Background

The Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA) is responsible for UNDP’s external relations and advocacy functions. The Bureau leads and supports the organization in cultivating, building and nurturing strategic relationships and alliances that are essential for advancing and successfully achieving the mission of UNDP. These relationships encompass a wide range and number of key constituencies and development partners such as programme countries, existing and prospective donor countries/emerging economic powers, multilateral institutions such as the IFIs, the European Commission, civil society and the wider UN system. The UN System Affairs Group (UNSAG) within BERA leads and manages UNDP’s engagement with and/or support to: the UN and its inter-governmental bodies including the General Assembly and Economic and Social Council; other intergovernmental and multi-stakeholder bodies, including the UN interagency fora and the UN Development Group.

The UN System Affairs Group (UNSAG) is responsible for managing UNDP’s relations with the UN and its many inter-agency and inter-governmental bodies (DOCO, DESA, ECESA, DPA, CEB and its 3 pillars, HLPF, GA, ECOSOC and subsidiary bodies). It supports the leadership of UNDP by positioning, protecting and promoting UNDP in inter-agency and intergovernmental affairs and is responsible for scanning and anticipating trends that influence UNDP policy and prepares proactive strategy options for coherent multi-stakeholder engagement. It is also responsible for positioning UNDP as leading the RC system and chairing the UNDG. The group consist of 2 teams: the Intergovernmental and Multi-stakeholder Engagement Team and the UN Coordination and Coherence Team, working collaboratively to leverage resources within the group and address the group’s functional results delivery for analysis and advocacy, strategic positioning, reporting and documentation, and coherent operations.

Under the overall supervision of the UNSAG Director and the UN and Intergovernmental Affairs Advisor/Team Manager, the consultant will support the Intergovernmental and Multi-stakeholder Engagement team in close collaboration with other team members.

The consultancy assignment will take place in New York for three (3) months.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions

Support to strategy formulation and implementation to enhance client relationships:

  • Support the Team Manager in strengthening relationships with Member State delegates, other UN-system entities and CSOs, as part of an engagement strategy so that UNDP is well informed of developments and corporate priorities are appropriately reflected in intergovernmental legislation;
  • Provide support to the development, enhancement and implementation of corporate strategies to inform UNDP’s engagement in UN and intergovernmental processes; and

Preparation of briefing notes, analytical summaries and reports:

  • Support the preparation of timely and high-quality briefing notes, talking points, analysis, and speech inputs for the UNDP Administrator, Associate Administrator, BERA Director, BERA Deputy Director, UNSAG Director and Team Manager on relevant issues, as required. This includes coordination and synthesis of different UNDP Bureaux inputs; drafting of succinct summaries of the background issues; informed political analysis of the intergovernmental and interagency issues at hand; and identification of potential challenges and opportunities for UNDP;
  • Prepare and provide inputs into additional papers, talking points, reports and briefs, as required; and
  • Review and provide comments, as required, on UNDP, interagency and UN bodies’ draft documents.

Support to the enhancement of External Relations and Advocacy with other UN Entities and Intergovernmental partners:

  • Support the Team Manager in the preparation for UNDP’s participation in intergovernmental meetings, events and conferences;
  • Prepare analytical summaries of relevant formal meetings and informal consultations of the General Assembly and working groups, ECOSOC and the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), among others;
  • Help prepare UNDP’s position and messages for key meetings including inter-agency meetings and UNDP Executive Boards, ECOSOC, and General Assembly discussions;
  • Write and edit briefing notes for senior management for meetings with delegations, inter-agency officials in the Chief Executives Board (CEB) and its subsidiary bodies and others as needed;
  • Provide efficient secretariat support to relevant cross-bureau task teams;
  • Liaise with other Bureaux on relevant and topical issues as deemed necessary;
  • Represent as necessary UNSAG and BERA at UNDP meetings and ensure UNDP is appropriately represented in relevant intergovernmental fora;
  • Liaise, as necessary, with representatives from other UN agencies and with Member State delegations on issues of operational activities for development and relevant UN intergovernmental deliberations; and
  • Overall support to the work of UNSAG and other groups within BERA.

Facilitation of knowledge building and management focusing on achievement of the following results:

  • Identification of relevant sources of information. Identification and synthesis of best practices and lessons learnt directly linked to Intergovernmental & UN Coherence Affairs;
  • Sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice; and
  • Enhancement of UNSAG’s knowledge management systems.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

  • Timely and politically informed analysis on the latest developments in the intergovernmental fora; BERA Management and UNDP Senior Management (Administrator and Associate Administrator) kept informed on key developments in this regard;
  • Timely and accurate briefing notes and analytic materials for relevant inter-governmental and inter-agency meetings and events;
  • High-quality analytical summaries alerting UNDP staff to key issues, trends and opportunities;
  • UNDP’s position consolidated for Secretary-General’s reports and ECOSOC and General Assembly discussions;
  • Report on progress and implementation at end of contract or as otherwise requested by senior management. 
Performance indicators and recourse: Indicators of performance will be the timely completion of the deliverables above as reviewed in the end-of-contract Performance Evaluation completed by UNDP. Failure to provide above deliverables may result in non-payment or fees.

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, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

Professionalism
  • Sound understanding of the UN development system, UN intergovernmental bodies, including the General Assembly and its main committees, and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management;
Communication
  • Excellent and effective communication skills;
  • Proven ability to write in a clear and concise manner under tight time pressure and to communicate effectively orally;
  • Ability to prepare reports and articulate options, concisely conveying maximum necessary information;
  • Demonstrates openness in sharing information and keeping people informed.
Teamwork:
  • Works collaboratively with colleagues within and across teams to achieve organizational goals.
Planning and Organizing:
  • Develops clear functional results that are consistent with agreed strategies;
  • Identifies priority activities and assignments;
  • Monitors and adjusts plans and actions as necessary.
Client orientation:
  • Establishes and maintain productive partnerships with partners by gaining their trust and respect;
  • Monitors on-going developments inside and outside the partners’ environment to keep informed and anticipate. problems.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Advanced university degree in international relations, political science or related field.

Experience:

  • At least 3 years of progressively responsible experience in development-related areas, multi-stakeholder engagement, international or multilateral organizations, UN operational activities for development, project management, or other relevant setting;
  • In-depth knowledge of UN intergovernmental work and processes required;
  • Experience in General Assembly or ECOSOC resolution negotiations and preparation preferred.

Language Requirements:

  • Excellent command of, and drafting skills in English is required;
  • Knowledge of a second UN language an advantage.

Application Submission Process:

Please submit the following to demonstrate your interest and qualifications

  • Personal CV and/or P11: Interested individuals must submit their applications online through UNDP Online Recruitment System. Applicants are encouraged to fill and sign a P11 Form and submit it on the online application. The P11 Form can be obtained at http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc. Include 3 professional references;
  • Financial proposal (All inclusive daily fee): Interested individuals are kindly requested to submit an all-inclusive daily consultancy fee. The applicable cost for travel from home to duty station (most economical route) will be provided for by UNDP;
  • Duly accomplished letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability 

  • Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the consultancy and how he/she will approach the key functions and produce the deliverables;

  • Travel: All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal in a separate line.

Application Evaluation Process:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the Cumulative Analysis methodology [weighted scoring method], where the award of the contract will 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 technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation. 
Technical Criteria weight; [70%].
Financial Criteria weight; [30%].

Only Individual Consultants obtaining a minimum of 70% of the obtainable 100 points in technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria

  • Experience in development-related areas, multi-stakeholder engagement, international or multilateral organizations, UN operational activities for development (Max. points: 40)
  • In-depth knowledge of UN inter-agency and intergovernmental work and processes (Max. points: 20)
  • Experience in General Assembly or ECOSOC resolution negotiations and preparation (Max. points: 20)
  • Considerable Experience in UN coordination at field and organization headquarters level (Max. points: 20)

General Conditions for Individual Contracts: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/procurement/how_we_buy/contract_terms.html.