Background

The Election Commission of Nepal (ECN) is a constitutional body responsible for holding elections in Nepal. It is an independent body and directly involves in the planning and managing the national and local level elections in Nepal. ECN has a good track record of conducting free, fair and credible elections. It has gained international credibility for its impartial role during the past elections, and has consequently been able to establish collaborative relationships with several international agencies and obtain substantial technical support.

Recently accomplished Constituent Assembly Election 2013 has been cited as one of the best elections ever held in the electoral history of Nepal. However, the ECN currently faces 'institutional capacity development' as a great challenge to maintain its credibility in the days to come.

These challenges could be observed at two levels:

• (1) human resource development for Nepali electoral authorities, i.e., continuous professionalization of the ECN staff members’ abilities with respect to the diverse aspects related to administration of the electoral processes; and
• (2) institutional and organizational development including fine-tuning of institutional and operational frameworks that allow ECN officials to apply their acquired skills to the electoral process.

In order to support the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN) in its institutional capacity development, UNDP/ESP together with other BRIDGE implementing partners such as, IFES and IDEA International provides both technical and financial support to institutionalize BRIDGE program in Nepal and considers one of the best alternatives to support the ECN in its staff development programs. BRIDGE is a key component of UNDP electoral assistance worldwide and an important element of the UNDP/ESP in Nepal for the ECN staff development.

In Nepal, BRIDGE program started in 2008 as a partnership between the ECN, UNDP ESP, IFES and IDEA International. The ECN is the lead institution for the implementation of BRIDGE activities in Nepal, and organizes events with the technical and financial support of UNDP/ESP, IFES and IDEA. The BRIDGE Coordination Committee (BCC) constituted under the chairmanship of a Joint Secretary of the ECN comprising representatives from UNDP/ESP, IFES and IDEA, oversights BRIDGE actives and meets bi-annually to propose activities and approves an annual work plan. A BRIDGE Working Group (BWG) comprising representatives from the ECN, UNDP/ESP, IFES and IDEA assists the BCC.
Since 2008, over 50 BRIDGE training courses on 10 modules, including foundation module “Introduction to Electoral Administration” and nine thematic modules (Electoral Systems, Electoral Training, Pre-election Activities, Voter Registration, Electoral Contestants, Electoral Dispute Resolution, Electoral Observation, Gender and Elections, and Media and Elections) have been conducted across the country for approximately 1,150 participants, including both TtF and modular courses. The TtF courses were conducted in Nepal in 2008, 2011 and 2012 respectively for approximately 60 participants in total.

After the successful accomplishment of Constitution Assembly Election 2013, the ECN aims to develop its Electoral Education and Information Centre (EEIC) as regional hub for BRIDGE activities in South Asia that can deliver modern electoral processes in the region. It also intends to develop a pool of highly specialized electoral professionals within its organizational structure for long-term capacity development activities of its own staff with a view of retaining its highly skilled trained staff possessing international standards.

In this regard, ECN has planned a BRIDGE TtF training in Nepal from 17-28 September, 2014 for SAARC   Countries’ participants. Each member country will have opportunity to nominate two participants (one male and one female). As part of ECN’s continuous effort of its staff development, proposed BRIDGE TtF is the 4th event of its serious and the second initiative at the regional level.

In order to support ECN efforts to develop its EEIC as regional hub for BRIDGE activities in South Asia UNDP/ESP intends to hire an international consultant to run the Train the Facilitators (TtF).

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of Chief Technical Adviser of the Electoral Support Project, International Consultant will have the following principal duties:

Literature review: Listing and review of latest TtFs conducted elsewhere in BRIDGE implementing countries and recommend the ECN and BRIDGE team and assist and advise ECN and BRIDGE team in the adaptation of latest BRIDGE materials in South Asian context.

• Work with the national BRIDGE facilitators in designing the TtF for 20 participants from the SAARC countries. Also, update and finalize the agenda for the proposed SAARC countries participants and advise revision of materials with latest updates as necessary;
• Assist the national BRIDGE facilitators in the preparation of a 10-days TtF training schedule for SAARC countries participants;
• Supervise and ensure the quality of the proposed TtF training event;
• Observe and provide feedbacks to the Nepalese BRIDGE facilitators during the training, and assisting them with any modification required in the TtF training events itself;
• Award accreditation based on their performance;
• Submit TtF implementation plan to UNDP/ESP and seek feedback from the ECN and BRIDGE partners and support in the implementation of TtF for 20 SAARC countries’ participants;
• Discuss and finalize reporting format of TtF Training completion Report.

In coordination with the Election Commission of Nepal and BRIDGE partners the International consultant will deliver followings final products.

• Draft and final TtF implementation plan;
• Revised TtF materials with latest updates (in BRIDGE TtF Folder);
• BRIDGE TtF training delivery for 20 SAARC level participants;
• Submit final TtF completion report including assessment of the TtF event conducted for SAARC level countries’ participants.

Interested Candidates can download the Procurement Notice, detailed Terms of Reference (Annex 1), and General Conditions of Contract for the services of Individual Contractors (Annex 2), P11 Form (Annex 3) and Offeror’s Letter to UNDP (Annex 4) from the UNDP website: http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=16946.

Please submit your application to the following email address: procurement.np@undp.org.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

• Self-development, initiative-taking;
• Acting as a team lead and facilitating team work;
• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
• Creating synergies through self-control;
• Managing conflict;
• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others. Promoting learning and knowledge management/sharing is the responsibility of each staff member;
• Informed and transparent decision making.
• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
  

Corporate competences:

• Commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values;
• Sensitivity to cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age differences
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment;
• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
  

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in Law, Public Administration, International development or related fields.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of extensive, practical experience in the design, application and adaptation of the BRIDGE training methodology abroad;
• Previous facilitation at least two/three TtF;
• Previous facilitation experience of BRIDGE TtF and experience working on electoral issues in South/East Asian countries will be considered an asset;
• Previous experience working with UNDP would be a strong asset.

Language:

• Fluency in English with professional writing skill is required.