Antecedentes

In September 2009, the Legal Sector Master Plan was officially adopted by the Government of Lao PDR. The Master Plan lays out a framework for the country’s first broad-ranging legal reform in order to achieve its ultimate goal of establishing a rule of law state by 2020. It is a comprehensive and candid statement of the current needs of the legal system as well as a series of guiding principles for developing a rule of law state and action plan to achieve this goal. The Plan represents an effort at coordinated legal system development consistent with the guidance of the political report of the 9th Party Congress.

In order to support the implementation of the Master Plan, UNDP, together with other donors, launched a new project (“Support Project for Implementation of the Legal Sector Master Plan”) in January 2014. As the first attempt towards a programme-based approach in the legal sector of Lao PDR, the SPLSMP is expected to deliver the following 6 key outputs:

  • Enhanced capacity, procedures, and standards for legislative development and implementation in Lao PDR;
  •  Improved capacity, structure, and arrangements further improved at legal and judicial institutions for more effective and responsive judicial process;
  •  More systematic development of legal and judicial professionals enabled through the establishment of a unified judicial training institute;
  •  Increased public understanding of legal rights and information, and increased participation in the legal system towards full realisation of their rights;
  •  Lao PDR’s further integration into regional and international communities enabled through adoption, implementation, enforcement, monitoring, and reporting of international legal instruments;
  • Enhanced capacity of the Secretariat for more effective coordination in the legal sector and implementation of the LSMP.

In order to ascertain bassline information of certain selected segments/areas of the justice sector, the SPLSMP project conduced a Public Justice Survey late last year. The survey was carried out by a team of National Stakeholders, consisting of a combination of staff from MOJ, Court and OSPP and also 3rd and 4th year students from the Vientiane Law College.  Quality control was carried out by an international consultant.

The survey encompassed interviews with the Lao Population. The questionnaires were designed targeting LSMP and SPLSMP indicators and consisted of the following sections:

  • Header and Interviewer specifics;
  • Overall understanding about the police, courts, VMU, lawyers and prosecutors;
  • Citizens' knowledge on Laws;
  • Possibility to raise dissatisfaction with social services;
  • Grievance resolution.

The sampling included 1443 respondents in Oudomxay, Xiengkhuang and Champasak provinces, each covering two SPLSMP target districts and (acting as control-villages for the analysis of the end line results) one non-target district. A mix of conscious sampling (choice of provinces, districts and villages and persons within the households) and random sampling (households within the villages) and used was able to well represent the socio-economic characteristics of Laos. It has been decided to keep the survey anonymous.

A second key source of information were stakeholder interviews on the national level. They included a total of over 40 Development Partners, Government staff and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). In these interviews the knowledge and opinions by interviewees on the Status Quo of the Justice Sector and information on LSMP and SPLSMP indicators was collect.

Expected Results:

This consultancy serves the purpose of reviewing the finding of the survey and its initial reports to:

  •  Provide an overall analysis of preliminary findings;
  •  Statistically analyze preliminary findings / raw data which can serve as the basis to come up with well-structured and comprehensive recommendations and follow up actions;
  • Provide technical assistance to the project to come up with clear and focused recommendations   and follow up actions;
  • Structure the exiting preliminary report in a manner it becomes; reader friendly and comprehendible adhering international standards of publications.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Home-Based: Desk Review (1 Days)

The consultant will be expected to familiarize himself/herself with relevant literature for this work, including but not limited to:

  •  SPLSMP and LSMP Baseline Report;
  •  Legal Sector Master Plan;
  • SPLSMP project document and progress reports;
  • Access to Justice Report;
  • Customary Law Report;
  • Communications strategy prepared by UNDP;
  • Relevant laws.

Statistical analysis of preliminary findings (3 days)

  •  Complete statistical analysis of raw data and provide overall findings and detailed findings of the survey which will form an integral part of the report

 Recommendations and follow up action points (2days) 

  • In coordination with the project come up with clear recommendations and follow up actions

Final public survey report – printable versions (4 days)

  •  Finalized (printable version) Public Justice Report in consultation with project and UNDP.

Competencias

Functional competencies:

  • Shares knowledge and experience;
  • Plan and prioritizes work activities to meet organizational goals;
  • Builds and sustains relationships with key constituents (international/external/bilateral/ multilateral/public/private/civil society);
  • Conceptualizes and analyzes problems to identify key issues, underlying problems, and how they relate;
  • Demonstrates excellent and effective written and oral communication skills;
  • Demonstrate respect to knowledge and culture and religion in a multidisciplinary working environment;
  • Applies the required depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise to meet job demands;
  • Uses information technology effectively as a tools and resource;
  • Demonstrated flexibility and adaptability in taking on this type of consultancy;

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling 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;
  • Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Academic Qualifications:

  • At least a Master’s degree in Political Science, Social Sciences, Public Information, Law, or related relevant fields;

Years of experience:

  • Intensive experience at least 7 years in conducting similar research, formulating field surveys, preferably on access to justice, judicial or legal related work;
  • Extensive experience with various methods of statistical analysis;
  • Extensive experience in working with governments and institutions;
  • Understanding of development issues in Lao PDR an asset;
  • Familiarity with the country or the region strongly preferred.

Languages:

  • Excellent command of written and spoken English, including excellent drafting skills, particularly in being able to write documents (such as reports and questionnaire) concisely and in simple-to-understand English that is easy to translate into another language;
  • Knowledge of Lao language (spoken and/or written) an advantage.

All interested and qualified candidates should apply on-line using the following links: 

In order to make submission please read the attached relevant documents which are also avalable on our web-site at http://www.la.undp.org/content/lao_pdr/en/home/operations/jobs/: 

  • TOR (Annex I);
  •  Individual Contract & General Terms and Conditions (Annex II);
  • Offeror’s Letter to UNDP (Annex III);
  • Reimbursable Loan Agreement (for a consultant assigned by a firm) & General Conditions (Annex IV).

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals: 

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

Technical Proposal as per Annex III “Offeror’s Letter to UNDP”

  • Explaining why you are the most suitable for the work;
  • Providing a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work including the work schedule for the delivery of outputs/deliverable;
  • CV including past experience in similar project and contact reference of at least 3 references for whom you have rendered preferably the similar service.

Financial proposal:

  • Detailed financial proposal: Lump sum offer with clear cost breakdown against each deliverable.

Note:

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days). All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. UNDP accept travel costs not exceeding of an economy class air ticket. 

Instructions for on-line submissions:

  • Step 1: Please prepare all required documents electronically;
  • Step 2: Combine all documents in ONE SINGLE FILE (preferably in PDF however Word format can be also accepted) and upload to the UNDP Jobs using the links above; 
  • Step 3: After that you will receive an auto reply from the UNDP jobs if your offer is received successfully.

Incomplete proposals or proposals received after the deadline will be rejected.

Please kindly refer to the Terms of Reference Annex I for detailed information on:

  • Project’s background;
  • Scope of work and Responsibilities;
  • Timeframe for the work;
  • Deliverables;
  • Requirements for Experience and Qualifications.

Evaluation of Proposals:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on cumulative analysis and in line with the following evaluation criteria:  

Cumulative analysis: The award of the contract will be made to a consultant who 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:

* Technical Criteria weight; [0.7]

* Financial Criteria weight; [0.3]

Only a consultant obtaining a minimum of 50 points in the technical rating would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Note: 

Any request for clarification must be sent in writing to the following e-mail: kazuo.fukuda@undp.org.

UNDP Lao PDR will respond in writing by standard electronic mail and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all consultants.

The copies of the response will be also placed on our web-site at:   http://www.la.undp.org/content/lao_pdr/en/home/operations/jobs/ and linked to the current Procurement Notice.

All interested candidates are encouraged to visit the above web-site for updates.

Please note that only short-listed candidates will be notified. 

Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

For more detailed information about UNDP Lao PDR please visit our website at http://www.la.undp.org/lao_pdr/en/home.html.