Background

Saudi Arabia, under the prudent leadership of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Ibn Abdulaziz, has launched the Saudi Vision 2030, which seeks to achieve a diversified, prosperous economy. In achieving this vision, it is expected that all ministries and Government bodies would strive for organizational excellence, improving their services, and building high-performing manpower.

The electricity sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is witnessing a major transformation with a number of ongoing initiatives which aim to increase the efficiency of the sector and the added value, at a time when the energy mix is being diversified in the country. According to the general policies of the Ministry of Energy (MoE) and the tasks entrusted to it, the Deputyship of Electricity Affairs (DoEA) seeks to provide a comprehensive and efficient electrical service -not less than the best global practices-, achieve sustainability, participate in the preparation of policies and supervision of their implementation to raise the quality of electrical service, provide the necessary electrical safety conditions within the electrical system in the Kingdom, propose policies and strategies for achieving the sustainability of electric energy and follow up their implementation in coordination with the relevant entities. Therefore, the ministry needs to obtain technical and administrative support in order to contribute to the implementation of national priority initiatives and programs to achieve the vision and objectives of the Ministry within the vision of KSA 2030 and the National Transformation Program 2020, with the aim of upgrading electrical services.

The KSA overall ‘umbrella’ project, which is supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), aims to provide technical and advisory support to Deputyship to improve its efficiency in implementing its tasks, initiatives, and plans and overseeing the achievement of its future strategic objectives. "As per UNDP’s new Strategic Plan 2022-2025, the objective of UNDP is increasing energy access for those furthest behind. By speeding up investment in distributed renewable energy solutions, especially for those hardest to reach and in crisis contexts, it aims to increase access to clean and affordable energy for 500 million people."

The project will achieve this goal through a six-pronged strategy: (1) prepare and develop policies, strategies, and plans related to the electricity sector, and support their implementation, (2) prepare and conduct the technical studies and consultations related to the electricity sector, (3) provide advisory services to support the implementation of awareness campaigns on the Deputyship's functions, (4) provide the administrative and technical support, (5) support the cooperation with national and international entities and authorities, (6) strengthen the capacity of the Deputyship.

The six outputs are interlinked and will synergize with each other. Overall, the project will complement and accelerate efforts of Saudi Arabia to achieve its goals in Vision 2030, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement on climate change.

The Organizational Development TA component (‘sub-project’) of the above project will support the MOE in four areas to:

1. Implemented the Technology and Innovation (T&I) Strategy (developed by the firm Strategy&)
2. Develop an internal benchmarking capability within the Deputyship and benchmark the Deputyship against ‘best-in-class’ comparator countries
3. Mainstream the relevant SDGs within the Deputyship’s activities
4. Develop a training and capacity-building capability and deliver training

Duties and Responsibilities

Under workstream A, the objectives of this consultancy are to:

1. Support client engagement with MoE stakeholders and maintain high levels of client satisfaction
2. Support the TID team to implement their mandate within the electricity sector and the “Technology & Innovation Strategy in Power Sector” developed by Strategy& with a particular focus on the organizational design and development implications, for example, increasing the capacity of the team to support and manage the implementation of strategic initiatives.
3. Lead the T&I benchmarking exercise with comparator countries (tba) and assist the MoE to design and implement the recommendations of the benchmarking exercises
4. Identify government policies in innovation and technology, including best practices.
5. Advise on the development of relevant coaches, mentoring and capacity-building initiatives
6. Oversee, coordinate, and support the activities of the sub-project, including producing status reports and supporting program and project governance activities

In addition, and depending on available resources, the consultancy will support the Deputyship to:

• Assist the National UNDP Project as needed.  
• Advise on the development of an approach to SDGs and help mainstream them into the MoE.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The Senior Advisor will provide direction and specific subject matter assistance to the team of consultants working under the intervention through all phases of the Intervention. Due to the short-term nature of the contract, the Expert is expected to work towards the delivery of the following:

Institutional Arrangement

The Senior Advisor will work under the supervision of the UNDP National Project Manager, work directly with the managers and staff of the MoE DoEA and work closely with the ‘Senior Advisor (PSM Benchmarking) and Senior Advisor (Strategy and Training) as required.

Duration of the Work

• The expected duration of work is 6 Months, with the possibility of an extension.
• The anticipated starting date of the assignment is 15th of February 2023. And the expected date of full completion of all tasks under this assignment is 15th  of August of 2023.

Duty Station

• The assignment will be hybrid (in-country and home-based). The duty station for the work in the country will be Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He/ She will be embedded within the Deputyship for Electricity Affairs, Ministry of Energy. In the event of a major negative event, e.g. another pandemic, travel restrictions may be put in place for the duration of the event.

• If unforeseen travel outside the consultant’s home-based city is requested by UNDP and not required by the Terms of References (ToR), such travel shall be covered by UNDP in line with applicable rules and regulations and upon prior written agreement. In such cases, the consultant shall receive living allowances not exceeding the United Nations (UN) Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) rate for such other location(s).

Note: A written approval from UNDP and relevant authorities will be required to facilitate the consultant's travel to any locations than stated on this TOR on official missions where necessary.

Working Arrangements:

• All mission travels must be approved in advance and in writing by the supervisor.
• United Nations Development of Safe and Security – BSAFE course must be successfully completed prior to the commencement of travel.
• The Consultant is responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director.
• The consultant is also required to comply with the UN security directives.
• The consultant is responsible for obtaining any visas needed in connection with travel with the necessary support from UNDP.
• The consultant will be responsible for submitting his/her own mission travel arrangements in line with UNDP travel policies.
• The consultant is responsible for required health and life insurance related to work or travel.
• The consultant is expected to have his/her own Laptop/Computer.

Competencies

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, and nationality sensitivity and adaptability

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to handle effectively multiple tasks without compromising quality, team spirit, and positive, working relationships
• Highly savvy in program design and implementation with strong knowledge- base in the Urban field or National transformation processes.
• Demonstrated ability to conceptualize, develop and oversee complex program implementation.

Management and leadership

• Excellent communication, organizational and management skills
• Focuses on the impact and results of the client
• Demonstrate conflict resolution skills
• Consistently approaches work with energy and positive-constructive attitude
• Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors
• Effectively manages teams and creates an enabling work environment
• Effective coacher and mediator

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Skills

• Masters’s Degree from a recognized university (Masters level preferred) in the field of Management and/or Program Management, Business Administration, International Development, Public Policy, International Relations or Political Sciences;
• At least 15 years of relevant experience working in and leading management consulting, with significant proven experience in successfully selling, establishing, supporting and overseeing large consulting engagements – preferably public sector institutional capacity development and preferably from a leading local or global provider of advisory or consulting services.
• At least 10 years of experience of global experience consulting senior leaders in the public sector in the areas of strategy, organizational design and development, change management, and/or business transformation.  Experience must include consulting work outside of the candidate’s home country.
• The candidate should have sound experience in organizational assessments, program design and management, technical consultations, and facilitation of dialogue with national counterparts.
• Professional certifications in Change Management (e.g. ADKAR) and Project Management (e.g. Prince2/PMP).
• Demonstrated knowledge of the United Nations system and its country-level development processes.
• Relevant working and practical experience in industry or government agencies in the MENA and/or GCC region is required. Knowledge of Saudi Arabia’s environment is an advantage.

Language Requirements:

• Language proficiency in both written and oral English is required.
• Knowledge of Arabic is an asset.

Scope of Costs and Schedule of Payments

All proposals must be expressed in a lump sum amount. This amount must be "all-inclusive". Please note that the terms "all-inclusive" implies that all costs (professional fees, living allowances, communications, consumables, etc.) that could possibly be incurred are already factored into the final amounts submitted in the proposal.

Payments shall be made to the individual contractor upon successful completion and certification by UNDP that services have been satisfactorily performed, based upon the actual number of working days and accomplishments of each deliverable.

Payment shall be made as a deliverables-based lump upon the receipt of the deliverables and certification of satisfactory performance by UNDP.

The Expert will share a Certificate of Payment (CoP) where he/he needs to indicate achieved outputs. Then the certificate of payment must be verified by the UNDP Team and certified by UNDP top management. The Expert is advised to keep a detailed timesheet of the days worked and tasks performed throughout the consultancy assignment. A bi-weekly update of the timesheet will be requested, and such documentation will support the payment process as deemed needful.

* Payment is also dependent on any programme reporting and project board meetings.

Recommended Presentation of Offer

For purposes of generating Offers whose contents are uniformly presented and to facilitate their comparative analysis, it is best to recommend the preferred contents and presentation of the offer to be submitted, as well as the format/sequencing of their presentation. The following documents may be requested:

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
2. Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the candidate and at least three (3) professional references.
3. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per the template provided. If an Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP. 

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

Applicants are shortlisted based on the Required Skills and Experience stated in the TOR.

The selection of the best offer from the shortlisted candidates will be based on a Combined Scoring method – where the qualifications and methodology will be weighted a max. of 70% and combined with the price offer, which will be weighted a max of 30%.

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Step I: Screening and Desk Review

Technical Criteria (CV review and Desk Review/Interview optional) – maximum 70 points. Only candidates who obtained at least 70% of points from the CV desk review (who will score at least 49 points) will be considered for the next evaluation stage, i.e., financial evaluation.

Applications will be first screened, and only candidates meeting the following minimum criteria will progress to the pool for shortlisting:

Technical Evaluation (70 Points, 70% weight)

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

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

Instructions for online 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 also be accepted) and upload to the UNDP Jobs links

Step 3: After that, you will receive an auto-reply from the UNDP jobs if your offer is received successfully.

Interested applicants are advised to carefully review this advertisement and ensure that they meet the requirements and qualifications described. 

Given the volume of applications that UNDP receives, only shortlisted offerors will be notified.

UNDP reserves the right to reject any incomplete applications.

Please be informed that we don't accept applications submitted via email.

Interested Offerors are required to submit an application via UNDP Jobsite system as the application screening, and evaluation will be done through UNDP Jobsite system. Please note that UNDP Jobsite system allows only one uploading of application documents, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your online application submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an email acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows you to upload a maximum of one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email mohammed.abbas@undp.org  with a copy to huda.alsaud@undp.org the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 3 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted on the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain updates related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice.

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.

Interested applicants are advised to carefully review this advertisement and ensure that they meet the requirements and qualifications described. 

The interested offeror must read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=97441 for more detailed information about terms of references, instructions for the offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer online.

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.

APPROVAL

This ToR is certified by:

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This ToR is approved by:

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