Request for Proposal For Recruitment Of A Creative Agency For Sania Communication & Marketing Assets

Tenders are invited for Recruitment of a Creative Agency for SANIA Communication & Marketing Assets. Location: Kigali Deadline: Thursday, 24/09/2026 13:00 INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL BACKGROUND About Smart Africa Alliance The Smart Africa Alliance is a bold and innovative commitment from African Heads of State and Government to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the African continent with the vision to transform Africa into a Single Digital Market by 2030. Its 5-point manifesto seeks; to put ICT (Information and Communication Technology) at the centre of national socio-economic development agenda, to improve access to ICT especially Broadband, to improve accountability, efficiency, and openness through ICT, to put the Private Sector First and to leverage ICT to promote sustainable development. Currently, the Smart Africa Alliance membership includes 42 Member States, International partner organizations including the Africa Union Commission (AUC) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) among others, as well as International Private Sector Members. Smart Africas vision is to transform Africa into a Single Digital Market by driving Africas digital transformation agenda through an inclusive, bold, and innovative multi-stakeholder approach. Project Background Africa is home to one of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial landscapes in the world, yet its innovation ecosystem remains fragmented. Governments legislate on start-ups in isolation, ecosystem support organisations (ESOs) build overlapping tools they cannot scale across borders, and capital struggles to find investment-ready ventures. Efforts to grow the digital economy are duplicated country by country, and the actors who should be pulling in the same direction rarely operate from a shared source of truth. The cost of this fragmentation is measured in ventures that never scale, policies that never harmonise, and capital that never deploys. In response, Africas Heads of State commissioned the 2020 Blueprint for ICT Start-ups and Innovation, championed by Tunisia and Rwanda. SANIA the Smart Africa Network for Innovation and Acceleration is the programme that operationalises this Blueprint across Smart Africas 42 Member States. SANIA is built on three reinforcing pillars: Policy & Ecosystem Development, ESO Enablement, and Access to Finance. It is the only mechanism positioned to align government, ecosystem builders, and capital toward the same goal, at the same time. Within the programme sits the SANIA platform the digital tool that turns this coordination into daily practice. SANIAs next phase of growth depends on communicating this proposition clearly and to distinct audiences. Two challenges shape this assignment. First, SANIA is persistently misperceived as being just for entrepreneurs, when it is in fact a multi-stakeholder coordination hub for government, ecosystem builders, and capital simultaneously; all creative work must actively counter this misperception. Second, because the platforms value is network-dependent, early activation is critical the communication assets are not decoration but the engine that drives the ecosystem past its cold-start. Smart Africa is preparing for several flagship moments during the year major continental events. Each audience requires the SANIA story told differently: a booth screen, a boardroom pitch, and a social feed each demand a different length, tone, and call to action. Smart Africa therefore seeks a creative agency / production firm to deliver a coherent, on-brand suite of promotional videos and creative and communication assets, built as reusable foundations and templates that Smart Africa can deploy across these moments and populate in-house thereafter. Request for Proposals (RFP) Objectives The overall objective of this assignment is to engage a professional creative agency to produce, within a fixed budget and a defined delivery period, a coherent and clearly defined set of communication and marketing assets for the SANIA initiative (Smart Africa Network for Innovation and Acceleration) and the SANIA platform. The assignment covers a fixed list of deliverables including promotional videos, brand and messaging foundations, event activation templates, digital and social content, and partnership/governance collateral, grouped under Components AE. The exact deliverables and quantities are specified in the Scope of Work and must be delivered in full within the fixed budget. Component A: Brand & Messaging Foundation: A SANIA platform visual identity toolkit and bilingual (EN/FR) messaging playbook that underpin all other assets. Component B: Video Assets: A fixed set of promotional videos a platform explainer with cut-downs, and a programme video (which may combine motion graphics, stock footage, or other formats appropriate to the budget) built on the shared visual system plus a set of short how-to tutorial videos for platform onboarding. Component C: Event Activation (major continental events): On-brand, audience-segmented event and exhibition materials and templates. Component D: Digital, Social & Paid Promotion: A social/email template system, a batch of content, social motion graphics, and set-up/management of paid social promotion. Component E: Partnership & Governance Collateral: partner decks and one-pagers carrying the core argument for why SANIA exists. The agency is engaged to deliver the full, fixed set of deliverables across Components AE specified in the Scope of Work, in both English and French, within the fixed budget and delivery period. 2. THE SANIA PROGRAMME, PLATFORM AND COMMUNICATION OBJECTIVES SANIA (Smart Africa Network for Innovation and Acceleration) operationalizes Africas 2020 Blueprint for ICT Start-ups and Innovation across 42 Member States, structured around three reinforcing pillars: Policy & Ecosystem Development, ESO Enablement, and Access to Finance. The SANIA platform (sania.smartafrica.org) is the digital tool within the programme through which ecosystem actors onboard, connect, and access shared resources and intelligence. A strict naming convention applies throughout this assignment, and all deliverables: SANIA refers to the full programme; the SANIA platform refers specifically to the digital tool. All creative work must reflect this distinction and must actively counter the misperception that SANIA is just for entrepreneurs. The audiences to be addressed are, at minimum: governments and policymakers (including governance partners); ESOs (incubators, accelerators, hubs); investors and capital providers; and entrepreneurs. The narrative spine is: Africa doesnt lack ideas or talent. It lacks a connected ecosystem. SANIA is that ecosystem. Assignment Specific Objectives Smart Africa will provide the firm with key inputs to reduce cost and turnaround: the core script/narrative for the platform explainer (the firm adapts and translates it, and writes derivative-version copy), and mockups/screens of the SANIA platform for use in the explainer and collateral (the firm may stylise and animate them but need not design the UI from scratch). The specific objectives of this assignment are to: Produce a master platform explainer video that communicates the value of the SANIA platform to a first-time viewer in under three minutes, plus a range of ready-to-deploy cut-downs (Component B). Establish a SANIA platform visual identity toolkit and bilingual messaging playbook that extend Smart Africas brand system to the SANIA platform and give every platform asset a consistent look and message (Component A). Equip major continental events with on-brand, audience-segmented event and social communication templates that promote the SANIA platform (Component C). Provide partner and funder engagement collateral that makes the case for SANIA as the coordinating mechanism for government, ecosystem builders, and capital (Component E). Deliver all assets bilingually (English and French), fully editable, with brand-compliant source files and a usage guide enabling Smart Africa to produce further materials in-house. Produce a programme video that positions SANIA the programme as the continental coordination mechanism mandated by Africas Heads of State, aligned with the explainers visual system for coherence (Component B). Scope of Work The agency shall produce the fixed set of deliverables specified below (Components AE) within the fixed budget and the delivery period. Each component lists the exact deliverables and quantities required. All deliverables are bilingual (English and French) and fully editable, and are subject to Smart Africas review and approval before acceptance. FIXED DELIVERABLES SUMMARY. The agency shall deliver, in full: (Component A) 1 visual identity toolkit and 1 bilingual messaging playbook; (Component B) 1 platform explainer master, 3 explainer cut-downs (partner, social, event-loop), and 1 programme film with 1 short-form cut-down and 5 how-to tutorial videos; (Component C) 5 event activation template types; (Component D) 1 social media template system, 1 email/newsletter template, 1 set of social motion templates, 10 populated social assets, 5 how-to written guides (covering the same onboarding topics as the tutorial videos) and set-up and management of paid social promotion; (Component E) 1 partner/governance pitch deck and 1 contrast one-pager. All quantities are fixed and priced within the fixed budget. Component A: Discovery & Brand / Messaging Foundation The foundation on which all other work depends. Completed first in the engagement. The firm shall: Kick-off with the SANIA team; absorb the programme/platform distinction, the three pillars, target audiences, the anti-just for entrepreneurs positioning, and the deployment moments (partner engagements publicand private-sector and major continental events). Receive and work from the client Tender Link : https://www.jobinrwanda.com/job/terms-reference-fof-recruitment-creative-agency-sania-communication-marketing-assets