UNDP Jobs - 50943- Consultant on Intellectual Property, Competition L

Consultant on Intellectual Property, Competition Law and Access to Health Technologies

Location :

Home-Based

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

05-Nov-2014

Application Deadline :

31-Oct-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 Days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

5 November to 31 December 2014

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

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 170 countries and territories, working with governments and people on their own solutions to global and national development challenges to help empower lives and build resilient nations.

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

BPPS supports UNDP’s 2014-2017 Strategic Plan, focusing on 7 outcomes including strengthening institutions to progressively deliver universal access to basic services (outcome 3). The HIV Health and Sustainable development team, within BPPS, is helping to contribute towards this outcome.

HIV, Health and Development Approach

UNDP is a founding cosponsor of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), a partner of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and a co-sponsor of several other international health partnerships. UNDP’s work on HIV, health and development leverages the organization’s core strengths and mandates in human development, governance and capacity development to complement the efforts of specialist health-focused UN agencies. UNDP delivers three types of support to countries in HIV, health and development.

First, UNDP helps countries to mainstream attention to HIV and health into action on gender, poverty and the broader effort to achieve and sustain the Millennium Development Goals. For example, UNDP works with countries to understand the social and economic factors that play a crucial role in driving health and disease, and to respond to such dynamics with appropriate policies and programmes outside the health sector. UNDP also promotes specific action on the needs and rights of women and girls as they relate to HIV.

Second, UNDP works with partners to address the interactions between governance, human rights and health responses. Sometimes this is done through focused or specialized programmes, such as promoting attention to the role of legal environments (law and access to justice) in facilitating stronger HIV responses, including the use of flexibilities in intellectual property and human rights law to lower the cost of drugs and diagnostics and to increase access to HIV-related treatment. UNDP also works to empower and include people living with HIV and marginalized populations who are disproportionately affected by HIV - also known as key populations - such as sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender people. Beyond these focused efforts, UNDP plays a key role in ensuring attention to HIV and health within broader governance and rights initiatives, including support to district and municipal action on MDGs, strengthening of national human rights institutions and increasing access to justice for marginalized populations.

Third, as a trusted, long-term partner with extensive operational experience, UNDP supports countries in effective implementation of complex, multilateral and multisectoral health projects, while simultaneously investing in capacity development so that national and local partners can assume these responsibilities over time. The UNDP/Global Fund partnership is an important part of this work, facilitating access to resources for action on MDG 6 by countries that face constraints in directly receiving and managing such funding. UNDP partners with countries in crisis/post-crisis situations, those with weak institutional capacity or governance challenges, and countries under sanctions. When requested, UNDP acts as interim Principal Recipient in these settings, working with national partners and the Global Fund to improve management, implementation and oversight of Global Fund grants, while simultaneously developing national capacity for governments or local entities to be able to assume the Principal Recipient role over time.

As the lead agency on human rights and law within UNAIDS, UNDP led a high-level Global Commission on HIV and the Law in June 2010 to interrogate the relationship between legal responses, human rights and HIV. The Commission completed its work in July 2012, with the release of its final report ‘HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health’ on 9 July 2012. Amongst other issues, this report includes analysis and recommendations on issues of intellectual property law, trade, innovation and use of international intellectual property law flexibilities, including that “Countries must proactively use other areas of law and policy such as competition law, price control policy and procurement law which can help increase access to pharmaceutical products.” (Recommendation 6.3.4).

Commission follow-up activities, led by UNDP in collaboration with UN and civil society partners, at global, regional and country level are already underway and will continue through 2014/2015. These include normative policy/tools development work and technical and policy/advisory support for legislative reviews, national dialogues and action planning for law reform, judicial and Parliamentary sensitization and access to justice programming. In May 2014, UNDP released a guidance document on how low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) can make more effective use of competition law and policies to maximize their ability to reduce the price of HIV and other essential treatments. UNDP is planning to conduct capacity-building activities based on the guidance document. As a first step, and under this consultancy, the consultant would be expected to develop generic training materials which may later be adapted to a number of settings to conduct these capacity building activities.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of the Advisor on Human Rights, Law & Access to Treatment, the Consultant will be responsible for:

Providing technical advice to UNDP on policies and regulations to facilitate the innovation and access of health;
Undertaking research on competition law in the health technologies sector, drawing on UNDP’s guidance document ‘Using competition law to promote access to health technologies’ as well as other available resources; and
Develop capacity building modules for LMICs to make greater use of competition law in to promote access to health technologies.

Specific Deliverables:

Under the overall supervision of the Advisor on Human Rights, Law & Access to Treatment, and drawing on the guidance document ‘Using competition law to promote access to health technologies’, the Consultant will be responsible for:

Delivering technical advice on licensing policies that promote access to health technologies; and
Developing a capacity-building toolkit on competition and access to health technologies.

Expected Outputs:

Comments and advice in the form of a report, relating to technical advice to UNDP on policies and regulations to facilitate the innovation and access of health. Envisaged Deadline: 15 November 2014;
A proposed outline of the capacity building toolkit, which will be structured into at least 6 separate modules, with each module focused on one of the major areas of relevant competition law relevant to health technologies. Envisaged Deadline: 15 November 2014;
A final toolkit, based on the structure agreed following submission of the outline, above. Envisaged Deadline: 31 December 2014.

Reporting:

The consultant will regularly evaluate progress in meeting the specific deliverables with the Advisor on Human Rights, Law & Access to Treatment.

Travel:

No travel is expected for this consultancy. 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. The fare will always be most economical and any difference in price with the preferred route will be paid for by the expert.

Timeframe:

The consultant’s assignment is home-based and is expected to last a maximum of 30 days starting from 5 November 2014 to 31 December 2014.

Evaluation:

Applicants will be screened against qualifications and competencies specified below through a desk review or an interview process. Applicants will be evaluated based on: Cumulative analysis method that combines the results of technical and financial evaluation results.

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
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 points.
Financial Criteria weight: 30 points.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 (70%) points on technical part will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria for technical evaluation (70 points maximum):

An advanced degree in human rights, public health, international law, international affairs or a related degree (maximum points: 20);
Minimum of 7 years of relevant work experience in the area of HIV, public health, human rights, international affairs or a related field (maximum points:20);
A demonstrated knowledge of HIV, human rights, public health, international law as evidenced by a publications record (maximum points:15);
Excellent writing and editorial skills (maximum points:15).

Criteria for financial evaluation (30 points maximum):

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

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

Payment:

Payment is to be made based on daily rate, upon submitted satisfactory progress report against deliverables. Payment will be certified through the Certificate of Payment (COP) and timesheet, certified by the direct supervisor. The rate will be based on the all-inclusive daily rate.

Competencies

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.

Functional Competencies:

Strong analytical, negotiation and communication skills, including ability to produce high quality practical advisory reports and knowledge products.

Project and Resource Management:

Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs.
Ability to focus on impact and results for the client, promoting and demonstrating an ethic of client service.

Communications and Advocacy:

Strong ability to write clearly and convincingly, adapting style and content to different audiences and speak clearly and convincingly;
Strong presentation skills in meetings with the ability to adapt for different audiences.
Strong analytical, research and writing skills with demonstrated ability to think strategically.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

An advanced degree (Masters level) or equivalent in law, international affairs, public policy, public health or a related field and knowledge of at least one of the other substantive areas.

Experience:

A minimum of 7 years relevant work experience in the area of public health, public policy, international affairs or a related field.
Experience working on issues of competition law would be an advantage.

Language Requirement:

Excellent written and spoken English.