UNDP Jobs - 56152- Consultant for Review of Innovation and Scaling-up

Consultant for Review of Innovation and Scaling-up Fund

Location :

Home-based

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

18-May-2015

Application Deadline :

12-May-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

20 work days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

20 work days within two months

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

In alignment with the Strategic Plan 2014-2017, UNDP has set out to support identifying, testing, evaluating, and scaling up innovative initiatives across the organization, in order to provide new solutions to the increasingly complex development challenges of today. Innovating for agile programming and working with private sector partners has become critical in continuing to deliver high quality programming in resource-constrained environments.

A Scaling-Up Scan of UNDP activities in seven Asia-Pacific countries in 2012 showed a significant degree of awareness of the scaling-up agenda but concluded that more could be done. Scaling-up can happen in different ways, through mainstreaming into government planning and budgeting to affect the entire population, by taking on ongoing successful pilots to a larger scale and by transferring knowledge from one part of the country to another, or from one country to another. To more strategically promote the scaling-up approaches, $9.3 million in core UNDP funds in Asia-Pacific for 2013-2014 were allocated to a Scaling-Up Fund where Country Offices could seek support for upscaling successful initiatives. A total of fourteen pilot initiatives were supported through this Fund.

The UNDP Innovation Fund was established in 2014, as part of a broader corporate facility, and has supported various initiatives across the region. The Fund selected 16 projects through a competitive process and supported prototyping of new approaches to address various development issues across the region. This has included new ways of looking at development problems, solutions outside of traditional project cycles, partnerships with non-traditional partners, and inclusive and collaborative engagement with citizens that enhances the reach and impact of the projects. The selected initiatives have been encouraged to follow the stages of UNDP’s ‘innovation model’, which entails finding and reflecting the problems and progressing towards prototyping the solutions and scaling them up, and throughout the cycle, working out loud.

The Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific and Bangkok Regional Hub have provided tailored support to the scaling-up and innovation initiatives, which has included advising on programme design, mentoring the staff, organization of trainings, brokering partnerships with external innovation experts and support for communications.

UNDP in Asia-Pacific would like to conduct a comprehensive review of the experience and learning of the staff that have benefited from the implementation of these two funds to inform how this work is taken forward.

Duties and Responsibilities

The objective of the assignment is to conduct a comprehensive review of the innovation and scaling-up related activities in Asia-Pacific during 2013-14. The analysis is expected to produce a set of recommendations for UNDP’s strategy in the region on continuing and expanding its support for innovation and scaling-up so as to improve positioning, develop project pipelines, mobilise resources and achieve greater development impact.

The scope of the review will focus on the results and lessons emanating from the Innovation and Scaling-up Funds. The reviewer is expected to derive the results and lessons from different country offices, referring to i) existing materials on their projects ii) testimonials and questionnaire data collected from staff over the last year and iii) first-hand inquiries into staff, partners and project stakeholders’ experience as necessary. Recommendations should be provided to guide a future strategy of UNDP in Asia-Pacific towards innovation and scaling-up.

The review should be guided by the following questions:

To what extent has the Innovation and Scaling-up Funds and the related activities result in:

(i) New services and products across different programme areas;
(ii) New and / or strengthened existing partnerships;
(iii) Mobilisation of additional funds for key programme areas;
Improved sustainability of interventions;
(iv) Improved responses to stakeholders’ needs and ways of engaging and working with them (e.g. government, citizens);
(v) Improved effectiveness of support and more robust results.

Activities - proved to be critical in achieving results? What should the support look like moving forward, within the context of the Regional Program Document and the UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2014-2017.

How could the Regional Bureau, and organization more broadly, guide and lead the staff more effectively to sustain the drive for innovation and scale?

What are the opportunities for pipeline development and resource mobilization that have emerged from the funds? What scope is there for mobilising resources from the private sector, Government Cost-Sharing and donors using these approaches?

Final Products:

A report reviewing results, lessons and making recommendations to inform RBAP strategy and planning;
A presentation of findings to be made to RBAP New York and other Bureaus and Bangkok Regional Hub and to be shared with Country Offices.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity to UN/UNDP 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:

Development and Operational Effectiveness:

Ability to review innovation initiatives, strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
Strong analytical capacity, including the ability to analyze and articulate peace-building activities;
Good knowledge of institutional mandates, policies and guidelines pertaining to peace-building, recovery and
Development issues and sound knowledge of the institutions of the UN system;
Good knowledge of new development initiatives taken by the Asian Countries;
Ability to evaluate innovation activities effectively in a changing and complex environment.

Management and Leadership:

Excellent communication (spoken and written) skills, including the ability to draft/edit reports and
Communications and to articulate ideas in a clear, concise style;
Excellent organizational and management skills;
Ability to plan own work, manage conflicting priorities and conflicting deadlines.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master degree in development economics, political science, statistics, international development and/or management.

Experience:

Minimum of 15 years working on the management of development programmes and / or policy;
Proven experience in the field of integrating innovation and scaling-up techniques into development work and in conducting evaluations;
Proven experience in mobilizing resources from development partners;
Work experience in a UN organization or government would be an advantage.

Language:

Fluency in English.