Background

Ethiopia continues to record double-digit economic growth over the last decade and is ranked among the ten fastest growing economies in Africa (AEO, 2011) and the second fastest mover on human development (UNDP, 2013). Despite these strong gains, there are still huge development challenges the country has to deal with, including overcoming disparities across regional states and social economic groups in order to promote inclusion and participation.

Whilst development in the regional states is essentially an integral part of the national development, some regional states and local communities, for instance, are lagging behind on all development indicators, and there is urgent need to stimulate regional economic growth and employment opportunities by ensuring the government and the private sector interventions are optimized, with government playing a key role in stimulating growth and tapping on the existing and potential revenue base to accelerate growth and deliver quality and client-responsive public services. These public services include delivery of health and education, as well as a wide array of other social and welfare services such as protection of property rights and delivery of regulatory functions, thereby providing a more conducive and predicable business environment (including harmonizing federal and regional laws and systems, efficient licensing regimes, enforcement and protection of property rights, ensuring safety and security, safeguarding environment and ensuring optimal use of environmental resources. Sustainable and balanced regional economic growth and development cannot be achieved unless regulatory and policy regimes across regions are synergized to ensure best response to the management and utilization of trans boundary resources and to capitalize on common and synergized regional policies and capacities to regulate their use and ensure that investment opportunities are created to advance regional economic growth and development in line with the overreaching national development framework—the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II).  

Duties and Responsibilities

  • An inception report based on the desk review;
  • Field work and the first draft of the report comprised of two sections: a) mapping of existing initiatives; and b) gap analysis with recommendations;
  • Debriefing session on the first draft with selected stakeholders;    
  • Final (comprehensive) situational analysis report to be submitted, thirty (35) working days from the date of signing the contract, incorporating comments from stakeholders;
  • Preparation and submission of comprehensive draft multi-donor programme document on strengthening local capacities for economic governance; and 
  • Validation workshop and submission of the Final Programme Document incorporating comments from the validation workshop.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

  • Ability to undertake technical policy-focused research related to local economic governance;
  • Strong analytical capacity and experience in socio-economic analysis, needs assessment and programme design;
  • Good knowledge and substantial field experience with local economic governance;
  • Good understanding of the concept/theory and practice of decentralization and local governance broadly;
  • Good knowledge on the policy and implementation of decentralization in Ethiopia;
  • Experience of working with a range of organizations including local communities, civil society  and  governmental organizations;
  • Ability to plan own work, report on work progress and deliver outputs in a timely manner;
  • Excellent report writing, communication and interpersonal skills; and
  • Ability to work under pressure and to deliver in a timely manner without compromising quality standards.

Core 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 favoritism; and
  • Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • At least Master’s degree in Development Economics, Development Studies, Political Economy of Development, Public Administration/Policy or related fields.

Experience:

  • A minimum of 7 years of relevant experience of working in local governance or similar assignments.

Language:

  • Excellent knowledge of the English language (knowledge of local language is a plus); and
  • Capacity to communicate fluently with different stakeholders (Government authorities, Development Partners, civil society, etc.). 

Application Instruction:

  • Download both TOR and IC Proposal Submission Form from the following link: http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=27999          
  • Strictly follow the instructions indicated in the IC Proposal Submission Form uploaded hereto; and
  • Group of Individuals and/or Firms are not eligible for this consultancy assignment (open only for individual consultant).

Documents Required

The following proposals must be prepared as per the IC Proposal Submission Instructions. The Proposals shall be submitted before application deadline February 22, 2016 via UNDP Ethiopia Secured mail address: procurement.et@undp.org

  • Technical Proposal in pdf under file name: ETH-IC-2016-006 – TP - [insert your name];
  • Financial Proposal in pdf under file name:: ETH-IC-2016-006 – FP - [insert your name].

Please note that these proposals shall be submitted to the designated secured email into two files but in one email unless both Files are Greater than 9MB file size.

Important Note:

  • A candidate applying only by uploading CV to this job site will not be considered. Instead, both Technical and Financial Proposals shall be submitted to UNDP Secured email: procurement.et@undp.org
  • Those prospect consultants who fail to submit both Technical and Financial proposals as per the standard format and to the designated secured email will not be further considered for evaluation;
  • Please group all your documents into single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Email subject line while submitting proposal: