Background

The Poverty Group (PG) of the Bureau for Development Policy (BDP) is the institutional anchor of UNDP’s work on poverty reduction and MDGs support. It provides core services designed to support global, regional and national efforts to reduce poverty and reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the areas of: technical and policy advice, policy analysis and advocacy and knowledge brokering. Within the Poverty Group the Inclusive Green Growth (IGG) Team covers issues of inequality, vulnerability and resilience, social protection and sustainability.            

The IGG Team at the Poverty Group is preparing a report on “Inequality in Developing Countries” (with a target publication date of Sept 2013). The objective of the report is to support the substantive discussions on a Post 2015 development agenda. The report will review the different conceptual approaches to inequality addressing questions such as inequality of what and inequality between whom.

Duties and Responsibilities

The primary objective of the consultancy is twofold: i) to provide coordination support to all activities related to the inequality report; and ii) to provide technical and project management support to the IGG Team as needed.

The consultant will provide coordination support to all activities related with the elaboration of the Inequality Report. This includes:

• Liaising with authors regarding the submission of the first draft of their chapters – by March 15^th;
• Compiling and distributing first drafts of chapters to all authors for comments – by April 3rd, 2013;
• Coordinating payments to authors as soon as they deliver the first drafts of their chapters – by April 5^th;
• Coordinating Writers Group Meeting in London on April 23-24^th at King’s College, including travel arrangements, agendas and note taking – ongoing, finalized by April 24^th;  
• Liaising with authors throughout the review process – ongoing;
• Coordinating the peer review process and incorporate comments as needed – by July 15^th;
• Coordinating the editing process – by July 30^th.

The consultant will also be available to provide technical and project management support to the IGG Team as needed. This will include:

• Provide inputs for requests from the executive office or other bureaus;
• Provide support to other projects within the IGG team;
• Represent the IGG team at Post-2015 Inequality Consultation activities as needed.

• Detailed notes from the Writer’s Group Meeting in London;
• Incorporation of Peer Review comments to all chapters;
• Final drafts of chapters to be approved by supervisor and authors.

The financial proposal will account for 30% and technical proposal will account for 70% of the total candidate evaluation score. 

Competencies

• Strong policy analysis skills and knowledge of issues related to inequality and human development;
• Previous experience in producing or facilitating human development related knowledge products and services;
• Strong and proven verbal and written presentational skills in the English; and
• Ability to work independently and manage competing priorities.
• Outstanding writing skills and the ability to incorporate and provide substantive comments to report chapters;
• Effective team player, good communication and inter-personal skills, ability to be part of a culturally diverse environment, ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines;
• Sound grasp of substantive and policy issues related to current inequality and development debates;

Required Skills and Experience

• Master’s degree in Development Economics, Economics, or closely related field;

• 4 years of professional experience, part of which in conducting research required;
• Familiarity with the UN system and development agenda would be an asset.

• Excellent command of English (oral and written), knowledge of another UN language/s would be an asset;

FC: 25630