The Regional Hub of Civil Service in Astana (ACSH), an initiative of the Government of Kazakhstan and the United Nations Development Programme, was established in March 2013 and it is implemented by UNDP. It is a multilateral institutional platform for the continuous exchange of knowledge and experience in the field of civil service development, through fostering partnerships and providing capacity building and peer-to-peer learning activities and evidence-based solutions. The geographical range of participants - currently encompassing 35 countries, demonstrating that partnership for civil service excellence remains a salient need.

The United Nations Development Programme, drawing from the best of global practices, contributes to Kazakhstan’s democratic consolidation through the provision of support to institutional reform and fostering dialogue by bringing together key stakeholders in the process. The UNDP works to promote democratic governance through public administration, civil service and judicial reform, electoral and parliamentary support, protection of human rights and enhancement of civil society participation in political decision making. Through its regional projects, it promotes multi-agency cooperation to increase effectiveness of drug control and reinforce border management capacity of national partners in all Central Asian Republics.

The Regional Hub produces several publications in the form of research papers, monograms, cases studies and books. Similarly, UNDP’s Governance Cluster publishes numerous knowledge products, position papers and reports every year. For this reason, it intends to hire an international consultant, whose primary scope of work would be to assist in the conception, preparation and publication of knowledge products related to public administration and civil service reform and development.

The policy directive issued by President Nazarbayev on the “formation of a professional state apparatus and civil service” essentially reiterates the importance of governance related initiatives. Envisioned activities will contribute to furthering the professionalization of the civil service of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the rationalisation and improvement of public service delivery to citizens. In this context, the ACSH seeks to engage a broadly experienced high level specialist, who will provide his/her services in conceiving and preparing a variety of knowledge products, i.e. books, monograms, case studies, reports, position papers and other governance-related research work.  The consultant is also expected to participate in formulating and preparing similar documents for other UNDP governance-related activities. Additionally, the consultant may be engaged in coordinating public administration related advocacy and good practices dissemination activities, if and when required by the government. The consultant is expected to provide his/her services, under the guidance of, and close cooperation with, the ACSH Portfolio Manager / Team Leader and/or the UNDP Governance Programme Analyst.

Scope of work:

The consultant is expected to provide documents of all work assigned in a timely and professional manner throughout the period this contract is in force. The consultant will be engaged to contributing substantive work pertaining to:

• Preparation and publication of knowledge products, e.g. preparation of PAR related reports, studies on the impact of on-going reform initiatives on public management, civil service ethics, professionalism and performance management systems, among other (for a full list of products, see section B);
• Collection, analysis and documentation of base line data on the impact of institutional reform, as well as on the overall performance of the public service;
• Support in developing National Human Development Reports;
• Developing policy briefs and papers on SDGs accelerators identified by UNDP and support of SDGs Road Map implementation (which is under development now);
• Expert assessment of studies and concepts developed by Projects in the Governance Portfolio;
• Conceptual and analytical support to the advocacy campaign aimed at promoting SDGs on both national and sub-national levels; Data collection and analysis on priority themes including, but not limited to various types of disparities, gender, rule of law, vulnerable groups to support informed decisions for programming and new projects design; 
• Any other activities consistent with the overall objectives of public administration and civil service reform and development projects, i.e. the ACSH and other projects implemented by the Country Office;
• As substantive support to the Regional Hub, the consultant is expected to regularly review and edit the ACSH knowledge products on topics related to analysis of best practices in the areas of civil service competencies frameworks, position grading systems, merit-based recruitment, performance appraisal, public services delivery, anticorruption policies etc, as well as the ACSH Journal and provide his suggestions and recommendations to the Regional Hub.

• Strong expertise in Civil service and Public administration;
• Excellent writing skills and communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize relevant collected data and findings for the preparation of quality analysis for the projects;
• Excellent coordination skills and result oriented collaboration with colleagues;
• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Good team player who has ability to maintain good relationships. 

• Advanced university degree in political science, public administration and/or other related social sciences;
• At least seven years of relevant professional experience, including solid experience in managing large international programmes and projects in public administration capacity development (relevant experience in Central Asia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Caucasus is considered an asset);
• Proven experience in the preparation and publication of public administration related reports, papers, case studies and book, among other;
• Working experience in international or non-governmental institutions, United Nations, and in particular with UNDP public administration-related projects and programmes is considered an advantage;
• Proven high-level knowledge and experience in providing expert advisory and/or consultancy services in the area of public administration and civil service reform;
• Experience in development project implementation at the national and regional levels;
• Experience in report writing in a concise, lucid, and comprehensible manner;
• Excellent command of the English language is required; knowledge of Russian will be considered an advantage.

“Qualified and interested individual consultants are hereby requested to apply and must submit the following documents/information uploaded to their online application":

Cover letter: brief description of why the Offeror considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment; and

Personal CV or UNDP P-11 Form;

Financial proposal;

Other documents certifying the work experience, ability and skills. 

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

These forms and templates can be found on the UNDP Procurement Notice website using the following link: http://procurement-notices-admin.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=34518&view=admin