Background

In 1998, the GoN, in partnership with UNDP, initiated the Micro-Enterprise Development Programme (MEDEP) to diversify livelihoods and increase the income of poor families through the creation and development of micro-enterprises and entrepreneurship skills. The programme targets people below the nationally defined poverty level with a special focus on women and socially excluded groups, such as Dalits, indigenous nationalities, religious minorities, and unemployed youths. Since its inception, MEDEP has expanded its coverage to 38 districts.

The programme has successfully completed its third phase and the MEDEP phase IV has just been launched in 1 August 2013 with the financial support of UNDP and AusAID.

The goal of the Microenterprise Development Programme (MEDEP) is to contribute to the poverty reduction and employment generation efforts of the Government of Nepal (GoN) through micro-entrepreneurship development. This approach is in line with the strategy of the GoN’s periodic plans.

During the fourth phase of MEDEP, 73,000 new micro entrepreneurs will be created (30,000 with MEDEP resources, 32,000 by Micro-enterprise Development for Poverty Alleviation (MED-PA)  and 11,000 Local Bodies) with particular focus on supporting households that are living below the national poverty line, women and the socially excluded, by strengthening the national system to support the establishment of micro-enterprise start-ups. This will be achieved by building the capacities of government at central and local levels to develop and implement policies for the support of micro-entrepreneurship, as well as by strengthening access to markets, finance and business development services.

Building on its experience of 14 years of providing support to micro-entrepreneurs in Nepal, MEDEP will create micro-enterprises indirectly, by mentoring and supporting the strengthening of the GoN’s Micro Enterprise Development for Poverty Alleviation (MEDPA). The programme will be implemented in partnership with central and local government institutions, as well as by supporting non-government and private sector organisations. MEDEP’s outcome therefore will not be limited to just creating new entrepreneurs. Its main contribution will instead be to endow Nepal with a sustainable institutional setup for the delivery and support of entrepreneurship even after the end of the programme.

MEDEP will also support peace and stability in Nepal, by significantly contributing to addressing poverty and social exclusion, which are among the root causes of conflict in the country.

The overall objective of the assignment is to capacitate the MEDEP and MED-PA staff to effectively operationalize the new M&E guidelines which have been drafted in compliance with DCED standards.

Duties and Responsibilities

The overall objective of the assignment is to capacitate the MEDEP and MED-PA staff to effectively operationalize the new M&E guidelines, which have been drafted in compliance with DCED standards.  The specific objectives are:

To review, recommend and revise (if necessary) the report on M&E to apply DCED standards within the MEDEP M&E system.

To ensure that the new M&E system is fully DCED compatible.

To capacitate, through training, on the followings topics:

• Introduction to DCED standards and their importance;
• Essential components/principles/salient features of the DCED standards based M&E system;
• Key elements and control points of DCED standards;
• Essential components of the standards to be incorporated to ensure the system is a fully DCED compliant M&E system,
• Global indicators of DCED standards;
• Essential measurement tools and techniques;
• Hands-on training on essential measurement tools and techniques necessary at all levels of results measurement and management;
• Measures to control quality of quantitative and qualitative data and information;
• Challenges and practical modality while practicing DCED complaint M&E system.

To review the contents in bullet (b) and finalise the content for the training on DCED compliant M&E system.

To suggest the areas for improvement of the existing GSIMIS database system for effective M&E and reporting.

Training Methodology:

This assignment will last approximately 15 days. The first three days will review the documents prepared by the team recently on M&E. The training course should be developed on the basis of these documents. In order to implement DCED standards in MEDEP, hands-on training should be provided.

The course content should be finalized in collaboration with MEDEP and should include group work and interactive exercises based on examples from MEDEP or other project experiences. The results measurement session of the training will be jointly developed with inputs from MEDEP M&E Specialist. The training course will be delivered by a team comprised of an International Consultant as lead trainer along with a National Consultant as Assistant Trainer.

Interested candidates can download the Procurement Notice, detailed Terms of Reference (Annex I), General Condition of Contract for the services of Individual Contractors (Annex II) and P11 Form (Annex III) from the UNDP website:

http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=13418

Note:

Please submit your application at the following email address if you face problem applying online:
procurement.np@undp.org .

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Self-development, initiative-taking;
• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work;
• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
• Creating synergies through self-control;
• Managing conflict;
• Learning and sharing knowledge and encouraging the learning of others. Promoting learning and knowledge management/sharing is the responsibility of each staff member;
• Informed and transparent decision making;
• Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

Corporate competencies:

• Commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values;
• Sensitivity to cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age differences;
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment;
• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
  

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• The International Consultant will have a Masters Degree or higher qualification in Management or other relevant subject.

Experience:

• More than 10 years of international experience in results-based monitoring and evaluation of development programmes;
• Experience on DCED's  results measurement system and skills on facilitating training programmes are must.

Language:

• Fluent in English.
  

Documents to be included when submitting the proposal:

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

Proposal:
To be included as part of the proposal:

• A cover letter explaining your suitability for the work;
• A brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the work.

Financial Proposal:

Financial proposal indicating a lump sum consultancy fee for the deliverables (Please see section 5. Guidance for Financail proposal).

UN Personal History Form (P11) (annexed as Annex III)

Note:

• Applicants of 62 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy;
• The candidate has to be an independent consultant (If the candidate is engaged with any organization, the organization employing the candidate will be issued with a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) to release the employee for the consultancy with UNDP);
• Due to sheer number of applicants, the procurement unit will contact only competitively selected consultant by 29 November 2013;
• This application system allows uploading only one file per application; we therefore, recommend to upload the completed P11 form. If the applicant wishes to include additional information, they may  be attached to the P11 form.

Evaluation:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:
 
Cumulative analysis:

When using this weighted scoring method, 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 weight; 70%;
 Financial Criteria weight; 30%.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70%.

• Criterion A: Master’s Degree, or higher qualification in Management or other relevant subject (10%);
• Criterion B: International experience in results-based monitoring and evaluation of development programmes (20%);
• Criterion C: Experience on DCED’s results measurement system (20%);
• Criterion D: Skills on facilitating training programmes (20%). 

Financial: Lowest financial proposal: 30%.

Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical). The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

(Lowest Bid Offered*)/(Bid of the Consultant) x 30.
*"Lowest Bid Offered" refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in technical evaluation.