UNDP Jobs - 51449- Inclusive Political Processes Consultant

Inclusive Political Processes Consultant

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

12-Jan-2015

Application Deadline :

26-Nov-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

1 year

Languages Required :

English French

Expected Duration of Assignment :

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

UNDP’s new Strategic Plan (2014 -2017) maintains a strong focus on democratic governance. One of the key pillars within the new Strategic Plan is to continue to build and strengthen inclusive and democratic governance systems that can deliver sustainable solutions to poverty, inequality, and exclusion. The Strategic Plan puts an emphasis on supporting inclusive political processes to deliver sustainable development gains for the nation and respond to citizen’s expectations for voice, development and accountability. Outcome 2 particularly focuses on the performance and accountability of democratic systems to citizens. i.e.: “Citizen expectations’ for voice, development, the rule of law and accountability are met by stronger systems of democratic governance”. The Strategic Plan specifically mandates UNDP to support constitutional processes, parliamentary development and electoral management bodies, with a focus on anti-corruption, human rights, and dialogue processes for effective and transparent engagement of civil society; - as well as strengthening legal and regulatory frameworks to fight discrimination, address emerging issues such as environmental and electoral justice. Outcome 4 stresses the importance of increasing women’s participation, including in political decision-making to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In support of the new Strategic Plan vision, UNDP is currently developing a holistic and integrated global approach to provide policy and programmatic support to country offices around Inclusive Political Processes. UNDP’s approach to achieving this outcome reflects a social contract approach, as it addresses both sides of the state-society relationship, with an output on inclusive political processes bringing together constitutional support, political party assistance, electoral cycle assistance, and parliamentary development for the first time in both crisis and non-crisis settings.

The new Inclusive Political Processes (IPP) cluster works to promote resilient state society relations, focusing on:

Institutional development – UNDP works to build the capacities of legislatures, electoral management bodies and constitution-making bodies;
Civil society development – UNDP works with a range of civil society actors, including CSOs, women, young people and minorities, to develop their capacities both to act as intermediaries in political advocacy and representation and to directly engage in political processes; and
Individual capacity development and accompaniment – UNDP works with political and civil society actors to develop their process skills (e.g. UNDP works with civil society partners on advocacy and politicians and MPs on dialogue), substantive knowledge (e.g. on gender equality, women, peace and security, poverty reduction) and procedural skills (e.g. assisting MPs to work more effectively under particular rules of procedure).

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of the Inclusive Political Processes Team Leader , the IPP Consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables:

Programme Support:

Organize UNDP’s first Community of Practice meeting on Inclusive Political Processes, to be held in April 2014, including: supervising logistics, invitations, reviewing and compiling presentations, preparing background documents, managing all final reporting (incl. drafting the workshop executive summary and meeting report), and following up on the outcomes;
Develop a Guidance Note/Handbook on the development and implementation of parliamentary development strategic plans to assist UNDP country offices in conducting such planning exercises, consolidating inputs from research and country office feedback, and drawing on information available from the parliamentary development survey conducted in June 2014;
Develop a Guidance Note/Handbook on organizing parliamentary induction seminars to assist UNDP country offices in conducting such exercises, consolidating inputs from research and country office feedback, and drawing on information available from the parliamentary development mapping conducted in June 2013;
Following the adoption and launch of the new SDGs by the UNGA in September 2015, develop and implement an action plan for UNDP to support parliaments to become more actively involved in the post-2015 process, including identifying the need for and designing tools for parliamentary implementation and oversight of the post-2015 development goals;
Support the organization of inter-agency and other meetings on IPP issues and partnerships;
Complete a mapping of current and potential IPP donors/partners;
Enhance and coordinate partnership opportunities with National Parliaments including with the French National Assembly, the Bundestag, the Westminster Parliament, and the Lok Sabah;
Support relevant IPP team members to ensure the complete mappings of existing learning and capacity building courses, tools and methodologies on IPP issues, including for parliaments, constitution-making bodies, electoral support, civil society engagement and women’s political empowerment, participation and leadership;
Undertake research as required;
Develop and maintain the roster of IPP experts, including working with the new BPPS ExO and Crisis Response Unit to harmonize the CRU Express Roster and BPPS IPP roster, as appropriate.

Knowledge Management:

Capture innovation and emerging trends related to inclusive political processes and institutions; document lessons learned and case studies and share them on AGORA and Teamworks;
Produce briefing notes, issue notes, fast facts and other internal UNDP knowledge products to strengthen the inclusive political processes community of practice;
Work with the IPP team leader and specialists to develop/revise pages for the new BPPS Inclusive Political Processes cluster on the UNDP website and other related online platforms;
Develop a proposal for updating the existing Teamworks sites to reflect a comprehensive and cohesive approach to IPP.
Complete monthly updates of relevant Teamworks spaces;
Draft 2 editions of the UNDP IPP newsletter;
Conduct a review of IPP’s recent and planned Knowledge Products, update and identify topics for new knowledge products based on gaps and needs from COs. Ensure better distribution and dissemination of knowledge products; plan and develop a launch campaign and roll-out strategy to country offices (i.e.: seminars engaging parliamentarians - in partnership with COs and RSTs) in particular: the ‘Strategy Note on Effective Political Party Support’; the ‘Guidance Note on Support to Constitution-Making’; the ‘Common Principles for Parliamentary Development’, ‘the toolkit on post-2015’ and the toolkit on promoting inclusive growth;
Facilitate the knowledge component of the French version of the AGORA website (including, but not exhaustive: populating library, facilitating the exchange of knowledge, to act as AGORA French speaking facilitator);
Organize corporate webinars on new knowledge products to support capacity building of staff and partners in relevant areas.

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles:

Integrity

Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UNDP in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct;

Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity

Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN's values and ethical standards;
Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP and the UN;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Functional Competencies:

Technical/Functional

Knowledge and understanding of inclusive political processes and institutions, particularly parliamentary, constitution-making and electoral processes, with an emphasis on the provision of coordinated support and management of strategic programmes to advance IPP;
Ability to carry out research, to contribute to the formulation of policies, procedures and guidelines.

Knowledge Management and Learning

Promotes knowledge management in UNDP and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example;
Ability to conduct advocacy, and to support the development of programme communications strategies for sharing good practices and successful strategies.
Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more practice areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s Degree in Law or Social Science (International relations, International Development studies, Human rights and/or gender studies).

Experience:

Minimum of five years of relevant experience on issues of inclusive political processes and development, including: parliamentary development, constitution-making support, civic engagement particularly in political processes, women’s political empowerment, participation & leadership, the governance of extractives, climate change, etc.;
Experience in conducting research, writing and supporting the implementation of IPP-related activities at global and regional levels;
Working experience in a developing country, preferably in a post conflict situation, in the area of democratic governance;
Experience in knowledge management (including the preparation of reports, drafting newsletters, facilitating web-based portals and content management etc.);
Experience working with UNDP or within the UN system would be an asset.

Language:

Excellent written and spoken English and French;
Working knowledge of a third UN language is an asset (preferably Arabic or Spanish).

Documents to be included when submitting the Proposals

Application Submission Process:

Proposal - Please submit the following to demonstrate your interest and qualifications:

Explaining why you are the most suitable for the work (300 words maximum);
Brief description of approach to this work (500 words maximum);
Names, titles and contact details (telephone and e-mails) of 3 references. UNDP retains the right to contact the references directly.

Financial Proposal- Please submit an all inclusive lumpsum daily fee.

Financial proposals must be all inclusive and must be expressed on the basis of a daily fee. The term ‘all inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, travel related expenses, communications, utilities, consumables, insurance, etc.) that could possibly be incurred by the Contractor are already factored into the daily fee;
All envisaged travel costs must be included in the daily fee. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP will not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources. In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses will be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Personal CV and/or UNDP Personal History Form.

Applicants must submit their CV or Personal History Form through this Online system. Click “Apply Now” button, fill in necessary information on the first page, upload the document and click “Submit Application”. PLease note that the system takes only one attachment. Scan all documents into a single PDF file to attach.

Schedule of Payments:

Payments will be made based on the agreed upon daily rate and released upon submission of a certificate of payment request, indicating outputs achieved and days worked to be verified and cleared for payment by the supervisor.

Evaluation of Applicants:

The selection will be based on a combined Scoring method – where the qualifications will be weighted 70% (including writing sample) and combined with the price offer which will be weighted 30%. Candidates who meet the minimum qualifications/competencies will be evaluated based on the below technical evaluation criteria.

The Technical evaluation will be based on the following criteria with the corresponding points (out of a total of 70 points)

Demonstrated experience and expertise on development work and inclusive political processes; including issues of parliamentary development, constitution-making support, civic engagement particularly in political processes, such as women’s political empowerment, participation & leadership, the governance of extractives, climate change, etc. [25%];
Experience in conducting research and writing to contribute to the formulation of policies, procedures and guidelines and support the implementation of IPP-related activities at global and regional levels, preferably with UNDP [20%];
Ability to conduct advocacy, and to support the development of programme communications strategies for sharing good practices and successful strategies [10%];
Experience in knowledge management (preparing reports, supporting the preparation of publications disseminating information, facilitating web-based portals and content management) [10%];
Working experience in a developing country, preferably in a post conflict situation, in the area of democratic governance [5%].

Only Individual Consultants obtaining a minimum of 49 of the obtainable points of 70 points (70%) in technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Financial Evaluation. 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

UNDP is applies a fair and transparent selection process that takes into account both the technical qualification of Individual Consultants as well as their price proposals. The contract will be awarded to the candidate obtaining the highest combined technical and financial scores.

Other Important Considerations:

UNDP Personal History Form

In addition, applicants will be requested to fill and sign a PH 11 Form and submit it together with Curriculum Vitae on the online application portal. To note, a completed PH 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 with this assignment.

UN Personal History form (UN PH11) can be downloaded from here(http://sas.undp.org/documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc

Office and equipment:

UNDP will provide the following office facilities: a) office space/access to UNDP premise; b) Telephone and internet connection; c) computer.

Annexes and References:

Individual Consultant's General Terms and Conditions are provided here: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf.