I.      Objectives and desired results

General Objective
The primary objective of this assignment is to provide technical leadership, architectural oversight, and deliver governance to ensure that the systems built to regulate the national digital trade ecosystem are robust, secure, interoperable, and sustainably owned by MoTRI.

Specific Objectives

II.      Description of the assignment

Under the direct supervision of the e-commerce head and in close coordination with MoTRI's technical leadership, the Senior Expert shall perform the following duties:

1. Solution Architecture and Digital Service Design

• Lead the end-to-end solution architecture, technical blueprinting, and requirements definition of trade integration frameworks that facilitate, monitor, and register national e-commerce activities.
• Formulate technical standards for online request-based services, ensuring that all physical-to-digital service conversions within MoTRI bypass manual gaps and enable a fully paperless, remote customer application journey.
• Ensure that all designed platforms are scalable, modular, and resilient against service disruptions, and that they comply with national e-government and information security standards.

2. National E-Commerce Database Design and Oversight

• Lead the data architecture, data modelling, and logical/physical schema design of the centralized National E-Commerce Database, and oversee its back-end development and deployment by the implementation team or vendor.
• Define master data management (MDM) policies, data dictionary standards, and metadata registries to ensure consistent and reliable reporting.
• Define the data integration approach and oversee the development of automated ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipelines that securely aggregate sector performance indicators from distributed sources.

3. API Management and Cross-Agency Interoperability

• Define the API management strategy, interface standards (RESTful/GraphQL), and API gateway policies to connect MoTRI's regulatory systems with external platforms, and oversee their implementation.
• Lead technical coordination with the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT), Ethiopian Customs Commission (ECC), Ministry of Revenues (MoR), and the Information Network Security Administration (INSA) to establish automated data-sharing arrangements.
• Establish standardization guidelines and an onboarding framework for private market operators, payment gateways, and logistics providers into the national reporting system.

4. Information Security, Data Protection, and Business Continuity

• Define security architecture and requirements covering access controls, encryption of data at rest and in transit, and compliance with national data protection and information security frameworks.
• Ensure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and robust audit trails are implemented to prevent unauthorized access and modification.
• Coordinate security audits, vulnerability assessments, and penetration testing with the relevant national authorities (e.g., INSA) prior to go-live.
• Develop disaster recovery, backup, and business continuity protocols for all centralized data platforms.

5. Technical Delivery Governance and Vendor Oversight

• Develop and maintain the technical implementation plan, milestone schedule, risk and issue register, and change-control process for all systems under the project.
• Supervise and coordinate implementation teams, system integrators, and vendors, and review their technical outputs for compliance with approved designs and standards.
• Define quality assurance, user acceptance testing (UAT), and go-live readiness criteria, and lead the technical acceptance of delivered components.
• Lead the technical evaluation of third-party systems, software components, and infrastructure procured under the project.

6. Technical KPI Monitoring and Performance Management

• Establish technical Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) covering system performance, API processing speed, integration uptime, data ingestion, and query efficiency.
• Oversee the development of operational dashboards for real-time tracking of database transactions, data ingestion status, and sector reporting.
• Ensure regular performance monitoring, query optimization, and capacity planning so that platforms can handle high concurrent transaction volumes.

7. Capacity Building, Knowledge Transfer, and Documentation

• Ensure production of comprehensive system documentation, including architecture diagrams, API registries, database schemas, and operations manuals.
• Lead knowledge-transfer sessions and hands-on workshops for MoTRI's IT staff and network administrators to build sustainable in-house ownership of the systems.
• Give technical support on digital trade technology strategy, sustainability, and the institutional arrangements required to operate the platforms after project closure.