UNDP Jobs - 46193- Internataional Consultant

Internataional Consultant - A Baseline Assessment on Law-Making Process in Lao PDR

Location :

Vientiane, LAO PDR

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

27-Jun-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

21 working days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

21 working days

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

In September 2009, the Legal Sector Master Plan was officially adopted by the Government of Lao PDR. The Master Plan lays out a framework for the country’s first broad-ranging legal reform in order to achieve its ultimate goal of establishing a rule of law state by 2020. It is a comprehensive and candid statement of the current needs of the legal system as well as a series of guiding principles for developing a rule of law state and action plan to achieve this goal. The Plan represents an effort at coordinated legal system development consistent with the guidance of the political report of the 9th Party Congress.

In order to support the implementation of the Master Plan, UNDP, together with other donors, launched a new project (“Support Project for Implementation of the Legal Sector Master Plan”) in January 2014.

As the first attempt towards a programme-based approach in the legal sector of Lao PDR, the SPLSMP is expected to deliver the following 6 key outputs:

Enhanced capacity, procedures, and standards for legislative development and implementation in Lao PDR;
Improved capacity, structure, and arrangements further improved at legal and judicial institutions for more effective and responsive judicial process;
More systematic development of legal and judicial professionals enabled through the establishment of a unified judicial training institute;
Increased public understanding of legal rights and information, and increased participation in the legal system towards full realisation of their rights;
Lao PDR’s further integration into regional and international communities enabled through adoption, implementation, enforcement, monitoring, and reporting of international legal instruments;
Enhanced capacity of the Secretariat for more effective coordination in the legal sector and implementation of the LSMP.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of work:

The primary inputs of the consultant will be produced in close cooperation with all the concerned ministries and agencies (Ministry of Justice, National Assembly, Office of Supreme People’s Prosecutor, Supreme Court, Ministry of Public Security, etc.), LSMP Pillar 1, LSMP Secretariat, and UNDP’s legal cluster team (consisting of 2 international technical advisors, 1 programme analyst and 1 programme associate) for a period of up to 20 working days;
The consultant is also expected to work closely with other development partners (such as UN agencies, EU, France, etc.) and apply participatory methods to this work. It will be important for the consultant to obtain appropriate feedback and involvement, and general agreement from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the National Assembly, members of the judiciary, offices of the Public Prosecutor, and other identified stakeholders;
The Consultant will report to the Head of UNDP Governance Unit for all related matters.the training material and deliver 1 max. 2 days training on the guidance note to the selected DESIA staff.

Expected Results, Objectives of the assignment:

The objective of the assignment is conduct a comprehensive baseline assessment of the current legislative system and legislative development process of Lao PDR;
This baseline assessment will be a key initiative during the initial phase of the SPLSMP to grasp how the law drafting/amending process takes place and to understand how a systematic approach to law drafting/amending could be developed;
This comprehensive baseline assessment will thus formulate the way forward for improving the legislative development of Lao PDR.

The key results expected from the consultant are:

Conduct a baseline assessment;
On this basis, present findings and develop recommendations for strengthening legislative development, including guidelines on techniques, procedures and formats of the legislative development process;
Present findings and develop recommendations on the structure of a public consultation mechanism and or platform for the public and private entities/representatives including CSOs to systematically take part in the law-making process;
Give recommendations on the structure of a law-making manual.

The baseline assessment report should include at least but not limited to the following information:

Facts on the current legislative system and development process in Lao PDR;
Flowchart of the legislative development process;
Compliance with laws and other relevant legislation;
Relevant statistics (number of officials involved in this process, average time taken to develop legislation, number of law departments/bureau existing in ministries/agencies, etc.);
Main issues and challenges related to the law making process, procedural bottle necks, gaps both technical and personnel, etc.;
Reasons/causes for frequent amendments and recommendations to address this challenge;
Strategy on how development partners can provide technical assistance in this process;
Recommendations on how to go about installing a public consultation mechanism/platform;
What elements should be incorporated in the upcoming law-making manual and how it should be used as a reference.

Deliverables, Timeframe and Places of work (21 Days):

The assignment is expected to start in June 2014 and be completed by October 2014.

Desk Review (2 Days):

The consultant will be expected to familiarize himself/herself with relevant literature for this work, including but not limited to:

Lao PDR’s Constitution, Law on Laws, and other relevant laws;
Law-drafting handbook developed by the National Assembly;
SPLSMP Project Document;
7th National Socio-Economic Development Plan;
Legal Sector Master Plan;
Access to Justice Report;
Customary Law Report;
Terminal Reports of relevant projects.

Inception Report (1 Day):

Findings of the desk review;
Detail plan on field mission.

In-Country Mission (13 Days):

Consult all key stakeholders at the central level to assess the present legislative system and the process of legislative development and implementation (5 days);
Assess citizens’ participation into the law-making process (4 days);
Consolidate all the inputs and prepare presentation materials (3.5 days);
Present the main findings and tentative recommendations at the occasion of a debriefing workshop (0.5 day)

Deliverables:

Draft Baseline Assessment Report including preliminary recommendations for strengthening legislative development, and guidelines on techniques, procedures and formats of the legislative development process as well as the structure for a public consultation mechanism.

Note:

UNDP will reserve the right to comment on the draft document before finalizing it;
Debriefing workshop on main findings and recommendations at the end of the in-country mission.

Home-Based (5 Days):

During this period, it is expected that the baseline assessment report will be finalized.

Deliverables:

Final Baseline Assessment Report;
Final recommendations on legislative development process, development of a law-making manual, and structure of a public consultation mechanism (to be included in the report).

Competencies

Functional competencies:

Shares knowledge and experience;
Plan and prioritizes work activities to meet organizational goals;
Builds and sustains relationships with key constituents (international/external/bilateral/ multilateral/public/private/civil society);
Conceptualizes and analyzes problems to identify key issues, underlying problems, and how they relate;
Demonstrates excellent and effective written and oral communication skills;
Demonstrate respect to knowledge and culture and religion in a multidisciplinary working environment;
Applies the required depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise to meet job demands;
Uses information technology effectively as a tools and resource;
Demonstrated flexibility and adaptability in taking on this type of consultancy.

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harass.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree in Public Law, Constitutional Law, Comparative Law, Political Science, or related relevant fields.

Experience:

At least 10 years of experience in legislative development or other related fields, AND a minimum of 5 years of international experience;
Familiarity with the country or the region strongly preferred. Understanding of development issues in Lao PDR an asset;
Extensive experience in working with governments and institutions.

Languages:

Excellent command of written and spoken English;
Knowledge of Lao language (spoken and/or written) an advantage.

Requirements for submission of proposals:

All interested and qualified candidates should apply on-line using the following links:

UNDP Lao PDR Country Office website at http://www.la.undp.org/content/lao_pdr/en/home/operations/jobs/ or
UNDP Jobs at http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm;
In order to make submission please read the attached relevant documents which are also available on our web-site at http://www.la.undp.org/content/lao_pdr/en/home/operations/jobs/:
TOR (Annex I);
Individual Contract & General Terms and Conditions (Annex II);
Offeror’s Letter to UNDP (Annex III);
Reimbursable Loan Agreement (for a consultant assigned by a firm) & General Conditions (Annex IV);
Documents to be included when submitting the proposals.

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

Technical Proposal as per Annex III “Offeror’s Letter to UNDP”
Explaining why you are the most suitable for the work;
Providing a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work including the work schedule for the delivery of outputs/deliverable;
CV including past experience in similar project and contact reference of at least 3 references for whom you have rendered preferably the similar service.

Financial proposal:

Detailed financial proposal: Lump sum offer with clear cost breakdown against each deliverable.

Note:

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). All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. UNDP accept travel costs not exceeding of an economy class air ticket.

Instructions for on-line submissions:

Step 1: Please prepare all required documents electronically;
Step 2: Combine all documents in ONE SINGLE FILE (preferably in PDF however Word format can be also accepted) and upload to the UNDP Jobs using the links above;
Step 3: After that you will receive an auto reply from the UNDP jobs if your offer is received successfully.

Incomplete proposals or proposals received after the deadline will be rejected.

Evaluation of Proposals:

Cumulative analysis:

The award of the contract will be made to a consultant who offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria;
Technical Criteria weight; [0.5];
Financial Criteria weight; [0.5].

Only a consultant obtaining a minimum of 70 points in the technical rating would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Note:

Any request for clarification must be sent in writing to the following e-mail: kazuo.fukuda@undp.org.

UNDP Lao PDR will respond in writing by standard electronic mail and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all consultants.

Selected individual will be requested to submit signed P 11 form before signing the contract (P11 can be downloaded here http://www.la.undp.org/content/lao_pdr/en/home/operations/jobs/