Pacific Islands countries (PICs) boast “big ocean” economies, with young and mobile populations and highly resilient and adaptative societies. Past and recent investments have however fallen short of developing diverse economies offering inclusive services and opportunities, resilient to external shocks and the increasing pace of climate disasters. While the scale of Pacific economies does not allow them to respond to all these challenges alone, public investment and revenues would gain from empowered officials accountable to keep basic service delivery and development priorities in mind while driving fiscal decisions.

For this reason, the “Accountable Public Finances to serve Pacific people – Vaka Pasifika” project (hereafter Vaka Pasifika project) builds on the results of the “Strengthening Public Finance Management and Governance in the Pacific” (PFM) project implemented between 2018 and 2022. The proposed overarching goal of this project is to strengthen the governance mechanisms enabling Pacific countries to deliver public services that are better calibrated to meet specific needs of the people. Its specific focus will be to ensure scarce Pacific resources are better managed and the resource base available for achieving national development goals will be increased. To achieve this goal, PIC economies require stable and reliable institutions implementing the right mix of creativity and rigor informed by ground reality. The Project will contribute to this vision by (a) supporting oversight institutions and decision makers to define and implement their priorities through leadership and institutional capacity strengthening and (b) enhancing responsiveness of service delivery and public finance management by developing institutional mechanisms for engagement and openness and strengthening civil society capacity.

One of the major assets of the Vaka Pasifika project is the Vaka Pasifika moodle platform. The platform needs regular updates of courses and maintenance as well as creation of shells easily managed by trainers. The course is also going to be transferred to a number of partners. The project additionally foresees the project to grow its online presence and expand its online community. 

Scope of Work

Reporting to the UNDP Vaka Pasifika PFM Project Manager, the Vaka Pasifika ICT support consultant will be in charge of maintaining the Vaka pasifika platform and performing all ICT tools related tasks to support the project activities and community. Specific responsibilities will include:

• Maintain moodle platform – create training/audience specific shells and provide guidance to users, trainers and project team on using tools as well as resolve their challenges accessing the tools;
• Transfer data and content as needed to other platform/create new platform to host the product;
• Conduct regular users survey and review of the platform and produce and implement recommendation on improvement; Anticipate challenges and advise team on potential solutions;
• Ensure subscription are up to date and respond to need;
• Create new platforms and support creation of additional ICT tools required by the Community Engagement Strategy of the Project
• Ensure quick response to user problems (within day and 48hours max).

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

Institutional Arrangement

The Consultant will report to the UNDP Vaka Pasifika PFM Project Manager.

The Consultant to provide their own IT equipment and access (computer and internet connection).  

Duration of the Work

The consultant will be required to work for a period of up to 92 days between August 2022 and August 2025.

Duty Station

This assignment is home based. Work on Pacific timezone will be required and answers to participants are expected with day.

Corporate competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modelling UN values and ethical standards;
• Demonstrates professional competence and is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results;
• Display cultural, gender, nationality, religion and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

• Demonstrated ability to work harmoniously in a multi-cultural environment;
• Ability to work on own initiative as well as a member of a team and to work under pressure;
• Excellent relationship management;
• Excellent communication, facilitation, presentation and reporting skills;

Education

• Bachelor in IT or related

Experience

• 5 years working on providing IT service – preferably in an institution using moodle tools;
• 5years as a moodle platform administrator: javascript functionality, LMS and dependent hosting infrastructure, quality improvement, analysis of data, user management, learning analytics.
• Evidence of understanding of the Pacific context and ability to interact with users in this region, experience working with an international institution in pacific on learning platform a strong advantage.

Language requirements

• Fluency of English language is required;
• Fluency in vernacular language of Pacific country is a strong advantage.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, travel costs, living allowance (if any work is to be done outside the IC´s duty station) and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:

• Upon reception and final clearance of deliverable 1: 7% of total value of the contract
• Upon reception and final clearance of deliverable 2: 7% of total value of the contract
• Upon reception and final clearance of deliverable 3: 7% of total value of the contract
• Upon reception and final clearance of deliverable 4: 7% of total value of the contract
• Upon reception and final clearance of deliverable 5: 7% of total value of the contract
• Upon reception and final clearance of deliverable 6: 7% of total value of the contract
• Upon reception and final clearance of deliverable 7: 58% of total value of the contract

Evaluation Method and Criteria

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology Cumulative analysis

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%). and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment.

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points)

• Education in IT : max 5 points
• Experience as IT support: max 20 points
• Experience as moodle administrator: max 25 points
• Experience in Pacific/development: 20 points max

UNDP may interview the technically qualified candidates as a means to validate the technical evaluation.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Documentation required

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications  to the link provided .

• Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability for the duration of the assignment using the template provided in Annex II.
• CV indicating all experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.
• Financial proposal, as per template provided in Annex II (in USD)
• Proposal on approach and methodology (2-pages max).

Note: Successful individual will be required to provide proof of medical insurance coverage before commencement of contract for the duration of the assignment.

Incomplete, joint proposals and proposals sent to the wrong mailing address will not be accepted and only candidates for whom there is further interest will be contacted.

Individuals interested in this consultancy should apply and will be reviewed based on their own individual capacity. The successful individual may sign an Individual Contract with UNDP or request his/her employer to sign a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) on their behalf by indicating this in the Offerors letter to Confirming Interest and Availability using Annex II.

• Annex I - Individual IC General Terms and Conditions
• Annex II – Offeror’s Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability for the Individual IC, including Financial Proposal Template