Background

In spite the progress seen in the last decade, about 216 million Latin Americans (38 percent of the total population) are still vulnerable and risk sliding back into poverty. Therefore, one of the main future challenges in the region is the construction of a universal social protection floor to protect households from a wide variety of risks—including impoverishment.

Inequality remains a key problem. Progress has been weaker among women, youth, indigenous peoples, afro-descendants and rural populations. Even though a UNDP study shows that income inequality diminished in 14 of 17 countries —thanks to the impact of education on labor incomes and the spread of conditional cash transfer programs— 10 of the 15 most unequal countries in the world are in Latin America. The region’s positive Human Development Index suffers an average loss of 25.7 percent when adjusted for inequalities.

One in every four Latin Americans aged 15-29 is poor or extremely poor, only 35 percent have access to education and 20 million young Latin Americans aged 15-18 neither work nor study. That’s nearly one in every five, 54 percent of them female and 46 percent male. Violence, crime, and insecurity contribute also to hinder development in the region.

All over Latin America and the Caribbean, the PNUD works mostly with governments, but also with civil society and, the private sector in assisting countries to propel and sustain growth towards an improvement of people lives. This is done through strategies to help achieve the next:

  • To reduce poverty and inequality;
  • To strengthen democratic governance;
  • To improve citizen security;
  • To drive South-South cooperation;
  • To promote women’s empowerment;
  • Crisis prevention and recovery;
  • To increase access to energy and to promote the development of sustainable practice;
  • To prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.

 The Regional Bureau requires consultancies in these areas to better fulfill its mission.

Duties and Responsibilities

The scope of tasks to be undertaken will be agreed between the Regional Director for the Latin American and the Caribbean Bureau and the Technical Expert(s) as the need arises, and may cover, but may not be limited to:

  • Provide strategic advice and analyses on issues of interest to the Directorate;
  • Prepare articles aimed to spread the vision of the Regional Director about the region, and the objectives, policies and tasks overtaken and planned by the Regional Bureau;
  • Provide inputs and advice to the strategic direction on the organization of the Forum for Social Development. A space for debate, reflection and exchange between Ministers of Social Development and their advisors;
  • Analyze mechanisms to strengthen South-South cooperation and the role of UNDP about this initiative and prepare background documentation;
  • Provide advice towards strengthening the Advisory Board of the Regional Human Development Reports;
  • At the request of the Regional Director, promote collaboration between the Regional Bureau and key policymakers at every level: public, private sector, civil society, and academic;
  • Provide substantive input through the drafting or comment on project proposals, project evaluation reports;
  • Provide thorough analysis and recommendations on quarterly or annual reports on the Region;
  • Provide substantive inputs on critical discussions on issues related to socio-economic development in the region; human development; poverty and inequality, and related topics, including UN inter-agency discussions, regional events, lecture series and online discussions as required;
  • Assist with the preparation of briefs and background documents.

Expected Deliverables

Selected consultant will be issued a LTA.
Services will be requested upon specific needs/events and number of working days will be agreed with IC up to a maximum of 20 days a year.

The following deliverables could be requested by the Regional Director or the person s/he appoints:

  • Briefs, policy notes/issue briefs, project concept notes, and other substantive technical inputs on issues related to socio-economic development in the region; human development; poverty and inequality, and related topics;
  • Substantive inputs on UNDP project proposals, progress reports on poverty reduction, capacity development, and other related initiatives;
  • Recommendations on how to integrate youth and gender perspectives into UNDP strategic and policy documents, programme and projects, such the Human Development Reports, Regional Human Development Reports, MDG Reports or other relevant documentation produced by UNDP;
  • Facilitation of critical discussions on issues related to socio-economic development in the region; human development; poverty and inequality, and related topics, including UN inter-agency discussions, national/regional events, lecture series and online discussions as required.

Competencies

Functional competencies:

  •  Understanding of development, social and economic issues and in-depth knowledge of the Latin American region;
  • Strong ability to build and maintain relationships with people at all levels from a variety of organizations;
  • Demonstrated substantive experience in working with developing countries and undertaking policy and programmatic work in the area of expertise;
  • Strong understanding of the links between sustainable development, economic growth and poverty reduction;
  • Excellent research, analytical, writing, presentation, and communications skills;
  • Ability to present complex issues persuasively and simply;
  • Ability to anticipate client needs and to demonstrate understanding of client's perspective;
  • Accountability: takes responsibility for achieving agreed outputs within set deadlines and strives until successful outputs are achieved;
  • Professionalism: displays initiative, sets challenging outputs for him/herself and willingly accepts new work assignments;
  • Ability to prepare succinct, analytical publications and reports;
  • Demonstrated ability to work in an independent manner;
  • Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty.

Knowledge competencies:

  • Shares knowledge and experience (e.g. presenting relevant experiences and lessons learnt elsewhere in the region or world-wide);
  • Actively works towards continuing personal learning, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.

Corporate competencies:

  • Demonstrated commitment to UNDP's mission, vision and values;
  • Deep knowledge of the UN System;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

  • Master degree in development and applied economics, macroeconomics, quantitative economics, or equivalent qualifications;
  • A PhD in any of these areas would be an advantage.

Experience:

  • Minimum of fifteen years of work experience in the areas of interest (economic and social development) in an international development project context;
  • Progressively experience in the management and organization of events and regional forums for social development;
  • Wide experience working with governments, private sector and civil society organizations;
  • Cognate experience in research and analysis related to sustainable human development with particular focus on Latin America and developing economies;
  • Experience or strong familiarity with the work of other multilateral, bilateral and civil society development partners;
  • Substantial experience in development research and policy analysis related to political economy;
  • At least 10 years of experience working with the UN System, in particular with UNDP and its mandate is highly desired;
  • Strong quantitative skills and demonstrated capacity to perform outstanding original research including statistical analysis and data mining;
  • Fully literate in terms of software and e-networking.

Language:

  • Fluency in spoken and written English;
  • Knowledge of other UN official languages is an asset.

Travel:

Experts may be required to travel for specific tasks. When such a request comes, the organization shall bear the cost of travel including economy class air tickets, lodging and terminal expenses in accordance to UNDP rules and procedures. Should the individual consultant (IC) wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do 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.

General Conditions of the Services under the Long Term Agreement are provided as Annex 1 to this Terms of Reference.

Documents to be included when submitting the applications:
Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

Cover letter explaining why you are the most suitable candidate for the advertised position.

Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please, make sure you have provided all requested materials. Documents should be merge in a standalone file, since the online application does only permit to upload one file per application.

Financial proposal (Contract based on daily fee)

The financial proposal will specify the daily fee in US dollars. Payments are made to the Individual Consultant based on the number of days-worked, satisfactory performance and acceptance of the completed work by UNDP.

Evaluation Criteria

Method: Cumulative analysis
 
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of the applicant's qualifications and financial proposal. The award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

  • Responsive/compliant/acceptable;
  • Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Only the highest ranked candidates who would be found qualified for the job will be considered for the financial evaluation.

Technical Evaluation: 70% of total evaluation (maximum 70 points).
Criteria A: Education (maximum 20 points).
Criteria B: Experience (maximum 50 points):

  • Master degree in development and applied economics, macroeconomics, quantitative economics, or equivalent qualifications (20);
  • Relevant experience in the areas of economics and social development (20 points);
  • Progressively experience in the management and organization of events and regional forums for social development (10 points);
  • Wide experience working with governments, private sector and civil society organizations (10 points);
  • Experience in research and policy analysis (5 points);
  • At least 10 years of experience working with the UN System y/o other international organizations (5 points).

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70%) on technical part would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial Evaluation: 30% of total evaluation.

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal: p = y (µ/z),

  • 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.

Other Considerations:

UNDP may request publication examples from applicants as part of the evaluation process.
A completed P 11 Form will be required at the time a consultant signs an Individual Contract (IC) or his/her employer, if employed, signs a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) for work associated under this LTA.
 
Mechanics for Engagement

Successful Applicant will be included by UNDP and partnering agencies as one of UNDP’s Cadre of Experts, to be drawn upon as resource persons, as and when needed, for UNDP related activities in the area of socio-economic development, poverty reduction, inequality, human development, and economic growth.
 
It is expected that the consultant(s) will sign a Long-Term Agreement (LTA) with UNDP in order to be rostered for a period of twelve months (one year), which will be expected to be signed in January 2015. An LTA is a framework agreement that aims to establish the terms and conditions of future contracts that may arise from the LTA. As such, an LTA does not imply a financial commitment on the part of UNDP and does not guarantee that a succeeding contract will be issued.
 
When called upon to engage, the individual will have to sign an Individual Contract (IC) or his/her employer, if employed, will have to sign a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), whichever is preference of the individual on LTA. The length and timeline of the IC consultancy or RLA, whichever is applicable, will be based on the specific assignments, which can range from 1-2 business day (reviewing case studies, briefs, inputs into strategy papers) or longer term assignments, such as 2-3 weeks.
 
When a request for services arises, UNDP shall directly engage the consultant from the roster without the need for further selection process. A specific Terms of Reference (ToR) outlining the outputs and detailed arrangement for each assignment shall be provided and an IC or RLA, whichever is applicable, will be issued to the consultant, detailing the time frame.
 
As the assignments associated with this LTA are home-based, the consultant(s) are expected to provide their own office space and equipment.
 
Annex 1. General Conditions of the Services under the Long Term Agreement

  • The LTA does not necessarily mean that a contract with UNDP is guaranteed. This will depend on forthcoming needs as specified in this ToR. Where a request for services arises, UNDP shall directly contract the consultant from the roster without the need for further selection process. A specific Terms of Reference (ToR) outlining the outputs for each assignment shall be provided and an Individual Contract (IC) or Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), whichever is applicable, will be issued to the consultant, detailing the time frame. Conditions of a particular assignment may be negotiable;
  • UNDP does not warrant that any quantity of services will be purchased during the term of this Agreement;
  • Applicants hereby confirm that s/he has complied with the minimum break in service required before becoming eligible for an Individual Contract. S/he also fully understands that, if s/he is engaged as an Individual Contractor, s/he has no expectations or entitlements whatsoever to be re-instated or re-employed as a staff member.

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.