UNDP Jobs - 58526- Consultant to Support UNDP’s Work on Access to Tre

Consultant to Support UNDP’s Work on Access to Treatment

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

24-Aug-2015

Application Deadline :

04-Aug-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

10 months

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

From 24 August 2015 to 30 June 2016

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 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 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 and other health.

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, and 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 multisector 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.

Objective

As the lead agency on human rights and law within the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNDP supports countries to create an enabling human rights environment, promote gender equality, and address HIV-related stigma and discrimination. To promote and advocate for human rights based approaches, UNDP supports initiatives to promote access to justice, legislative review and reform, and enforcement of protective laws and anti-stigma initiatives.

In 2010, UNDP served as the secretariat to a high-level Global Commission on HIV and the Law 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’. Commission follow-up activities, led by UNDP as the secretariat of the Global Commission, in collaboration with UN and civil society partners at global, regional and country level have taken place in at least 84 countries. These activities 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.

Relevantly, following up on the Global Commission’s recommendation on ensuring an effective, sustainable response to HIV that is consistent with human rights obligations, UNDP’s HIV, Health & Development Group (HHD) is recruiting a consultant to work with the Policy Advisor on access to affordable treatment for HIV and related co-infections in low and middle income countries. The objective of this consultancy is to provide research, analytical and writing support on treatment access issues.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of the Policy adviser on law, human rights and treatment access issues with the HHD/BPPS, the contractor will be responsible for:

Specific Deliverables:

Supporting the successful convening of two multi-stakeholder dialogues on advancing the Global Commission’s recommendation on access to treatment;
Convening of two UN and multi-national organizations meetings on access to treatment;
Finalizing the report on the Global Commission’s recommendations pertaining to access to treatment;
Support the HHD/BPPS team by preparing background and concept papers, presentations, analyses and reports on the relationship between access to treatment in low and middle income countries, including as it relates to Commission follow up on issues of treatment access;
Assist the policy advisor in project administration activities;
Research on access to treatment and HIV related issues in the Middle East and North Africa Region.

Expected Outputs:

The convening of two multi-stakeholder dialogues;
The convening of two UN and multi-national organizations meetings and access to treatment; and
Finalizing access to treatment report.

Reporting:

The Contractor will report to the Policy adviser on law, human rights and treatment access issues with the HHD/BPPS.

Travel:

No travel is envisaged for this assignment. 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.

Timeframe:

The consultancy will be office based from 24 August, 2015 – 30 June 2016.

Payment:

Payment will be processed through the Certificate of Payment (COP) and timesheet, verified and certified by the direct supervisor. The rate will be based on the all-inclusive daily rate mentioned in the Offeror’s proposal.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards; and
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

Strong research, writing and analytical skills, including ability to produce high quality practical advisory reports, background papers and knowledge products; and
Professional and/or academic experience in one or more of the areas of human rights, public health, public policy or international affairs.

Project and Resource Management:

Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs; and
Ability to focus on impact and results for the client, promoting and demonstrating an ethic of client service;
Project management with the private sector clients would be an added advantage.

Communications:

Capacity to communicate clearly and quickly;
Proven ability to communicate with a broad set of stakeholders including civil society, the private sector and academia.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in law, social science, human rights, international affairs, public policy, public health or a related field.

Experience:

A minimum of 2 years relevant work experience in the area of public health, public policy, international affairs or a related field;
Prior research experience on health and human right issues or related international affairs;
Developed skills in international client relations and development;
Sound writing, research and analytical skills as evidenced by the writting samples.

Language

Fluency in English is essential;
Fluency in another UN language would be a significant advantage.

Evaluation:

Applicants will be screened against qualifications and competencies specified below through a desk review process. Those selected for the next stage of the selection process will be reviewed based on a cumulative analysis method that combines the results of technical and financial evaluation results.

Specifically, the award of the contracts will be made to those whose offers have been evaluated and determined as:

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 points (70%) out of a maximum 70 points on the Technical Evaluation will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria for Technical Evaluation (70 points maximum):

Minimum of 2 years of relevant work experience in the area of public health, public policy, market research, international affairs or a related field (maximum points - 20);
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in law, social science, human rights, international affairs, public policy, public health or a related field (maximum points - 20);
A demonstrated knowledge of HIV, human rights, public health, public policy, international law as evidenced by a publications record (maximum points - 15); and
Excellent writing and editorial skills (maximum points: 15).

Criteria for Financial Evaluation (30 points maximum)

The following formula will be used to evaluate the 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.

Application process

Please include one sample of your writing that you feel is most relevant. The sample should clearly indicate your role as the editor (Max. 3 pages);
Please provide three recommendations;
Please indicate your daily rate in USD.

Please note that the system takes only one attachment therefore kindly scan all documents into a single PDF file to attach.