Antecedentes

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 170 countries and territories, working with governments and people on their own solutions to global and national development challenges to help empower lives and build resilient nations.

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.  BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to support emergency and crisis response.  BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working.  BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

BPPS supports UNDP’s 2014-2017 Strategic Plan, focusing on 7 outcomes including strengthening institutions to progressively deliver universal access to basic services (outcome 3). The HIV Health and Development team, within BPPS, is helping to contribute towards this outcome.

HIV, Health and Development Approach

UNDP is a founding cosponsor of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), a partner of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and a co-sponsor of several other international health partnerships. UNDP’s work on HIV, health and development leverages the organization’s core strengths and mandates in human development, governance and capacity development to complement the efforts of specialist health-focused UN agencies. UNDP delivers three types of support to countries in HIV, health and development.

First, UNDP helps countries to mainstream attention to HIV and health into action on gender, poverty and the broader effort to achieve and sustain the Millennium Development Goals.  For example, UNDP works with countries to understand the social and economic factors that play a crucial role in driving health and disease, and to respond to such dynamics with appropriate policies and programmes outside the health sector. UNDP also promotes specific action on the needs and rights of women and girls as they relate to HIV and other health.

Second, UNDP works with partners to address the interactions between governance, human rights and health responses. Sometimes this is done through focused or specialized programmes, such as promoting attention to the role of legal environments (law and access to justice) in facilitating stronger HIV responses, including the use of flexibilities in intellectual property and human rights law to lower the cost of drugs and diagnostics and to increase access to HIV-related treatment.  UNDP also works to empower and include people living with HIV and marginalized populations who are disproportionately affected by HIV - also known as key populations - such as sex workers, men who have sex with men, and transgender people.  Beyond these focused efforts, UNDP plays a key role in ensuring attention to HIV and health within broader governance and rights initiatives, including support to district and municipal action on MDGs, strengthening of national human rights institutions and increasing access to justice for marginalized populations.

Third, as a trusted, long-term partner with extensive operational experience, UNDP supports countries in effective implementation of complex, multilateral and multisectoral health projects, while simultaneously investing in capacity development so that national and local partners can assume these responsibilities over time. The UNDP/Global Fund partnership is an important part of this work, facilitating access to resources for action on MDG 6 by countries that face constraints in directly receiving and managing such funding. UNDP partners with countries in crisis/post-crisis situations, those with weak institutional capacity or governance challenges, and countries under sanctions. When requested, UNDP acts as interim Principal Recipient in these settings, working with national partners and the Global Fund to improve management, implementation and oversight of Global Fund grants, while simultaneously developing national capacity for governments or local entities to be able to assume the Principal Recipient role over time.

Objective

As the lead agency on human rights and law within the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNDP supports countries to create an enabling human rights environment, promote gender equality, and address HIV-related stigma and discrimination. To promote and advocate for human rights based approaches, UNDP supports initiatives to promote access to justice, legislative review and reform, and enforcement of protective laws and anti-stigma initiatives.

Within the UNAIDS Division of Labour (DoL), UNDP is the co-convenor of the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Working group on “key populations.” The HIV key populations are sex workers (SWs), men who have sex with men (MSM), people who use drugs (PWUDs), and transgender people (TGs).  UNDP also co-convenes (with UNFPA and UN Women) the DoL on women, girls, gender equality and HIV, with a particular concern for its intersection with key populations. UNDP participates in the UNAIDS Reference Group on Human Rights, and participates in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) Reference Group on Human Rights.  Additionally, UNDP works with partners in supporting efforts at better governance for better health at the city level.

The international community has recently approved the post-2015 development agenda. The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are meant to set universally applicable standards for ending poverty, better meeting human needs, protecting the environment, and promoting peace and realizing human rights. Mounting evidence suggests that homophobia, and other forms of stigma, violence and discrimination against LGBTI individuals significantly hinder social and economic progress, thus having a direct impact on country- and regional –level ability to achieve SDGs in the future. With this in mind, UNDP and OHCHR are initializing efforts to amass better data on LGBTI inclusion through internal collaborations within the UN system and partnerships with research institutions and leading LGBTI organizations.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have initiated a joint initiative focused on reducing inequalities and exclusion for LGBTI people, and combatting homophobia and transphobia. As part of this effort, UNDP and OHCHR are engaged in increasing data and the evidence base related to reducing inequalities and exclusion of LGBTI people in the context of sustainable development.

Consequently, UNDP’s HIV, Health & Development Group is recruiting a consultant with experience on key populations and with strong focus on data collection and analysis to support these efforts. The objective of this consultancy is to provide research, analytical, and writing support to the HIV, Health and Development group in its efforts to address the development dimensions of HIV and health as it relates to key populations and inclusion of LGBTI people as it relates to the SGDs.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Under the overall supervision of the Team Leader for Gender, Key Populations and LGBTI, the Consultant will be responsible for:

• Undertaking research on HIV-related human rights, stigma and discrimination as related to HIV key populations;
• Providing analytical and research support to the development and dissemination of various knowledge products relating to HIV and rights,
• Supporting various multi-agency coordination efforts on key populations, and
• Coordinating internal collaborations and partnerships to improve data collection efforts on LGBTI inclusion.

Specific Deliverables: 

• Schedule and convene the UNAIDS Steering Committee on Sex Work meetings; prepare, deliver, and circulate notes and communications to the Committee and articulate UNDP agenda during 2 monthly calls. Follow up with relevant Committee and Work Stream members to ensure timely completion of knowledge products. Envisaged Deadline: throughout consultancy; Number of Days: 6;
• Schedule and convene Interagency Working Group on Key Populations (KP IAWG) meetings with UNODC and UNFAPA; prepare, deliver, and circulate notes and communications and articulate UNDP agenda during quarterly calls. Convene and engage the KP IAWG subgroup on the rollout of Key Populations Implementation Tools. Envisaged Deadline: throughout consultancy; Number of Days: 4;
• See to completion any knowledge products produced by the UNAIDS Steering Committee on Sex Work or its workstreams; review drafts, edit and provide thought leadership to the knowledge products and lead efforts in their dissemination. Envisaged Deadline: December 2015- January 2016; Number of Days: 5;
• Lead dissemination efforts for Key Population Implementation Tools produced and released in 2015: MSM Implementation Tool (MSMIT) and Transgender People Implementation Tool (TransIT) and oversee to completion the Injection Drug Users Implementation Tool (IDUIT); provide review and edits as well as technical and administrative guidance for dissemination of MSMIT and TransIT. Envisaged Deadline: January –March 2016; Number of Days: 10;
• Coordinate HHD participation in the Key Population Implementation Tools rollout event at the 21st AIDS International AIDS conference; liaise with other agencies and civil society partners to plan a roll out event and engage in other aspects of planning including budgeting, coordinating presentations, and other related activities. Envisaged Deadline: January –March 2016; Number of Days: 10;
• Liaise with STOP TB Partnership and WHO to hire a consultant to proceed with conceptualizing and writing of a TB related legal environment assessment document and initiate similar work related to malaria. Envisaged Deadline: February 2016; Number of Days: 10;
• Plan the December event on LGBTI inclusion; draft speeches, coordinating inter- and intra-agency collaboration and interact with UNDP regional offices on supporting country representatives invited to the event; work collaboratively with civil society to ensure representation at the event and coordinate civil society validation process to launch LGBTI inclusion data collection efforts. Envisaged Deadline: December 2015; Number of Days: 10;
• Engage with civil society groups on the December/January meeting of LGBTI civil society representatives; coordinate results of the validation survey; manage grants and TORs and devise plans for a convening of the project board for data collection on LGBTI inclusion. Envisaged Deadline: December 2015/January 2016; Number of Days: 5;
• Coordinate HHD engagement with LGBT donors through continuous delivery of communications and reporting. Research and draft concept notes and other materials for donors. Envisaged Deadline: February 2016; Number of Days: 5;
• Coordinate UNDP HHD efforts to strengthen data collection for LGBTI inclusion. Engage with UNDP, OHCHR, research institutions and civil society partners on initiatives related to data collection for LGBTI inclusion, coordinate the convening of a program board, research and draft plans for data collection with research institutions, and coordinate launch of first studies. Deadline: March 2016; Number of Days: 20.

Expected Outputs: 

• Finalized products for UNAIDS Steering Committee on Sex Work Workstream 1.
• Dissemination strategies for the three implementation tools;
• Sizable contribution to the planning of the rollout event for the KP implementation tools;
• A suite of support documents for the December 10 event on LGBTI Inclusion;
• Established partnerships to pursue work on coordinating LGBTI inclusion data collection efforts.

Reporting: 

The consultant will regularly evaluate progress in meeting the specific deliverables with the direct supervisor.

Travel:

 No travel is expected for this consultancy. In the case of additional and unforeseeable travel, payments of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP HHD Team and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be covered and paid by UNDP. The fare will always be most economical and any difference in price with the preferred route will be paid for by the expert.

If the consultant is to be located in office, UNDP will not cover any costs associated with moving to the duty station. If applicant is requesting for such coverage the cost to be calculated and included in the financial proposal.

Timeframe:

The consultancy is office based and expected to last a maximum of 85 working days covering the period 14 November 2015 through 14 March 2016.

Evaluation:

Applicants will be screened against qualifications and competencies specified below through a desk review and/or an interview process. Those selected for the next stage of the selection process will be reviewed based on a cumulative analysis method that combines the results of technical and financial evaluation results. Specifically, the award of the contract will 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: 70%; and
• Financial Criteria weight: 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70%) out of a maximum 70 points on the Technical Evaluation will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria for Technical Evaluation (70 points maximum)

• An advanced degree in human rights, public health, international law, international affairs or a related degree with a preferred strong understanding of data analysis (maximum points: 20);
• Minimum of 7 years of relevant work experience in the area of HIV, public health, human rights, international affairs or a related field (maximum points:20);
• A demonstrated knowledge of HIV, human rights, public health, international law as evidenced by a publications record (maximum points:15); and
• Demonstrated record of research writing and editing (maximum points:15).

Criteria for Financial Evaluation (30 points maximum)

The following formula will be used to evaluate the financial proposal:

• p = y (µ/z), where;
• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;
• y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

Payment:

Payment will be processed through the Certificate of Payment (COP) and timesheet, verified and certified by the direct supervisor.

Competencias

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.

Functional Competencies:

• Strong research, writing and analytical skills, including ability to produce high quality practical advisory reports, background papers and knowledge products;
• Professional and/or academic experience in one or more of the areas of human rights, public health, public policy or international affairs.

Project and Resource Management:

• Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs;
• Ability to focus on impact and results for the client, promoting and demonstrating an ethic of client service;
• Strong organizational skills;
• Ability to work independently, produce high quality outputs;
• Sound judgment, strategic thinking and the ability to manage competing priorities.

Partnership building and team work:

• Demonstrated flexibility to excel in a multi-cultural environment;
• Provides and receives constructive feedback.

Communications and Advocacy:

• Strong ability to write clearly and convincingly, adapting style and content to different audiences, and to speak clearly and convincingly;
• Excellent analytical, research and writing skills with demonstrated ability to think strategically;
• Capacity to communicate clearly and quickly.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:

• An advanced degree (Masters level) or equivalent in law, human rights, international affairs, public policy, public health or a related field and knowledge of at least one of the other substantive areas.

Experience:

• A minimum of 7 years relevant work experience in the area of public health, public policy, international affairs or a related field with a preferred track record of projects focused on data analysis; and
• Demontrated excellent writing, research and analytical skills.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is essential.