Background

The overall objective of the Integrated Approach Programme (IAP) “Taking Deforestation out of Commodity Supply Chains” is to reduce the global impacts of agriculture commodities expansion on GHG emissions and biodiversity by meeting the growing demand of palm oil, soy and beef through supply that do not lead to deforestation.

The objective of the child project “Adaptive Management and Learning for the Commodities IAP” is to strengthen global capacity and integrated nature of the Commodities IAP to effectively leverage demand, transactions and support to production to implement the program in a synergic manner for greater impacts and replication.  This Project Preparation Grant (PPG) will develop a full-sized project integrated and synchronized with the other three child projects of the IAP.

This PPG will be implemented by UNDP in conjunction and coordination with WWF US and IFC, and under the advice of the IAP’s Steering Committee.  The PPG will be conducted in tandem with the other three IAP’s child projects PPGs to ensure full integration and synergy.  The Project will focus on three commodities that have driven tropical deforestation, land use change, and associated emissions over the last decade: palm oil (largest driver in Indonesia and southeast Asia) and soy and beef (largest drivers in Latin America).

During the PPG phase, stakeholder consultations and child project integration will be undertaken with the view to further develop the approved project concept into a fully formulated project document.  The final output of the initiation plan will be a UNDP-GEF project document and GEF CEO endorsement template ready for submission to UNDP and GEF.

UNDP is seeking a Project Design Expert who will be responsible for developing the project document and coordinating the work of other consultants.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant is responsible for coordinating the work of all other consultants, and will ensure the quality and timely preparation of all reports.

In executing the PPG, the consultant will carry out the following tasks:

Coordination and Stakeholder Engagement

• Provide an overall orientation to the PPG team and Implementin Agencies (IAs) in relation to GEF requirements for project planning and monitoring;
• Work with UNDP country offices (COs)and national consultants to establish and support country working groups (including involved IAs);
• Work with the IAs at global and country level to enhance agreement on the project strategy and components at global and country levels;
• Ensure strong coordination between the production child project and the demand and transaction child projects within the Integrated Approach Pilots (IAP) so that incentives to producers to reduce deforestation from production are maximized;
• Review and elaborate the theory of change at the production level, linking to demand and transactions and support the elaboration of national theories of change;
• Work with the national consultants to ensure country work progresses in a timely and harmonized manner and that cross-fertilization between countries is maximised;
• Liaise with global commodity initiatives to determine role of IAP in producer countries vis-à-vis on-going and planned projects by other initiatives (eg Tropical Forest Alliance).

Preparation of country interventions:

• Provide methodological guidance for data collection related to project baselines, barrier analysis, gap analysis, and planning and monitoring with particular attention given to the description and quantification of the baseline investments;
• Compile and share with the national PPG team and stakeholders the international best experience in policy development, legal and regulatory frameworks, enforcement systems, extension services, and other aspects of national enabling environments for effective application of sectoral transformation and the landscape approach for sustainable commodity production and taking out deforestation from the supply chains;
• Analyze the socio-economic benefits of the proposed interventions at national and local levels for each country, based on inputs from the national consultants;
• Supports country processes to elaborate the global Logical Framework of the project at the country level based on country needs assessment and ensure country intervention is harmonized and consistent with the programmatic approach and global logframe;
• Develop the links in the countries to REDD+;
• Facilitate the process to establish criteria for selecting pilot landscapes in countries;
• Support process to select the pilot landscapes in countries and the collection of all baseline data needed for the pilot landscapes;
• Guide the inclusion of pilot landscapes into the country logframes and intervention strategies and proposed activities and ensure links to the Demand and Transaction child projects within the IAP;
• Finalize sections for the national projects on: (a) An assessment of the social, economic and financial sustainability of proposed project activities; (b) Assessment of alternatives to the project strategy and establishing the cost effectiveness of the preferred strategy and suite of activities; (c) A replication strategy for project activities; (d) Assessment of the risks to the proposed project activities and identifying measure to mitigate these risks;  (e) incremental cost analysis.

Monitoring, evaluation and learning:

• Develop a global knowledge management mechanism for the project;
• Provide all relevant inputs into the IAP tracking tool baseline and indicators;
• Prepare M&E plan and budget at the global level and for each country.

Prepare UNDP and GEF documents:

• Based on the inputs from national experts and the best international practice, prepare a quantified assessment of global environmental benefits for biodiversity conservation and sustainable forest management in each country;
• Based on the inputs from national experts and in close cooperation with key national and internatinoal stakeholders, compile final baseline/situational analysis for the Full Sized Project (FSP). This will include a precise definition of baseline projects, activities, budgets, goals and co-financial links to GEF outcomes, definition of GEF incremental value per outcome and output, and presentation of results of the incremental cost-analysis in matrices. This will be for each country and then incorporated, synthesised and standardized into the global prodoc;
• Prepare a indicative Procurement Plan for the project;
• Drafts ToRs for the key consultants/services to be employed by the project;
• Develop action plan for incorporation of gender aspects in the project, with quantifiable baseline and target indicators, as per GEF and UNDP guidance;
• Performing final reviews of the required project documentation and inputs from national consultants;
• Conduct environmental and social safeguard screening following the UNDP procedure, producing the checklist and summary report;
• Based on national experts input, elaborate the Stakeholder Involvement and Public Participation plans for the global project and each country;
• Establishment of baseline and targets for indicators reporting on the UNDP Integrated Results and Resources Framework;
• Finalize sections in the global project documents on: (a) An assessment of the social, economic and financial sustainability of proposed project activities; (b) Assessment of alternatives to the project strategy and establishing the cost effectiveness of the preferred strategy and suite of activities; (c) A replication strategy for project activities; (d) Assessment of the risks to the proposed project activities and identifying measure to mitigate these risks; (e) incremental cost analysis;
• Incorporate as needed all inputs from the IAs in order to complete the document for GEF CEO Endorsement, and in accordance with UNDP rules;
• Respond to and revise the document based on GEF Council comments;
• Prepare all UNDP project documents so that the project is ready to be implemented at global and national level once approved.  This will require country level project documents in key countries, based on the CEO Endorsement document.

Key Deliverables

The key deliverable will be the Global Project Document in both GEF and UNDP formats. It is expected that the following documents will be required in order to achieve the key deliverable (Global Project Document):  Template for CEO Endorsement (in a style accessible to senior policy makers) and 4 National Project Documents for the production countries. These will all be based on the document for CEO Endorsement and tailored based on the activities to be included in each project document.

The documents should make full use of figures, diagrams and boxes to bring out key points and summarize materials emerging from the PPG phase.  Preparation of Global Project Document will include quality control and final formulation of the following indicative sections of a UNDP-GEF compliant project document:

• Country assessment/Situation Analysis (including proposal sections on context, threats/root causes/barriers analysis, institutional/sectoral/policy context, stakeholder analysis, business-as-usual-analysis, gender issue analysis, indigenous groups, business-with-GEF-analysis);
• Project Strategy (including proposal sections on project rationale and policy conformity, project goal, objective, outcomes, outputs and activities, project indicators, risks and assumptions, country ownership, sustainability and replicability);
• Institutional and Management Arrangements;
• Monitoring and Evaluation Plan and Budget;
• Incremental Cost Analysis (including systems boundary, Summary of costs, additional cost matrix);
• Strategic Results Framework (formerly Logical Framework Analysis);
• Total Budget and First Annual Work plan;
• Project Organigram;
• Project timetable;
• Terms of Reference for Project staff and main consultants and sub-contracts;
• Stakeholder involvement Plan;
• Letters of Endorsement and co-financing;
• Annexes and additional information annexes including UNDP Environmental and Social Screening and Procurement Plan.

These sections are indicative. As templates may be subject to change, the UNDP-GEF Project Design consultant will be required to obtain guidance by the UNDP-GEF Regional Technical Advisor and UNDP COs on applicable formats and templates and ensure that his/her work is compliant with UNDP-GEF and UNDP CO requirements.

The Global Project Document will be divided in the following reports and the consultant will be paid based on these deliverables:

• Deliverable 1: 4 Country Assessment Analysis Report (Indonesia, Brazil, Paraguay and Liberia) by January 15, 2016;
• Deliverable 2: First Draft Prodoc + CEO Endorsement letter by March 1, 2016;
• Deliverable 3: Second Draft Prodoc by May 01, 2016;
• Deliverable 4: Final Prodoc by June 01, 2016;
• Deliverable 5: Revised Final Prodoc capturing GEF Council comments by July 15, 2016.

Deliverables will be reviewed and approved by the Green Commodities Programme (GCP) Global Head.

Payment Schedule:

Payments will be made upon satisfactory completion and acceptance of the deliverables by the Green Commodities Programme (GCP) Global Head as per below percentages:

• Deliverable 1: 4 Country Assessment Analysis Report (Indonesia, Brazil, Paraguay and Liberia) – 40% (10% per country)
• Deliverable 2: First Draft Prodoc + CEO Endorsement letter–20%;
• Deliverable 3: 2nd Draft Prodoc– 15%;
• Deliverable 4: Final Prodoc– 15%;
• Deliverable 5: Revised Final Prodoc– 10%;

 Institutional Arrangements:

• The Consultant will be home-based with mission travel to participating countries;
• The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own work station (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, etc.) and must have access to reliable internet connection;
• Payments will be made upon satisfactory delivery of outputs and submission of a certification of payment form, and acceptance and confirmation by the Green Commodities Programme (GCP) Global Head.

Travel:

• Travel may be required to participating countries;
• Any necessary missions must be approved in advance and in writing by the supervisor;
• The Advanced and Basic Security in the Field II courses must be successfully completed prior to commencement of travel;
• Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director;
• Consultants are required to comply with the United Nations (UN) security directives set forth under https://dss.un.org/dssweb/;
• Consultants are responsible for obtaining any visas and security clearances needed in connection with travel with the necessary support from UNDP;
• The consultant will be responsible for making his/her own mission travel arrangements (including travel claims) in line with UNDP travel policies;
• All related travel expenses will be supported by the project travel fund and will be reimbursed as per UNDP rules and regulations upon submission of an F-10 claim form and supporting documents.  Costs for airfares, terminal expenses, and living allowances should not be included in financial proposal.

Competencies

Corporate 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 favouritism.

Functional Competencies:

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise:

• Keeps abreast of new developments in area of professional discipline and job knowledge and seeks to develop him/herself professionally;
• Demonstrates  comprehensive  knowledge  of  information  technology  and  applies  it  in work assignments.

Management, Communication and Leadership:

• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills;
• Focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Leads teams effectively and shows conflict resolution skills;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors;
• Remains calm, in control and composed even under pressure;
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
• Communicates effectively with staff at all levels of the organization;
• Acts with tact and diplomacy;
• Proves outgoing and comfortable in handling external relations at all levels;
• Demonstrates compelling communication skills and cross-cultural effectiveness;
• Demonstrates  experience  in  bilateral  and/or  multilateral  negotiations,  and  negotiating  and training / facilitation skills;
• Possesses the ability to convey difficult issues and positions to senior officials, proven political judgment, sensitivity to local cultures.

Professionalism:

• Capable  of  working  in  a  high  pressure  environment with  sharp  and  frequent  deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
• Excellent organizational skills;
• Able to work independently and remotely with minimal supervision;
• Exercise the  highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner

    Teamwork:

• Excellent communications and networking skills and  the ability to work in a team;
• Strong interpersonal and negotiating skills;
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment;
• Sound judgment and discretion.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in natural sciences, social sciences with a specialization in environment, biodiversity or any other closely related field with  background related to agricultural production, biodiversity and/or sustainable land management (Max 10 points).

Experience:

• At least 10 years’ experience with sustainable commodity production (Max 20 points);
• Experience in successfully preparing project design documents (Max 25 points);
• Management experience in designing UNDP-GEF projects is desirable: (Max 5 points);
• Work experience in one or more of the following countries is desirable: Indonesia, Brazil, Paraguay and Liberia ( Max 20 points);
• Project experience in soy, beef and palm oil is desirable (Max 15 points).

Language

• Excellent oral and written communications and presentation skills in English (Max 5 points);
• Knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese is desirable (Max 5 Points).

Evaluation method:

• Only those applications which are responsive and compliant will be evaluated;
• Offers will be evaluated according to the Combined Scoring method – where the technical criteria will be weighted at 70% and the financial offer will be weighted at 30%;
• The technical criteria (education, experience, language [max 105 points], proposed methodology [20 points] and interview [max 30 points]) will be based on maximum 155 points. Only the top 3 candidates scoring 73.5 points or higher from the review of education, experience and language criteria will be considered for the interview;
• Applicants obtaining 70% of the combined total technical points (education, experience, languages, proposed methodology, and interview) will be considered for financial evaluation;
• Financial score (max 100 points) shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal of those technically qualified;
• The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, including breakdown per deliverable. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal must additionally include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including number of anticipated working days and all foreseeable expenses for this assignment). Costs for mission travel should not be included in the financial proposal;
• Applicant receiving the Highest Combined Score and has accepted UNDP’s General Terms and Conditions will be awarded the contract.

Documentation to be submitted:

• Applicants must submit a duly completed and signed UNDP Personal History form (P11) to be downloaded from the below link;
• Proposed Methodology for the Completion of Services.  The applicant must describe how s/he will address/deliver the demands of the assignment, providing a short high level description of the Implementation Plan and anticipated number of work days;
• Applicants must reply to the mandatory questions asked by the system when submitting the application.

Kindly note you can upload only ONE document to this application (scan all documents in one single PDF file to attach).

UNDP Personal History form (P11) required of all applicants:

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/corporate/Careers/P11_Personal_history_form.doc.

General Conditions of Contract for the ICs:

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf.