UNDP Jobs

The Election Commission of Nepal (ECN) commenced implementation of voter registration (VR) programme with photographs and biometrics in 2009 in order to establish a reliable voters list acceptable to the main electoral stakeholders which can be further used for National ID.

The ECN completed the voter registration (VR) in all 75 Districts in March 2012, registering over 10.5 million eligible citizens aged 16 and above. The registration began with a pilot in April 2010 followed by municipality registration in September 2010 and nationwide registration in March 2011. There were more than 9,000 registration sites and 15,000 registration centres established during this period. 

ECN has opened continuous registration centre in all the 75 districts election offices (DEO) and currently set up registration centre at 75 Districts Administration Offices (DAO) and Sub district administration offices where the citizenship certificate are distributed. The continuous registration is taking place in those areas.

In assistance of UNDP ESP, Central Database Centre Server is established at ECN Head Quarter. All the registration data are stored in the database centre and the continuous registration data to be integrated at central database centre. ECN is in the process to develop the continuous voter list application considering the lacking feature of the current application and database software. In addition, the ECN needs to establish the data backup facilities and disaster recovery plan in coordination with other government agency like GIDC (Government Integrated Database Centre).

The consultant will provide advice to ECN officials, in support of the development process of the Continuous Voter List Application, establishment of backup facilities and disaster recovery plan and implementation of the IT requirements for the election aspects. In addition, S/he will advise the project manager and ECN official in the on-going process, as required.

Objectives:

The objective of the assignment is to supervise development and implementation of continuous voter list application (CVLA); establishment of disaster recovery and ICT Election management and ensure the smooth operation.

Description of the assignment: 

To supervise development and implementation of continuous voter list application (CVLA); establishment of disaster recovery and ICT Election management and ensure the smooth operation. The Consultant shall be based in the ECN. ESP administration shall provide her/him with logistic support to the related activities in producing the outputs envisaged under this contract. 

Period of assignment:

The duration of the Long Term Agreement (LTA) is from September 01, 2012 to December 2014 with a total input of up to 200 consulting days. Upon signing of an LTA, a separate Individual consultancy contract will be signed for each assignment during the LTA period on “as and when requested” basis. The Consultant will make multiple visits to Nepal based on need during this period with the prior approval of the Project Manager and UNDP Country Office. The assignment may include limited number of days for home based advisory support to the project. If the elections to the Constituent Assembly are held in 22 November 2012, service of the consultant will be extensively required prior to the elections.

Scope of Work:

Under the direct supervision of the ESP Chief Technical Advisor\International Project Manager and in close collaboration with the Chief of IT Section, the ICT & Systems Security will perform the following tasks:

• Provide registration application development advice
• Implementation of software development and management framework
• Development of text and biometric de-duplication tools.
• Configuration of Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) for the de-duplication
• Design and Implementation of backup-site including the configuration.
• Implementation of Disaster recovery plan and High-Availability system
• Network monitoring and management implementation
• ECN intranet service development (Document management; records management; helpdesk implementation).
• Review, update, integration and development of Election Management System
• Election assets management
• Poll worker management
• Prepare Hardware and Software specification as  required
• Supervision and monitoring of migration of data from Oracle to PostgreSQL
• Provide technical Input during the procurement process of hardware and software
• Prepare hand over note on the field based assignment and onsite briefing on the assignment.

Deliverables:

The consultant will deliver outputs as follows:

• Implementation of disaster recovery plan
• Servers and systems set up at the Disaster Recovery Site.
• Guidelines developed for operation and maintenance of Disaster Recovery System.
• Implementation of Continuous Voter Registration Application.
• Installation of hardware and software
• Election Call Center Implementation
• Election Result Management System established
• ECN Intranet System developed
• Develop concept note on Election Management System; Poll worker management and election assets management system 

Data Centre Support

• Advice Project Manager on contingency plans for operation of data centre
• Provide qualitative and operational criteria to ensure the operation of data centre

Sustainability

• Provide recommendations and guidelines to ensure the ongoing IT sustainability of the continuous voter registration Systems and processes.
• Document the experiences and lessons learnt from the Data Centre Operation.
• Provide ongoing technical support and assistance to ECN and UNDP as required.
• Build relation to wider Government of Nepal including the issuance of National ID cards.

Quality Assurance:

• Chief Technical Advisor\International Project Manager will be primarily responsible for monitoring consultant’s progress on a regular basis as he/she will work under the direct supervision of the International Project Manager;
• Payments will be made to the consultant only after receiving a report towards the end of the individual contract period;
• Overall performance of the consultant will be evaluated towards the end of the contract, following UNDP’s standard evaluation form: “UNDP PERFORMACE EVALUATION FORM FOR INDIVIDUALS HIRED UNDER IC.’

• Ability to work with tight deadlines in a challenging working environment.
• Demonstrated capacity to work in a multicultural environment including the training and development of national colleagues.
• Fluency in English with professional writing skill is required.
• Previous experience working as international consultant preferably in South Asia.

Education:

• The Consultant should have a Masters Degree in IT or relevant field.

Experience:

• The consultant should have minimum 10 years of professional experiences in working under similar assignments.
• Experience with design and implementation of wide area networks in developing countries including intranet and network security tools and techniques.
• Sound knowledge and experience in data privacy and security issues including the protection of data in a disparate field operations.
• Sound knowledge and experience with mail server and intranet systems for a large user community.
• Sound knowledge of server technology including processing, storage, backup/recovery requirements.
• Experience in the integration of multi-tiered application systems.
• Knowledge of AFIS implementation and operation strongly desired.
• Experience in the implementation of voter registration or electoral administration systems an advantage.

Document to be included when submitting the proposal:

Application and required documents:

a. Proposal:

To be included as part of the proposal:

• Mandatory (max. 300 words): A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work;
• Mandatory (max. 1000 words): A brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the work.

b. Financial Proposal:

• Financial proposal indicating a daily fee (UN DSA and most economic and direct Air Ticket cost will be reimbursed as per actual)

c. UNDP Personal History form: downloadable from http://www. undp.org.np/vacancy including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references.

Note:

• Applicants of 62 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy
• The candidate has to be an independent consultant (If the candidate is engaged with any organization, the organization employing the candidate will be issued with a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) to release the employee for the consultancy with UNDP).
• Due to sheer number of applicants, the procurement unit will contact only competitively selected consultant.

Evaluation:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

 Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
b) Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

* Technical Criteria weight; 70%
* Financial Criteria weight; 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical:

• Criterion A: Experience with design and implementation of wide area networks in developing countries including intranet and network security tools and techniques (15%)
• Criterion B: Experience in data privacy and security issues including the protection of data in a disparate field operations (10%)
• Criterion C: Sound knowledge on server technology including processing, storage, backup/recovery requirements (20%)
• Criterion D: Experience in implementation of disaster recovery plan (10%)
• Criterion E: Knowledge on configuration and operation  of Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) for the de-duplication (15)%

Financial: Lowest financial proposal: 30%

Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical). The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

((Lowest Bid Offered:)/(Bid of the Consultant)) x 30

*"Lowest Bid Offered" referes to the lowest price offered by offerors scoring at least 70% points in technical evaluation.