Background

The Government of Ukraine is in urgent need to secure the availability of the State Programme medicines and essential health commodities at affordable prices and in sufficient quantities. Acknowledging the challenges of the State procurement and supply management system and following recently adopted legislation, allowing the selected international organizations to provide procurement support services, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine has requested the UN to support the procurement and distribution of a number of 2015 State Programme medicines and other medical products as an emergency measure. 

UNDP in Ukraine is fully committed to play this role in resolving the immediate crisis and to support the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in its medium and long-term efforts to reform its procurement and supply management system. UNDP brings its extensive expertise in establishing procurement systems corresponding to the highest standards of transparency, accountability, cost-efficiency, equity and sustainability. 

UNDP together with other UN Agencies (UNICEF and WHO) developed a Joint Project aimed at strengthening the national health care procurement system and thereby improving the effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment of patients in Ukraine. Additionally to the procurement of medicines and medical products for the National Public Health Programmes for 2015, UNDP plans (through this project) to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Health to ensure transparency, accountability and effectiveness of the public procurement in the health sphere and support the procurement reform efforts.

The Consultant will be responsible for providing legal support during full procurement process of medicines and medical products.

Duties and Responsibilities

Main Objectives of the Assignment

UNDP seeks an Individual Consultant to provide legal support to the Ministry of Health (MOH) during the procurement process of medicines and medical products.

Description of Responsibilities / Scope of Work

• Provide comprehensive legal support during full supply chain (ensuring quality and timely medicines registration, customs control, quality ensuring, dissemination, legal business correspondence, etc.)
• Provide support and recommendations as for necessary amendments to the national legislation and policies, develop and supervise adoption of changes to the current regulations and normative acts.
• Provide legal services during the process of adoption of developed amendments or normative acts by the departments of the MOH or other central bodies;
• Ensure comprehensive legal support during full procurement cycle and prepare necessary documents and/or applications to the Ministry of Health, other governmental or non- governmental bodies.
• Carry out capacity building activities related to health procurement reform efforts targeting national government, civil society and business organizations.
• Participate in the meetings with representatives of the MOH, the State Treasury, Customs, Tax authority and other relevant public authorities to ensure proper implementation of the Agreement between UNDP and Ministry of Health of Ukraine.
• Collaborate with other consultants and participate in other relevant meetings, round tables and seminars to ensure national legal expertise and representation of UNDP project "Procurement Support Services to the Ministry of Health" among all national and international stakeholders.

Deliverables

Monitoring/Reporting Requirements

Work-progress reporting/monitoring meetings will be held with the Consultant on a regular basis. UNDP will be the final authority to control the quality and evaluate the work. No reports or documents should be published or distributed to third parties without approval of UNDP.

Payment Schedule

Competencies

General Competencies

• Understanding of, and preferably experience with, Government functioning, budgeting and systems;
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
• Strong analytical, reporting and writing abilities skills;
• Proactivity and ability to work independently as well as in a team;
• Excellent usage of computers and office software packages.

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.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Masters’ degree in Law, Political Science, Social Sciences, Public Administration or other relevant areas.

Experience: 

• At least 5 years of relevant experience in the field of law, social or health policy;
• At least 2 years experience in delivering capacity development, advisory and advocacy services to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in public procurement or health reform spheres;
• Work experience in public sector institutions and in UNDP will be an asset.

Language:

• Fluency in Ukrainian, Russian is required. Good knowledge in English will be an asset.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals

Applicants shall submit the following documents:

• Personal CV, including information about past experience in similar projects / assignments and contact details for referees as well as the updated P-11 form;
• Financial proposal;
• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP.

Financial Proposal

Lump sum contract

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount and number of anticipated working days.

Travel costs

All travel costs will be reimbursed by the Project additionally and should not be included in the financial proposal.  In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Administrative Arrangements

Contractor will not use project’s office space. UNDP will provide some essentially required consumables (e.g. stationeries) based on the needs assessment.

Evaluation Criteria

• Masters’ degree in Law, Political Science, Social Sciences, Public Administration or other relevant areas - 10 points max (5 pts – Specialist/Master’s; 10 pts – PhD);
• At least 5 years of relevant experience in the field of law, social or health policy - 20 points max (20 pts – 10 years or more; 15 pts – 5-9 years);
• At least 2 years experience in delivering capacity development, advisory and advocacy services to the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in public procurement or health reform spheres – 25 points max (25 pts – 5 years or more; 15 pts – 2 years);
• Language Skills – 10 points max (10 pts – Ukrainian and Russian plus good knowledge of English, 5 points- Ukrainian and Russian);
• Work experience in public sector institutions and in UNDP - 5 points.

Maximum available technical score - 70 points.

Evaluation Method

Cumulative analysis:

Contract award shall be made to the incumbent whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

b) having received the cumulative 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 70% from the maximum available technical score (49 points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal and will equal to 30. All other price proposals will be evaluated and assigned points, as per below formula:

30 points [max points available for financial part] x [lowest of all evaluated offered prices among responsive offers] / [evaluated price].

The proposal obtaining the overall cumulatively highest score after adding the score of the technical proposal and the financial proposal will be considered as the most compliant offer and will be awarded a contract.