UNDP Jobs

1. Enhanced Negotiation, application and implementation of World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Agenda (DDA), Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and Trade Policy Review outcomes;
2. Institutionalizing of procedures under World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) agreements for Intellectual Property systems of registration are consistent with national objectives and international requirements;
3. Strengthened capacity of Bahrain in the implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement.

Scope:

The consultancy and on-the-job training will elaborate on the following areas:

• A detailed compliance assessment for Bahrain’s obligations under different agreements of the WTO, GCC Customs Union and the Bahrain-US FTA. The assessment would identify the areas where the Trade and related policies of Bahrain are not in conformance with the obligations of aforementioned treaties.
• The strategy and roadmap to ensure the compliance with above mentioned treaty obligations.
• Bahrain’s negotiation position on the issue of notification of FTA/RTAs under enabling clause and/or GATT Art XXIV; in the context of discussion and debate held in the WTO Committee on Trade in Development for GCC Customs Unions notification. The analysis and proposed position would address the future possible occurrences of similar nature.
• Factual analysis and proposing Bahrain’s position on treatment of unbound tariff lines under NAMA negotiations, particularly if any FTA partner of Bahrain has such unbound lines. 

Deliverables:

The consultant will be responsible for delivering the following:

• Prepare the compliance review report of Bahrain’s obligations under WTO, GCC and Bahrain-US FTA.
• Develop Strategy and Roadmap to bridge the identified gaps in the compliance review report.
• Conduct analysis and develop the proposed negotiation position on the legal questions mentioned in scope. 
• One-day workshop to share the findings of compliance review, strategy and roadmap for identified gaps and the proposed position on aforementioned legal questions.

• The candidate should have considerable practical experience in dealing with the compliance issues arising out of preferential trade agreements or WTO obligations. 
• Candidate should have the technical assistance experience, preferably in developing countries. Proven skills in writing policy reports and papers along with expertise in training government officials are required.
• The work experience in, or for, the WTO, UNCTAD, World Bank, OECD or similar organizations would be treated as valuable. 
• Experience of similar work in Gulf region would be a distinct advantage.
• The consultant should demonstrate integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards; and
• Display cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

Documents to be Included When Submitting the Proposals to procurement.bh@undp.org :

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Proposal explaining why they are the most suitable for the work and providing a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work (if applicable).
2. Financial proposal
3. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references.

Lump sum contracts:

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).  

Travel:

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel.  In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Evaluation:

The proposals would undergo the cumulative analysis, as per table given below,  with 70% weightage to the technical criteria and 30% to the financial aspect.

Relevant Experience 40, Specific experience on pricing model/study on Intellectual property rights 10
Relevant Qualifications  20, Financial 30

In this methodology, the maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion.
A suggested formula is as follows:

p = y (μ/z)
Where:
p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
μ = price of the lowest priced proposal
z = price of the proposal being evaluated
The proposal obtaining the overall highest score after adding the score of the technical proposal and the financial proposal is the proposal that offers best value for money.

• A Masters or similar degree in international law, economics, international trade, public policy or related areas.

• The candidate must have at least 10 years of experience working on the international trade issues, preferably the issues arising out of bilateral, regional and multilateral trade obligations.

• The candidate must have excellent communication skills in English. A good working knowledge of Arabic would be considered an advantage.