UNDP Jobs - 60049- International Consultant on Strategic Planning for

International Consultant on Strategic Planning for Civil Status Service of Republic of Moldova

Location :

Chisinau, MOLDOVA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

26-Oct-2015

Application Deadline :

30-Sep-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

32 working days (with two missions to Moldova)

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

October 2015 – January 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

UNDP Moldova Democracy Programme/Elections (further referred as Programme) is a multi-year institutional development programme that supports strategic development of the Central Electoral Commission of Moldova (CEC) and the Centre for Continuous Electoral Training (CCET) with the aim to strengthen the capacity of electoral administration to deliver professional, transparent and efficient electoral processes. Overarching goal of the Programme is to improve the democracy in Moldova through modernization of the electoral processes, through free and fair elections representing the will of the people and which are fully in line with the international standards and best practices.

The Programme also provides support to the Government of Moldova on development of key registers, data interoperability and improving business processes to improve the overall quality of data.

In Moldova the State Register of Voters (SRV) is based on the State Register of Population (SRP). Therefore, the quality of data in the SRP has a direct impact on the quality of voter lists. The SRP is maintained by the State Enterprise “Registru” based on information supplied by the Civil Status Service of the Republic of Moldova (further referred as CSS).

In accordance with the Government Decision No. 82 of 31 January 2008 on the Civil Status Service the key tasks of CSS are organization of civil status acts’ registration processes and creation and maintenance of the informational systems (registers) on civil status acts.

The first step towards long-term objective of improving data quality provided by CSS shall be development of a medium term Strategic Plan of Civil Status Service of the Republic Moldova (henceforth referred to as the “Strategy”). Further steps on improvement of data quality shall be re-engineering of business processes, development of the State Register of Civil Status Acts and furnishing correct, complete and up-to-date civil status information to other state and private data consumers.

As part of this activity, the Programme intends to provide support to the CSS to prepare the Strategy, which will ensure a sustainable institutional development, the qualitative functioning of the civil status information systems and will improve the civil status acts registration processes.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives

The Programme intends to contract an experienced international consultant (further referred to as “consultant”) to develop the Strategy based on international best practices, recommendations and methodological tools.

The consultant will share experience on similar strategies in other countries and transfer knowledge on strategic planning techniques tools with a view to help create ownership of the process through coaching the CSS staff.

To achieve the stated objectives and to ensure preparation of relevant, concise and clear deliverables, the consultant will be responsible to:

Conduct a desk review of the existing legal framework, policies and regulations related to the roles and responsibilities of the CSS;
Familiarize herself/himself with the mission and vision of the CSS;
Analyse procedures and business processes on issuance of civil status documents;
Conduct interviews and consultative meetings with CSS management, department’s staff and relevant stakeholders;
Identify and analyse the challenges and constraints confronted by the CSS in its daily activities;
Asses the current and future capacity needs of CSS in order to articulate long and short term goals and priorities;

Prepare the draft Strategy in close cooperation with CSS staff containing sections, but not limited to:

Vision;
Mission statement;
SWOT analysis;
Overall objectives and activity plan with detailed activities.
Mechanism to monitor progress towards set objectives, including baseline and qualitative and quantitative indicators;
Coach and train CSS specialists and relevant staff on strategic planning, using strategic planning techniques and tools, and monitoring and evaluation.

Undertake two missions to Chisinau, Moldova, according to the following tentative schedule (exact schedule is to be coordinated in advance):

9 – 13 November, 2015;
16 – 20 January, 2016.

Perform any other relevant tasks that may be assigned by the Programme and CSS.

Institutional arrangements

The timeframe for the work of the consultant is planned throughout October 2015 – January 2016. The consultancy should involve a total of 32 working days out of which 10 shall be in Moldova. The remaining 22 working days are home-based (exact schedule is to be coordinated in advance).

The consultant will be provided with the necessary administrative and logistical support to enable the delivery of the expected outputs. The consultant will work under the overall guidance of the UNDP Senior Project Officer and in close collaboration with designated CSS staff.

All deliverables must be submitted in English languages to the UNDP Senior Project Officer in electronic form, in accordance with the initially agreed schedule. Deliverables of the consultant will be approved by the designated CSS official and certified by UNDP Senior Project Officer.

Payments will be done in three instalments: 20% after approval of Deliverable #1, 60% after approval of the deliverables #2 and #3 and #4 and 20% after approval of the Deliverable #5.

Competencies

Sound knowledge about results-based management (especially results-oriented planning, monitoring and evaluation);
Extensive research and analytical skills;
Sound knowledge in the field of democratic governance, public administration, development, including participatory strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation would be an advantage
Excellent writing and oral communication;
Leadership skills and ability to work with teams;
Knowledge of UN system and UNDP would be an asset;
Proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular, respecting differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other status.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree or equivalent in Political Sciences, Public Administration, International development or related fields. Bachelor’s degree combined with 7 years of relevant professional experience in advising/implementing/developing strategic development plans would be considered as the equivalent to the Master’s Degree;

Experience:

A minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience in developing/implementing/advising on complex strategic issues in public administration reform, development strategies and/or other relevant strategic policy documents;
A minimum of 3 years of working experience with population register authorities in government and/or as part of international assistance in the EU member states and/or associated countries;
At least 2 development strategies/strategic plans or other relevant strategic policy documents for public institutions developed and implemented;
At least 2 coaching workshops/presentations on strategic planning conducted.

Languages:

Fluency in English;
Knowledge of Romanian and/or Russian will be considered as an asset.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

Proposal: explaining why they are the most suitable for the work including past experience in similar Projects (please provide brief information on each of the above qualifications, item by item);
Financial proposal (LUMP SUM) in USD, specifying in a total requested amount per day, including all related costs, e.g. DSA, travel, phone calls etc.). UNDP shall not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket;
P-11, personal CV and at least 3 references.

The detailed Terms of Reference and Procurement Notice can be found at http://www.undp.md/jobs/current_jobs.

Evaluation

Initially, individual consultants will be short-listed based on the following minimum qualification criteria:

Master’s degree or equivalent in Political Sciences, Public Administration, International development or related fields; Bachelor’s degree combined with 7 years of relevant professional experience in advising/implementing/developing strategic development plans would be considered as the equivalent to the Master’s Degree;
A minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience in developing/implementing/advising on complex strategic issues in public administration reform, development strategies and/or other relevant strategic policy documents;
A minimum of 3 years of working experience with population register authorities in government and/or as part of international assistance in the EU member states and/or associated countries.

The short-listed individual consultants will be further evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable;
Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation;
Technical Criteria weight – 60% (300 pts);
Financial Criteria weight – 40% (200 pts).

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 210 points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical evaluation scoring:

Master’s degree or equivalent in Political Sciences, Public Administration, International development or related fields. Bachelor’s degree combined with 7 years of relevant professional experience in advising/implementing/developing strategic development plans would be considered as the equivalent to the Master’s Degree - maximum 10 points;
A minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience in developing/implementing/advising on complex strategic issues in public administration reform, development strategies and/or other relevant strategic policy documents - maximum 50 points;
A minimum of 3 years of working experience with population register authorities in government and/or as part of international assistance in the EU member states and/or associated countries - maximum 40 points;
At least 2 development strategies/strategic plans or other relevant strategic policy documents for public institutions developed and implemented - maximum 30 points;
At least 2 coaching workshops/presentations on strategic planning conducted - maximum 30 points;
Interview - maximum 140 points.

UNDP Moldova is committed to workforce diversity. Women, persons with disabilities, Roma and other ethnic or religious minorities, persons living with HIV, as well as refugees and other non-citizens legally entitled to work in the Republic of Moldova, are particularly encouraged to apply