CALL FOR CONSULTANCY PROPOSALS OPEN COMPETITIVE BID

CALL FOR CONSULTANCY PROPOSALS

OPEN COMPETITIVE BID

Development of a Telegram-Based Disability Rights Legal Information and Justice-Navigation Chatbot

Organization: Ethiopian Lawyers with Disabilities Association (ELDA)
Assignment: Design, Development, Testing and Deployment of a Telegram-Based Disability Rights Legal Information and Justice-Navigation Chatbot
Type of Engagement: Short-Term Consultancy (90 Days)

Duty Station: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Project: VOICE+: Inclusive Voices for Peace and Human Rights in Ethiopia
Submission Deadline: Within ten (10) calendar days from the date this advertisement is posted on Ethiojobs

Background

The Ethiopian Lawyers with Disabilities Association (ELDA) is a professional association of lawyers with disabilities established in 2019 to promote, protect and advance the rights of persons with disabilities and strengthen inclusive access to justice in Ethiopia. ELDA works in legal aid, human-rights protection, disability-rights advocacy, legal and policy research, law and policy reform, and inclusive participation in civic and justice processes.

ELDA, in partnership with consortium organizations, Timran and AMPHO, is implementing VOICE+: Inclusive Voices for Peace and Human Rights in Ethiopia, supported under the Civil Society Innovation Fund (CSIF). The project seeks to strengthen social cohesion, human-rights protection, inclusive civic participation and access to justice, with particular attention to women, youth, persons with disabilities and other marginalized and vulnerable groups across six regions of Ethiopia.

Under the project's gender-responsive and disability-inclusive access-to-justice component, ELDA is strengthening legal aid, human-rights awareness, psychosocial support and referral mechanisms. A key innovation is the development of an accessible Telegram-based legal aid chatbot to complement hotline, community-based and human legal services.

The chatbot is intended not merely as a technology platform, but as part of ELDA's broader effort to reduce barriers to legal information and justice, amplify the voices of marginalized groups, strengthen rights awareness, and connect vulnerable persons with appropriate legal and protection services.

Purpose of the Consultancy

ELDA invites qualified individual consultants, multidisciplinary teams or firms to participate in this OPEN COMPETITIVE BID to design, develop, test and deploy a secure, accessible and user-friendly Telegram-based chatbot providing free, confidential and Ethiopia-specific legal information and justice-navigation support.

The chatbot will contain at least 2,000 legally reviewed and validated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and plain-language answers and will serve as:

• a legal-rights awareness and information tool;
• a basic justice-navigation and legal-options guide;
• a referral mechanism linking users to ELDA, legal aid providers and relevant institutions; and
• an early identification and escalation mechanism for urgent, sensitive or high-risk cases requiring human intervention.

The system should complement, rather than replace, professional legal advice and human legal-aid services.

Key Scope of the Assignment

The selected consultant/team will be expected to:

1. Develop and legally validate a structured database of at least 2,000 Ethiopia-specific FAQs and answers, supported by appropriate legal sources and citations.
2. Design and develop a secure Telegram chatbot capable of understanding different ways users may phrase their questions.
3. Provide clear, accurate, plain-language and disability-sensitive responses appropriate for users with different levels of legal literacy.
4. Establish structured referral pathways connecting users with ELDA, legal-aid services and relevant government and justice institutions.
5. Develop a mechanism for identifying urgent or high-risk cases and escalating them to designated human staff.
6. Apply universal design and digital accessibility principles, including compatibility with screen readers and other assistive technologies.
7. Involve persons with disabilities and relevant rights-holders in user research, design, testing and validation.
8. Establish a practical content-management/update mechanism enabling authorized ELDA personnel to maintain the legal database.
9. Conduct comprehensive testing, user-acceptance testing, system refinement, documentation and final deployment.
10. Provide appropriate orientation, knowledge transfer and capacity building to designated ELDA personnel to enable effective use, administration and maintenance of the system.

Expected Deliverables

The consultancy is expected to produce, at minimum:

• A fully functional and securely deployed Telegram chatbot;
• A legally reviewed database containing at least 2,000 FAQs and answers;
• Appropriate legal references and citations;
• Accessible referral and human-escalation mechanisms;
• Accessibility and usability testing involving persons with disabilities;
• An ELDA-administered system for updating legal content;
• Technical and user documentation;
• Orientation/training for designated ELDA personnel;
• Knowledge transfer to relevant ELDA staff for basic system/content management; and
• A fully tested and operational system ready for institutional use.

Required Qualifications and Experience

ELDA seeks a consultant, multidisciplinary team or firm with demonstrated experience in Telegram chatbot and secure software development; backend systems, databases and system administration; AI-assisted or natural-language question-and-answer systems; digital accessibility and inclusive technology, including screen-reader and assistive-technology compatibility; legal information systems or comparable knowledge-management platforms; Ethiopian law, human rights and disability-rights frameworks; working with persons with disabilities and/or OPDs; and delivering secure, maintainable and scalable digital solutions within defined timelines.

Applicants should also demonstrate:

• Advanced university qualifications and/or relevant professional qualifications in computer science, software engineering, IT, law, human rights, disability studies, gender, social sciences or other relevant fields, as applicable to proposed roles;
• Substantial professional experience in comparable technology, chatbot, legal-information, accessibility or knowledge-management assignments;
• Demonstrated experience in system development, institutional capacity building and knowledge transfer;
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and/or Amharic;
• Ability to work collaboratively with civil society organizations, government institutions, rights-holders and persons with disabilities; and
• Legal registration and authorization to provide the proposed services in Ethiopia, in accordance with applicable laws and requirements.

For multidisciplinary teams/firms, applicants must clearly indicate the qualifications, roles and responsibilities of each key team member.