09 — Business
Tenders
Public and private procurement opportunities, bid qualification, submission and outcome tracking.
Client
Smart Africa Alliance
Project ID
P-Z1-G00-018
EOI Deadline
15 Sep 2026
Deadline Time
17:00 Kigali
Opportunity Summary
| Consultancy title | Recruitment of a Firm for the Design, Development, and Pilot Validation of the TRUST SDK: An AI powered Pan-African Cross-System Trust Scoring Solution for Digital Payments |
|---|---|
| Project | Institutional Support for Digital Payments and e-Commerce Policies for Cross-Border Trade (IDECT) |
| Sector | ICT |
| Financing agreement | 2100155041216 |
| Project ID | P-Z1-G00-018 |
| Financing source | African Development Fund |
| Assignment duration | Six (6) months from contract signature, followed by a maintenance phase |
| Procurement stage | Request for Expressions of Interest — Consulting Services |
| Selection framework | African Development Bank Procurement Policy for Bank Group Funded Operations, October 2015 |
Strategic Objective
The IDECT project is intended to strengthen cross-border trade and regional integration through
digital payments and e-commerce policy implementation. The TRUST SDK is intended to strengthen
trust, interoperability and transaction reliability across digital payment ecosystems and support
Africa's Single Digital Market vision.
The SDK is expected to assess trust across systems and operators using transaction metadata where no common cross-system risk-assessment mechanism currently exists.
Assignment Objective
Design, develop and validate a reusable AI-enabled SDK capable of generating transaction trust scores from anonymized transaction metadata originating from multiple payment systems.
Cross-System Trust Assessment
Assess transaction trust across payment systems and operators.
AI-Driven Risk Scoring
Generate transaction risk and trust scores using AI models.
Explainable Decisions
Provide explainability for scoring and decision-support outputs.
API-Based Integration
Integrate into existing payment solutions through APIs and SDK components.
Cross-Border Scalability
Scale across multiple payment corridors, systems and operators.
Open TRUST SDK Technical Workspace →
Required Deliverables
| Deliverable | Required output |
|---|---|
| 1 — Requirements Analysis and Architecture Design | Business, technical and regulatory requirements; overall architecture; data model; interoperability framework; implementation roadmap. |
| 2 — AI-Powered TRUST SDK Development | SDK, transaction trust-scoring engine, APIs, explainability features and deployment/integration components. |
| 3 — Pilot Validation Report | Testing and validation using anonymized Pan-African cross-system transaction datasets, including model performance, accuracy, scalability, operational feasibility and scale-up recommendations. |
| 4 — Knowledge Transfer, Training and Final Documentation | Technical documentation, source code, deployment guides, API specifications, user manuals, training materials and knowledge-transfer sessions enabling Smart Africa to independently manage and scale the solution. |
EOI Qualification Requirements
| Firm qualifications | Provide information demonstrating qualifications to perform the assignment. |
|---|---|
| Company documentation | Company brochures and relevant organizational information. |
| Relevant assignments | Description of similar assignments previously completed. |
| Comparable operating conditions | Evidence of experience under similar conditions. |
| Personnel | Demonstrate availability of appropriate skills, qualifications and relevant experience. |
| Joint venture | Consulting firms may form joint ventures to strengthen qualification. |
Submission Instructions
| Submission email | procurement@smartafrica.org |
|---|---|
| Deadline | 15 September 2026 at 17:00 local time, Kigali |
| Required reference | “Consultancy Firm to Carry Out the Design, Development, and Pilot Validation of the TRUST SDK” |
| Further information / TOR | tenderenquiries@smartafrica.org |
| Office hours | 07:00–15:00 GMT |
| Address | Smart Africa Alliance, 10th Floor, Career Centre Building, KG 541 ST, Kigali, Rwanda |
| Telephone | +250 788-822155 / 784013646 |
| P.O. Box | 4913 |
Internal Gurexa Bid Control
| Opportunity status | ACTIVE — EOI preparation |
|---|---|
| Strategic fit | To assess / document |
| Technical fit | To assess / document |
| Eligibility | To verify against firm evidence and detailed TOR |
| Joint-venture requirement | To determine after qualification-gap analysis |
| EOI package | In preparation |
| Technical concept / demo | Supplementary differentiator — not a substitute for compliant EOI requirements |
| Commercial proposal | Not yet requested at EOI stage unless required by detailed procurement documents |
| Next gate | Complete qualification evidence, personnel evidence, references, and submission package before deadline |
Bid Lifecycle
DISCOVERED → SCREENING → QUALIFIED → GO / NO-GO → CONSORTIUM FORMATION →
EOI PREPARATION → EOI SUBMITTED → SHORTLIST → TECHNICAL / FINANCIAL PROPOSAL →
CLARIFICATION → EVALUATION → AWARDED / LOST / CANCELLED
Tender Register
| Reference | Client | Project | Deadline | Duration | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P-Z1-G00-018 | Smart Africa Alliance | TRUST SDK | 15 Sep 2026, 17:00 Kigali | 6 months + maintenance | EOI ACTIVE |