and status.
• Results table with clear columns (e.g. Title | Year | Promulgation Date | Type | Preview | Download), including sorting and export options (if agreed).

2)    Simplified Content Presentation (Document Pages)

• Document detail pages with a plain-language summary (Khmer/English).
• Key facts panel (year, promulgation date, amendments, related documents).
• Consistent metadata fields and tags for improved search and filtering.
• Visual cues (icons/colors) for document type, updates, and status.
• Optional "How does this affect daily life?" section where applicable.

3)    Interactive Exploration

• In-browser PDF preview (mobile-friendly; accessible downloads).
• Optional enhancements: page thumbnails, search within PDF, and shareable links.
• Document comparison tool: side-by-side comparison with highlighted differences and a clear legend.
• Optional "summary of changes" section for non-experts (Phase 2+, as agreed).
• Glossary and tooltips: definitions for complex terms (Khmer/English) with an admin-editable glossary.

4)    Website Deployment

• Configure and deploy the website to the agreed production hosting environment.
• Set up CDN (Content Delivery Network) to ensure fast, reliable delivery of web content to users across Cambodia.
• Configure HTTPS, secure headers, and all foundational security settings.
• Conduct pre-launch performance and accessibility checks and implement agreed remediation.
• Support content migration (as agreed) and validate migrated content for accuracy and completeness.

C.    AI-Powered Chatbot: Design and Implementation (Phase 2)

• Design and implement an AI chatbot integrated into the website using a retrieval-based approach to ensure trust and reduce unsupported claims:
• Bilingual chat (Khmer/English) with language switch and/or auto-detection (where feasible).
• Answer common questions and recommend relevant documents with citations and links (document name and section/page where possible).
• FAQ mode for common questions about budget laws and how to use the website.
• Fallback and hand-off behavior when confidence is low (e.g. suggest reading a guide, contacting staff, or routing a formal query to a representative via the citizen engagement application).

Knowledge base workflow:

• Ingest PDFs and metadata (title, year, promulgation date, tags).
• Chunk and index content for retrieval; update the index when new documents are added.
• Admin controls: include/exclude documents, pin verified answers, monitor top questions.

Quality and safeguards:

• Citations shown for every answer derived from the knowledge base.
• Refusal behavior for out-of-scope or sensitive requests.
• Logging and analytics to improve coverage and reduce unanswered questions over time.
• The chatbot and the citizen engagement application share a unified session context and user intent classification model, so that questions requiring representative response are seamlessly escalated via the application rather than left unanswered. 

D.    Citizen Engagement Application: Design and Implementation (Phase 2)
Design and implement an application integrated within the Cambodia National Budget platform to enable citizens to engage with their representatives (commune councilors, district councilors, and provincial parliament offices), with a clear workflow supporting transparency, participation, and accountability.

Core functional requirements (minimum, to be confirmed during Phase 1):

• Citizen-facing interface (web-based and mobile-responsive) in Khmer/English.
• Ability for citizens to submit questions, feedback, or issues using structured categories (e.g. service delivery, local development priorities, budget-related concerns), and optionally attach supporting files or images (where feasible).
• Geo-administrative selection to route engagement to the appropriate level (commune, district, province) and/or representative office, based on agreed rules. This routing logic shares the geo-administrative metadata layer used by the budget dashboard, enabling direct links between a citizen submission and the relevant budget line item or fiscal document.
• Ticket and reference number with status tracking (e.g. submitted, under review, responded, closed), visible to the citizen.
• Representative/office portal to review, respond, and manage incoming engagements (including internal assignment within the office, where applicable).
• Admin moderation and safeguards to address spam, abusive content, and privacy risks (content rules, report/flag function, and moderation queue).
• Basic analytics and reporting (e.g. volume by location and category, response rates, response times) to support learning and accountability.

Privacy, safety, and governance considerations (designed in Phase 1, implemented in Phase 2):

• Data minimization and informed consent for any personal data collected.

• Clear privacy notice and retention approach aligned with organizational policy and applicable requirements.
• Role-based access controls and audit logs for sensitive actions.
• Rate limiting and other abuse prevention measures.
• Deployment of the citizen engagement application:
• Deploy the application to the agreed production environment, integrated with the main website platform and sharing the common authentication layer, database, and CDN.
• Configure all role-based access for representative and admin portals.
• Conduct end-to-end testing of the citizen submission workflow, routing logic, and representative response workflow prior to launch.

E.    Accessibility, Inclusion, Performance, SEO, and Security (Foundational)

• Responsive design for mobile, tablet, and desktop.
• Screen-reader compatibility (semantic HTML, ARIA labels), keyboard navigation, and contrast and readability considerations.
• Bilingual UI (Khmer/English) including navigation, summaries, chatbot, and citizen engagement application.
• Performance optimization (PDF/image optimization, caching, lazy loading, Core Web Vitals monitoring; CDN where appropriate).
• SEO and sharing improvements (clean URLs, structured metadata, sitemaps, Open Graph metadata).
• Security and privacy measures (HTTPS, secure headers, input validation, rate limiting, role-based access for admin functions, audit logs; privacy notice approach for chatbot logs and engagement application logs aligned with organizational policy).

 
F.    Launch, Training, Documentation, and Handover (Phase 3)

• QA and bug fixing across all platform components (website, chatbot, and citizen engagement application).
• Production deployment and launch support for the complete platform.
• Content migration support (as agreed) and validation.
• Staff training covering: content upload and metadata editing, glossary and FAQ management, chatbot monitoring and knowledge base updates, citizen engagement application moderation and administration, and analytics and reporting.
• Documentation: admin guide, user guide, and technical handover pack (including architecture diagrams, deployment instructions, and environment configuration details).
• Post-launch hypercare/support period (optional, as agreed). 

4.    Deliverables
The Consultant is expected to deliver (at minimum) the following. Each deliverable must be reviewed and formally accepted by NGOF/BWG before the next phase proceeds.

Deliverable 1: Inception Report
A formal project starts with providing the foundation for all subsequent work. It must include:

• Detailed workplan with tasks, milestones, and dependencies across all three phases.
• Proposed timeline with key review and sign-off points for each delivery.
• Team composition: roles, responsibilities, and time allocation for each team member.
• Risk log: identified risks (technical, organizational, and timeline), likelihood, impact, and proposed mitigation for each.
• Communication and reporting plan: format, frequency, and channels for progress updates.
• Clarification of any outstanding scope questions, including citizen engagement workflow complexity and hosting constraints.

Deliverable 2: Discovery and UX Package
A comprehensive user and content research output, including:

• Stakeholder interview summary: key findings from interviews with NGOF/BWG staff, citizens, and representative offices, covering user needs, pain points, and workflow requirements.
• Content and site audit: review of existing documents, metadata quality, information architecture gaps, and performance issues.
• Updated information architecture (IA): proposed site structure, navigation flows, and content taxonomy (Khmer/English).
• Wireframes and interactive prototypes for all key user flows: dashboard, document library, document detail page, comparison view, glossary, chatbot interface, citizen submission form, representative response portal, and admin workflows.
• Usability test notes and design revisions: summary of testing sessions with representative users and resulting design iterations.
• Agreed metadata schema and content templates in Khmer and English, including required fields (title, year, promulgation date, amendments, tags, issuer, status).

Deliverable 3: Technical Design Package
A detailed technical blueprint for the full platform, covering:

• System architecture diagram: overall platform architecture showing components, integrations, and data flows — spanning the website, AI chatbot, and citizen engagement application.
• Technology stack proposal: recommended technologies (frontend, backend, database, hosting, CDN), with rationale and comparison of options considered.
• Hosting and deployment plan: proposed hosting environment, deployment pipeline, environment configurations (development, staging, production), and rollback approach.
• Unified data schema: entity relationship diagrams and API specifications covering budget documents, geo- administrative data, chatbot interactions, and citizen engagement records — designed as a single coherent schema to enable cross-referencing between the dashboard and the engagement application.
• AI chatbot technical design: document ingestion and indexing approach, retrieval strategy, citation mechanism, session handoff logic to the citizen engagement application, and admin monitoring design.
• Citizen engagement application technical design: submission and routing logic, representative portal design, moderation system, audit logging, and analytics approach.
• Security and privacy design: threat model, access control matrix, data flow diagram, privacy notice approach, consent mechanism, audit log specification, and data retention policy.
• Performance and accessibility design: caching strategy, CDN configuration1, Core Web Vitals targets, and
• WCAG 2.1 AA 2compliance approach.
• Maintenance and handover plan: post-launch support approach, documentation standards, and knowledge transfer plan.

Deliverable 4: MVP Implementation
The fully designed, developed, tested, and deployed platform, comprising:

• Website design and deployment: a production-deployed, responsive website with modern UI/UX, including dashboard, timeline, search and filters, document pages with structured metadata and Khmer/English summaries, PDF preview, document comparison, and glossary with tooltips.
• AI chatbot design and implementation: a production-deployed, bilingual (Khmer/English) AI chatbot with knowledge base retrieval, citation display, FAQ mode, fallback behavior, and seamless escalation to the citizen engagement application.
• Citizen engagement application design and implementation: a production-deployed, bilingual (Khmer/English) application with citizen submission workflow, geo-administrative routing, ticket tracking, representative/office response portal, moderation tools, and analytics dashboard.
• Admin portal and workflows: content management for documents, metadata, glossary, FAQ, chatbot knowledge base, and citizen engagement moderation — consolidated in a unified admin interface.
• Analytics dashboard: usage metrics for the website, chatbot, and citizen engagement application (document discovery, chatbot coverage, submission volume, response rates, and user satisfaction indicators).
• Integrated platform: all components deployed on shared hosting infrastructure with a common authentication layer, unified data schema, shared CDN, and unified security posture.

Deliverable 5: Testing and Acceptance Package
A documented quality assurance record covering the complete platform, including:

• Functional test results: test cases and outcomes for all user-facing features across the website, chatbot, and citizen engagement application — including happy-path and edge-case scenarios.
• Performance test results: page load times, Core Web Vitals scores, and CDN performance for key pages on typical mobile and desktop connections, measured against agreed targets.
• Accessibility checks: WCAG 2.1 AA compliance results for key user flows, including screen-reader testing and keyboard navigation.
• Security and privacy checks: baseline security review results (HTTPS, headers, input validation, rate limiting, access controls, and audit logs), and confirmation that the privacy notice and data retention approach are implemented as designed.
• Chatbot quality checks: citation coverage rate, unanswered question rate, escalation pathway testing, and admin monitoring review.
• Citizen engagement application end-to-end test: complete walkthrough of submission, routing, representative response, and moderation workflows.
• Bug and issue log: all identified issues, severity classification, resolution status, and any accepted known issues with rationale.

Deliverable 6: Launch, Training, and Handover
A complete handover package enabling NGOF/BWG to operate and maintain the platform independently, comprising:

• Production launch: confirmed deployment of all platform components to the production environment, with post- launch monitoring for a defined hypercare period.
• Staff training sessions: practical, hands-on training (in-person or remote, as agreed) covering all admin workflows — content upload and metadata editing, glossary and FAQ management, chatbot knowledge base updates and monitoring, citizen engagement application moderation and reporting, and platform analytics.
• Training materials: slide decks, screen-recorded walkthroughs, and quick-reference guides for each admin workflow (in Khmer and English, as feasible).
• Admin guide: step-by-step instructions for all administrative functions, including content management, chatbot monitoring, moderation, user management, and analytics.
• User guide: plain-language guide for citizens and representative offices on how to use the citizen engagement application (Khmer/English).
• Technical handover pack: architecture diagrams, deployment and environment configuration documentation, credentials and access handover checklist, dependency list, and instructions for routine maintenance tasks (e.g. document ingestion, index updates, and database backups).
• Final completion report: summary of work completed, deviations from the original scope, known issues, recommendations for future improvements, and lessons learned.
• Post-launch hypercare/support: an optional agreed period (typically 2–4 weeks) for bug fixes and staff support following go-live.

5.    Duration and Level of Effort
Indicative duration (phased):

• Phase 1 (Discovery, UX, and Technical Design): 1–2 months.
• Phase 2 (Design, Development, and Testing: website, AI chatbot, and citizen engagement application): 2–4 months.
• Phase 3 (QA, launch, training, and handover): 1 month.
• Total estimated timeline: 4–7 months (subject to confirmation of scope, content volume, citizen engagement workflow complexity, and hosting constraints).
• Optional post-launch hypercare/support: 2–4 weeks (as agreed).

6.    Acceptance Criteria / Success Metrics (Examples)

• Reduce median time-to-find a document by 40–60%.
• Increase search-to-click-through rate and reduce "no result" queries over time.
• Increase document preview usage versus forced downloads.
• Accessibility: align key user flows with WCAG 2.1 AA where feasible.
• Chatbot: high percentage of answers with citations; track user satisfaction and escalation rate to the citizen engagement application.
• Performance: dashboard and key pages load within agreed targets on typical mobile and desktop connections.
• Citizen engagement application: track submission volume, response rate, median response time, and user satisfaction; monitor moderation workload and misuse/spam rate.

7.    Qualifications and Experience

• Proven experience designing, developing, and deploying similar web portals (document libraries or public information platforms).
• Strong UX/UI capability covering research, information architecture, prototyping, and usability testing.
• Demonstrated ability to implement search and filtering, metadata-driven content, and in-browser document preview.
• Experience implementing document comparison and diff features, or a demonstrated viable approach.
• Experience designing and implementing an AI chatbot using a knowledge-base retrieval approach with citations and admin monitoring.
• Experience designing and implementing citizen engagement, feedback, or case-management style applications (submission, routing, status tracking, moderation, and reporting) — strongly preferred.
• Knowledge of performance optimization and web security fundamentals.
• Capacity to deliver bilingual (Khmer/English) experiences (team composition acceptable).
• Strong project management, communication, and documentation skills.

8.    Reporting and Supervision

• The Consultant will work under the supervision of NGOF Management / designated Project Focal Point, and coordinate closely with BWG representatives and relevant NGOF staff (content owners, communications, and IT/admin). The Consultant will provide regular progress updates (e.g. weekly or bi-weekly) and participate in review meetings as requested. Each formal deliverable requires written review and sign-off by NGOF/BWG before the next phase commences.

9.    Budget
A detailed cost estimate is expected as part of the Consultant's financial proposal and may be finalized after Phase 1 once requirements, content volume, citizen engagement workflow requirements, and hosting constraints are confirmed.

Applicants should submit a budget structured by component, for example:

• Phase 1: Discovery, UX, and Technical Design.
• Phase 2 — Website: Design, development, and deployment (dashboard, search, document pages, preview, compare, glossary, admin, and analytics).
• Phase 2 — AI Chatbot: Design, implementation, knowledge base setup, and integration.
• Phase 2 — Citizen Engagement Application: Design, implementation, and deployment.
• Phase 3: QA, launch, training, and handover.
• Optional: Post-launch hypercare/support and ongoing maintenance.

NGOF may negotiate a milestone-based payment schedule tied to formal deliverable acceptance.

10.    Application Process
Interested candidates are invited to submit the following:

• Technical proposal: approach, workplan, timeline, team composition, and relevant experience — including specific examples of prior work on websites, AI chatbots, and citizen engagement or case-management applications.
• Financial proposal: detailed budget by component and milestone.
• Portfolio of similar work: links/screenshots and references.
• CVs of key personnel.
• Proposed technology stack and architecture (initial, subject to Phase 1 validation), explaining how the website, chatbot, and citizen engagement application will share a unified platform infrastructure.

Please send CV and cover letter to
Email:      job@ngoforum.org.kh
Phone:    023 214 429
Website: https://www.ngoforum.org.kh/employment-ngof
Please mention "www.Cambodiajobs.Biz" where you saw the ad when you apply!