Background

Volunteerism is a powerful means of engaging people in tackling development challenges, and it can Transform the pace and nature of development. Volunteerism benefits both society at large and the Individual volunteer by strengthening trust, solidarity and reciprocity among citizens, and by purposefully creating opportunities for participation. The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) aims at “Societies becoming more cohesive & stable with enhanced collective well-being as reflected in the UN Volunteers Strategic Framework 2014-2017.

The UN Volunteers in Ethiopia are engaged in policy design, delivery of Humanitarian and development, Governance and Capacity Development at Local, Regional, National and Inter-Governmental levels, in sum contributing to the overall planned results under current UNDAF Outcome 9 and 11 stipulates that by 2015, national and sub-national actors utilize improved mechanisms that promote inclusiveness, participation, transparency, accountability and responsiveness in national development processes. Capacities of national, local and community institutions strengthened for participatory and evidence based planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, leadership and decision making. The National Assessment will contribute to engagement with partners on benchmarks aimed at improved Delivery of development and humanitarian Results using Volunteerism as a core strategy.

The Federal Democratic Government of Ethiopia has expressed the desire to set up a National Volunteer Scheme. Together with UNDP and UNV developed a Programme Initiation Plan (PIP) for the design and implementation of a National Volunteers Scheme (NVS) Programme.  The programme is intended to develop a national framework that will provide an inclusive, harmonized and coherent infrastructure for volunteering in the country.   It is informed and guided by the national development priority of the government. It contributes to UNDAF Pillar 3: Democratic Governance and Capacity Development and the UNV Strategic Framework 2014-2017, programme outcome 2: Countries more effectively integrate voluntarism within national frameworks enabling better engagement of people in development process; output 2.3 volunteering schemes established at the national level.

In Ethiopia, The UNV Programme Comprises advocates strongly for voluntarism as a major form of civic engagement and it actively works with development agencies providing technical co-operation and capacity development initiatives. Increasingly government, development organizations (UN Agencies), and Volunteer Involving organizations are aligning their strategies and actions with much higher level development goals at national and international level.  The idea is that projects alone will not affect longer term change and sustainable development, but that working in synergy with others is more likely to produce significant changes for people living in poverty.

UN Volunteers Field Unit currently hosting up to 60 Volunteers under different modalities including National UN Volunteers, International Volunteers, Youth Volunteers, Interns among others. Majority of the UN Volunteers are currently serving in different agencies majorly UN Agencies and Government at National, Regional and Local levels.

Duties and Responsibilities

Major Activities to be undertaken by the National Consultant  

More specifically the National Consultant in consultation with the Government, UN Agencies and all 17 Volunteer Involving Organizations active in Ethiopia, Partners including serving national Volunteers, and (those who are no longer serving) will undertake the following tasks:

  • Undertake Stakeholder Mapping and scoping Volunteer actions to draw lessons for the proposed scheme;
  • Undertake analysis of contribution of voluntarism, particularly national volunteering to achievement of development results;
  • Collect and analyses Primary and Secondary data sources to inform the study;
  • Identify factors that may inhibit realization of result;
  • Support Engagement process with National, Regional, Local Government counterparts, prepare an inception report, and conduct of validation workshops;
  • Conduct an assessment of National Institutional, Policy, Legal frameworks for promoting national voluntarism, for design of frameworks;
  • Support preparation of Final reports and programme outlines to be submitted for technical appraisal by Technical steering committee, and approved by the Project Board as elaborated in the management arrangements;
  • Use findings/recommendations for design of full project document of National Scheme for Ethiopia;
  • Recommend sustainable strategies for advocacy and resource mobilization, and construct an outline for the final project document, longer term intervention.

Relevance and scope, linkage to the project context 

The Capacity Assessment will identify priority focus and thematic recommendations and basis for future design of National Level efforts and contribution of Voluntarism to peace and Development. The recommendations will inform the next phase of programme development especially with approaches for promoting sustainable advocacy and resource structure for Volunteerism as well as nurture a conducive environment at national and local levels.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

  • Ability to undertake technical policy-focused research related to capacity development assessment.
  • Ability to work under pressure and to deliver in a timely manner without compromising quality standards
  • Ability to provide professional approach to research analysis and report writing;
  • Excellent research and advocacy skills relating to national capacity assessment, scoping, and stakeholder mapping;
  • Training and hands-on experience in a governance and institutional development;
  • Strong organizational skills;
  • Ability to work with a team to deliver;
  • Strong communication skills;
  • Strong presentation and facilitation skills;

Core Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modelling 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;
  • Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

 

  • At least a Master’s Degree in Public Policy, Social Sector, Administration, Strategic Human Resource Management, Organizational Development, Business Administration and Management, related field.

 

Experience:

  • A Professional experience in conduct of Capacity development within National Context or within Africa Region, preferably have previous engagements with UN Agencies in relation to Public Sector Service Delivery, voluntary sector (experience in Africa and added advantage within Ethiopia);
  • Capability to deploy analytical aptitude, communication and presentation expertise reporting, framing of standard policy, institutional and project documents, including managing diverse portfolio with multi-sect oral dialogue process;
  • Certification evidence from a similar undertaking from a credible organization / institution;
  • Must have experience in Horn of Africa region (Ethiopia, an added advantage);
  • Shall demonstrate capabilities, understanding of the TOR, and conduct methodology of capacity assessment.

The prospective service provider is expected to meet the following minimum requirements:  

  • Knowledge of relevant sector especially knowledge of voluntarism and how it fits within National Context for capacity development is desirable;
  • Experience working with UN or other international Organizations is beneficial, Extensive knowledge of handling Development and Humanitarian Approaches;
  • Capability to deploy strong analytical aptitude, communication and presentation expertise. Ability to conduct National Needs Assessment using known approaches. Good knowledge of design and application of capacity development approaches and understanding of strategies, tool and techniques is desirable;
  • Understanding of institutional and organizational structure and public sector inter-linkages between capacity development, effective legal, policy and institutional frameworks in line with sustainable development preferably in Africa context;
  • Capability to deploy good communication expertise, ability to present quality reports on socio-economic issues of relevance to National Development and delivery of inputs in time. Understanding decentralized service delivery and urban and rural development co-ordination frameworks;
  • Proven ability to work on cross-sector capacity development issues at different levels (National- sub regional/national) evidence undertaken similar assignments.

Language:

  • Excellent command on both written and spoken English is essentialK
  • Knowledge of Amharic will be an added advantage.

Application Instruction:

Documents Required:

The following proposals shall be submitted before application deadline March 9, 2015  via UNDP Ethiopia Secured mail address: procurement.et@undp.org

  • Technical Proposals in pdf;
  • Financial Proposals in pdf.

Important Note:

  • Failing to submit any one of the documents stated above will automatically disqualify the candidate from further consideration of evaluation;
  • A candidate applying only by uploading CV to this job site will not be considered.