Background

Ukraine is at the very active stage of constructing its corruption prevention architecture, including the nascent National Agency for Prevention of Corruption (NAPC).

Yet, at the current moment, the process on establishing the NAPC is still at the early stages, including both the selection of its collegial leadership (5 high-level independent Commissioners), as well as establishment of the Secretariat and possible regional branches.

As per the Law of Ukraine “On Preventing Corruption” (Articles 11 and 12), NAPC is entrusted with the following functions that make it a corruption prevention watchdog and analytical entity (non-exhaustive list):

• Managing conflict of interest situations and monitoring ethical behaviour of civil servants;
• Verifying assets declarations and running the Unified State Register for Declarations (online, free-access database);
• Assisting government bodies in conducting corruption risk assessments, preparing and implementing anti-corruption programmes;
• Organizing anti-corruption learning and in-service training for civil servants;
• Conducting public outreach and awareness-raising campaigns;
• Analysis of status of corruption, prevention and prosecution in Ukraine, producing the National Report on Anti-corruption;
• Coordinating adherence to international standards;
• Drafting relevant laws and regulations;
• Operationalizing the National Anti-corruption Strategy through the relevant State Programme (National Action Plan – once it is developed by the Ministry of Justice);

NAPC is expected to become the key preventative institution for driving the anti-corruption reform process and has to develop into an instrumental body for the medium and long term, able to raise the bar of transparency and accountability in the public service.

At the same time, in order to deliver on its core mandates NAPC will need to be well shaped, structured and staffed at the central and, possibly, regional levels. The relevant law provides only for very general features of possible NAPC structure and its possible interaction with already existing anticorruption units / focal points for corruption prevention, and has no reference to the ceiling number of staff that its Office (Secretariat) may have. Neither does it stipulate the exact number of territorial divisions of NAPC to be shaped.

Therefore, in order to be able to “hit the ground running”, the 5 newly-elected members of NAPC could benefit from strategic options and advice presented to them immediately after appointment in order to make NAPC fully operational as per above-mentioned mandates and ensure a quick start.

These options would have to include a rather wide scope of issues including the organizational structure of the agency:

• Numbers of staff for each of the to-be-established thematic and support departments;
• National and, if applicable, subnational architecture of the institution itself;
• Relevant staffing norms for effective coverage of such issues as asset declarations verification, conflict of interest prevention, corruption risk assessments, etc.;
• Possible funding estimates.

These practical considerations would be best stemming from analysis of the respective experience from establishment and functioning of similar agencies in other states with special emphasis on EU countries or aspiring members and / or the South-East Asian countries (including but not limited to Indonesia, South Korea or other relevant preventive agencies).

Duties and Responsibilities

The overall goal of the engagement is to produce a well-grounded praxis advisory report for the future leadership of NAPC that would:

• Summarize 3-4 international cases of corruption prevention institutions that would be closest-related to the to-be-established NAPC by their functions; and
• Provide detailed recommendations on the NAPC structure, architecture, amount of resources required for implementation of the abovementioned functions in light of the practices elicited from the case studies.

Steps envisaged for production of the abovementioned report may include, amongst others, the following tasks:

• Conduct selection of the countries, which cases would resemble the Ukrainian NAPC (in terms of mission, mandate, functions) and conduct analysis of their experiences in building up: the institutional architecture of the agency (one or many offices, with or without regional representation, methods / levels of coordination and relationships with other state structures, including at the sub-national level, number and type of departments in the national office and possible sub-offices, assessment of workload and efficiency of staffing); the thematic breakup of human resources, funds and other inputs by the functions that coincide with those that the Ukrainian NAPC will have;
• Synthesize the gathered information into a hands-on report that contains practical advice on issues related to structure, functional allocation of resources (human, financial) based on smart practices and lessons learned from the case studies above, as well as Ukrainian reality (potential number of declarants, number of civil servants, number of administrative units in the country, etc.);
• Partake in presentation of the advisory report to Ukrainian stakeholders (including but not limited to NAPC members, Ministry of Justice, Cabinet of Ministers and Presidential Administration representatives, representatives of the civil society, etc.) (to be confirmed).

The estimated volume of the report is ~ 30 pages Times New Roman, 12, single-spaced.

The report would need to be shaped as a maximally practical instrument that is aimed at experienced practitioners well versed in anticorruption issues and basic methodologies / functions. Hence, the theoretical / academic component of the report shall be reduced to a bare minimum – ideally missing at all.

All relevant report space shall be dedicated, instead, to review of what worked and what did not in other countries / settings with as many ties to the Ukrainian situation as possible (to demonstrate relevance) and to practical advice (“vicious problems”) that the Ukrainian government counterparts will likely face once establishing NAPC.

Deliverables and implementation schedule

The Consultant will be responsible to deliver the following:

Deliverable  # - Deliverable description – Proposed timeframe -  Deliverable weight.

Deliverable #1:

• Proposed structure of the report that would include but shall not necessarily be limited to: a very brief statement of purpose, overview of the cases as being most relevant for the Ukrainian situation, comparison of functions and structural elements in each of the cases, summary of good practices in functioning of the 3-4 agencies under review, advice for establishment of NAPC in terms of functions and structure;
• A list of cases (3-4) that are to be selected for review with a very short justification as to why these particular ones were selected.

Proposed timeframe: Up to 3 days.

Deliverable weight: 15 %

Deliverable #2:

• First draft of the report for preliminary review, comments and expansion / contraction in possible consultations and concert with local experts.

Proposed timeframe: Up to 12 days.

Deliverable weight: 20 %.

Deliverable #3:

• Final version of the report with all references, annexes, indices, tables and other relevant elements as determined in stages 1 and 2 described above;
• Presentation (slides and possible in-person delivery in Kyiv) to Ukrainian stakeholders (including but not limited to NAPC members, Ministry of Justice, Cabinet of Ministers and Presidential Administration representatives, representatives of the civil society, etc.).

Proposed timeframe: Up to 5 days.

Deliverable weight: 65%

Monitoring/reporting requirements

DHRP Coordinator will supervise the work of the Regional Corruption Prevention Institutions Expert through regular in person and e-mail/or telephone / Skype communication. Upon completion of the task, the final report, in English, shall be submitted electronically. UNDP will be the final authority to control the quality and evaluate the work. No reports, documents, communications should be published or distributed to third parties without prior approval of UNDP.

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;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional competencies:

• Excellent analytical and report writing skills;
• Strong communications and presentation skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s / Specialist’s degree in Law, Public Policy/Administration or other relevant social sciences field.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of experience in issues of transparency / integrity / anticorruption / legal advice (as full-time or part-time consultant, expert, official);
• Demonstrated experience of cooperation with and advice to government bodies in the area of anticorruption (national corruption prevention authorities or combined preventive / repressive bodies);
• Production of similar advisory notes and reports in the past;
• Communication skills for delivering messages to national-level policymakers and experts on potentially sensitive issues.

Languages:

• Fluent English language knowledge is a must;
• Ukrainian and / or Russian – considered an asset.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Applicants shall submit the following documents:

• Personal CV, including information about past experience in similar projects / assignments and contact details for referees as well as the updated P-11 form;
• Financial proposal;
• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
• Writing sample (in DOC or PDF) of a previously-commissioned report or publication similar in its topic to the one requested under this assignment produced by the incumbent in English. The sample may have up to 15 pages in length and should be authored by the incumbent. In case the sample was co-authored, respective sections of authorship should be marked to clearly assess the writing style.

Financial proposal - Lump sum contract

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and sums pertinent to specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables. Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount.  

Expected places of travel (if applicable): none – cabinet research, distance consultations; should travel be deemed necessary at a later stage, separate arrangements will be made.

Travel

All travel arrangements will be handled by DHRP if such travel is deemed necessary. Consultations regarding travel options will be held with the Regional Corruption Prevention Institutions Expert prior to planning of the trips and relevant logistics.

Evaluation criteria

• Educational background - 10 points max (10 pts – PhD in Law, Public Policy/Administration or other relevant social sciences field; 8 pts – Master’s / Specialist’s degree in Law, Public Policy/Administration or other relevant social sciences field);
• Relevant professional experience - 20 points max (20 pts – over 12 years of experience in issues of transparency / integrity / anticorruption / legal advice (as full-time or part-time consultant, expert, official); 15 pts – between 12 and 10 years of experience in issues of transparency / integrity / anticorruption / legal advice (as full-time or part-time consultant, expert, official); 10 pts – between 7 and 10 years of experience in issues of transparency / integrity / anticorruption / legal advice (as full-time or part-time consultant, expert, official);
• Cooperation with and advice to government bodies in the area of anticorruption (national corruption prevention authorities or combined preventive / repressive bodies) - 10 points max (100 pts – evidence of such cooperation);
• Quality of the writing sample - 25 points max (25 pts – the extract presents a top-quality, cogent, well-articulated practical analysis of the anticorruption issue at hand, features practical advice and conveys meaning artfully; 20 pts – a generally well-developed, well-grounded analysis of the anticorruption issue at hand with meaning conveyed clearly; 15 pts - presents analysis of the anticorruption issue at hand, conveys meaning with acceptable clarity with a trend to academism or unnecessary vagueness, generally demonstrates control of the conventions of standard written English);
• Language Skills - 5 points max (5 pts – English – fluent as well as Ukrainian and / or Russian; 3 pts - English – fluent).

Maximum available technical score - 70 points.

Evaluation method: - Cumulative analysis

Contract award shall be made to the incumbent whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

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

Technical Criteria weight: 70% / Financial Criteria weight: 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70% from the maximum available technical score (49 points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal and will equal to 30. All other price proposals will be evaluated and assigned points, as per below formula:

30 points [max points available for financial part] x [lowest of all evaluated offered prices among responsive offers] / [evaluated price].

The proposal obtaining the overall cumulatively highest score after adding the score of the technical proposal and the financial proposal will be considered as the most compliant offer. After successful completion of the validation interview the offeror will be awarded a contract. 

Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org

General Terms and conditions as well as other related documents can be found under: http://jobs.undp.org.

Please group all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply.

Due to a large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.

Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.