UNDP Jobs - 70210- Advisor, Research and Knowledge: Measuring Impact

Advisor, Research and Knowledge: Measuring Impact Investments

Location :

Home based, with regional travel, THAILAND

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

15-Feb-2017

Application Deadline :

01-Feb-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

1 year

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

260 days

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 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require a rethink of how our societies and economies are organized, how we can eradicate poverty and how we can adopt sustainable patterns of production and consumption.

The UNDP-UN Social Impact Fund is established with the objective of accelerating the scale-up of successful social business models through a new investment architecture that leverages traditional development funding with Social Impact investments. The goal is to attract follow-on and additional investment capital that can lead to greater social impact while providing the potential for sustainable and inclusive economic returns.

UNDP-UNSIF outcomes include:

Social Impact Investment advisory services to public and private investors focusing on SDG based results
SDG-related impact investment selection and financing and the development of a robust pipeline of social impact projects;
Quality assurance certification to raise the investment potential of social impact projects along social, economic and environmental standards building upon UNDP’s work on environmental and social screening standards as well as its gender marker seal;
Building upon UNDP’s South-South cooperation strategy and corporate partnership initiatives, an online and offline platform/ eco-system for impact investing rolled out and subsequently institutionalized, to facilitate project pipeline development, research and advocacy for policy reform for upscaling social impact investments for SDG attainment;
Development of a research consortium to explore new analytical frameworks that quantifiably measure and disaggregate non-financial and financial returns.

Duties and Responsibilities

The mainstream investment community has made strong advances towards targeting more Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) and using Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) criteria to filter deals. However, these initiatives fall short of explicitly reporting their societal impacts in terms of SDGs. Neither are there strong incentives to do so and some resistance has been observed from mainstream finance to support, of their own volition and cost, what is often seen as a public policy agenda.

The goal of the UNDP-UNDIF research project is to identify and where necessary enhance the analytical frameworks, mathematical underpinnings, market mechanisms and policy levers that will incentivize private capital and commercial business to be naturally drawn towards delivering the SDGs. The objective is to optimize the balance of funding within hybrid financial instruments, which blend donor funding or subsidy with commercial investment capital. A desired outcome is to establish the principle of “risk-adjusted and impact optimized Returns on Investment (ROI)”.

Social impact investors sometimes depart notably from traditional norms of expecting risk-adjusted returns. It is common place for social impact investors to offer capital pricing discounts or financial subsidies, to more or less of a degree, in order to stimulate the creation of positive societal impact.

In addition to being knowledgeable about the inherent interrelationship between risk and return, as well as the accepted trade-off between the two, the behavior of these investors suggests that there is another interrelated factor at play, namely positive societal impact.

?In other words, these investors seem to be driven by the notion of risk-adjusted ROI that are additionally optimized for the creation of positive societal impact.

UNDP-UNSIF requires in this initial phase a consultant that will:

Refine the research scope and focus;
Solicit support for an international research consortium;
Identify essential research partners and related research initiatives;
Outline an implementation plan to enable detailed budget setting and fundraising;
The consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables.

Deliverable 1:

Finalize conceptual thesis that defines a new narrative around social impact analytical models for non-financial and financial returns. This may include economic principles, incentive structures and policy frameworks for optimizing the interrelationship between subsidy and commercial capital, within a model for risk-adjusted and impact optimized returns.

Deliverable 2:

Define the research consortium ToR, milestones, work plan and budget including the identification of potential funding and research partners as well as these in an ex officio advisory position.

Deliverable 3:

Using primary and secondary data and stakeholders case study sources, initiate a mapping of the current social impact investment certification environment to establish a base line to define current and future demand. Design initial guidance and recommendations on how to structure, evaluate, and improve certification and quality assurance models to increase the effectiveness and efficacy across the broad asset classes of impact investments.

Deliverable 4:

Research and certification programme operationalization including workflows for publication and knowledge sharing initiatives.? Additional research and knowledge requirements may defined during the engagement.

The work on and acceptance of deliverables will be preceded by agreement with the Investment Analysis/Compliance Advisor on the outline of each deliverable, methodology, and the sources of information.

Timeline for submission of each deliverable will be agreed with the consultant upon signing of the contract.

The consultant will work under the supervision of the Chief, UNDP-UNSIF Project. The consultant will provide support services in terms of:

Coordinate with applicable stakeholders within UNDP BRH, UNDP BPPS, BERA and other associated internal business units

Coordinate with applicable external stakeholders that are leaders in the certification sector and engaged within the financial services sector.? This may include OECD, top level academic institutions, EIF, WEF, GSG and other associated institutional investor networks and auditor institutions

Duration

Approximate duration of assignment is 260 working days, 15 February 2017 – 15 February 2018.

Duty Station

Balance between home based with international travel expected.

Competencies

The successful candidate is expected to have excellent proven organizational, communications and writing skills; and to be familiar with the UN system, Sustainable finance models, the Principles for Responsible Investment, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards for investment processes and the certification sector; able to lead research agenda and work with leading academic institutions, and a broad stakeholder network.? Track record of research and publications on similar subject are needed.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

PHD or graduate level degree in related development and financial disciplines.

Experience

At least 7 years of proven knowledge management or technical advisory experience in

Investment Analysis/Compliance. Consulting assignments are applicable;

The candidate is expected to have experience with designing advanced analytical frameworks and models that explore alternative financing products and their effect on capital markets;
Being able to measure quantifiable positive societal impacts (including SDGs) for both financial and non-financial products;
Assess the effect of negative economic and societal impacts of unintentional or unforeseen events specifically to avoid mispricing positive outcomes by not fully taking into account related negative outcomes;
Evaluating comprehensive risk across financial and non-financial dimensions;
Design and parse out PhD-level research elements that as a whole would form a comprehensive model to establishing the value of both non-financial and financial returns.

Language

Excellent English report writing and communication skills;
Qualified candidates are requested to apply online via this website. The application should contain:
Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number)
Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, if applicable, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.
Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price.
Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.

*Please note that the financial proposal is all-inclusive and shall take into account various expenses incurred by the consultant/contractor during the contract period (e.g. fee, health insurance, vaccination and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services). All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel.

Payments will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.

Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org

General Terms and conditions as well as other related documents can be found under: ?http://on.undp.org/t7fJs.

Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply.

Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of the applicants’ qualifications and financial proposal.

The award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has 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 – 70% of total evaluation – max 35 points

Criteria A (Academic background) specified in the announcement – max 5 points
Criteria B (Proven knowledge management or technical advisory experience in
knowledge management – max 15 points
Criteria C (Proven knowledge of UN/UNDP, particularly of specific modalities of work and
priorities.) – max 5 points
Criteria D (Proven experience in developing knowledge partnerships) – max 10 points

Only the highest ranked candidates who would be found qualified for the job will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation – max. 15 points

Monthly on receipt of time records.

Annexes:

Annex 1 – Terms of References (TOR);
Annex 2 – Individual Consultant General Terms and Conditions;
Annex 3 - Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability Template;
Annex 4 - Financial Proposal Template.

All document can be downloaded at http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=35177

This contract does not carry any expectation of any future engagement by UNDP.