Background

The UN System in Montenegro is committed to partnering with the Government of Montenegro and other relevant stakeholders in designing and implementing programmatic interventions for further improvement of the environment for youth empowerment, employability and participation.

Youth in Montenegro (15-29) makes up 21.5% of the country’s 620,029 population.

Transition of young people to adulthood, including transition from school to decent work and autonomy is burdened with multiple challenges.

Young people are poorly served by the educational system, as evidenced by approximately half of Montenegrin students scoring below basic literacy levels (PISA 2012, OECD). Youth unemployment rate is high - 34.5% (age 15-24) , while the unemployment rate for the young people age 15-29 exceeds to 41.3% .

Young people transition to decent jobs averages nearly two years (20.8 months). Nearly half (44.6%) of the youth population (15-29) in Montenegro has not yet started their transition to labour market and only 15.5% completed their transition. Only 25.2% of young people age 15-29 have a job, which is far too low compared to the 46% of EU average, and 28.6% of youth are neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET).

27.7% of young people works overtime while average salary is informal employment among youth is 59.5%. Informal employment is made up of two categories: workers in the informal (unregistered) sector and paid employees holding informal jobs in the formal sector. 85.7% of the informally employed youth hold informal jobs in the formal sector and only 14.3% work in the informal sector.

The recent ILO report Labour Market Transition of Young Women and Men in Montenegro  reveals that self-employed young people make up 9.9% of total employees. As the biggest challenges when starting economic activity, young people who are self-employed cited "lack of funds" - 30.8% and "competition in the market" - 31.1%. After that, young people cite lack of expertise in staring and running business, as well as restraining legal/administrative regulations.  Young entrepreneurs mostly mobilize financial means for starting business from family and relatives.  Almost half (46.8%) of the surveyed self-employed youth said that they used money from their families or friends to start their business and only 9.3% of the self-employed youth said they took out a loan.

The same report recommends that comprehensive programmes can help aspiring entrepreneurs to develop their enterprise development training, facilitate access to finance and provide mentoring and other support services. Such programmes can be specifically targeted at unemployed youth.

Report on business barriers , prepared by UNDP and Ministry of Finance, articulates the same issues young people face in starting and running their own business ventures. Prospective young entrepreneurs face the problem of lack of seed funding, high interest rates to loans, inability to access the loans due to lack of personal property for collateral, the fiscal burden in the first year of operation, administrative barriers and lack of non-financial support for beginners in business (mentoring, training, support during the implementation of business ideas).

The interest of young people to become entrepreneurs is large (more than a quarter of young people expressed a desire to engage in entrepreneurship ), but few of them decide to take this step because of the above reasons.

In this context, with the aim to boost youth employability and youth entrepreneurship specifically, under the Joint UN Youth Programme, the UN System in Montenegro will develop a Policy paper on youth entrepreneurship in Montenegro. The Policy paper will be developed in partnership with the Ministry of Finance and Directorate for Small and Medium Enterprises.

The aim of the Policy paper is to support the development of youth entrepreneurship in Montenegro, through the analysis and recommendations in the areas of:

1. Regulatory and programmatic facilitation of young people entrepreneurship endeavours, with a focus on:

• Simplification of administrative procedures for starting and running businesses;
• Facilitation and easing access to financial support for starting and running businesses;
• Provision of non-financial support to young entrepreneurs - integrated support programmes, which would consolidate existing and introduce new financial and non-financial support mechanisms.

2. Mapping of existing and emerging avenues for self-employment of young people in several selected fields such as: agriculture, rural development, tourism, ICT industry, social entrepreneurship, start-ups, green jobs, etc.

The Policy paper on youth entrepreneurship will include:

• Situation analysis based on the research results;
• Policy recommendations in the two areas (Facilitating young people entrepreneurship endeavours and exploring opportunities for self-employment of young people in the specific fields);
• At least two programme/project proposals for the support to youth entrepreneurship, based on the above findings and policy recommendations.

The policy paper is one of the activities of a comprehensive UN and government joint initiative Fostering competitiveness and innovation of Montenegro through sustainable economic growth policies, which aims to contribute to the national policy framework on improving the business environment through green jobs, cluster development and building institutional capacities.

Duties and Responsibilities

Purpose and objectives of the assignment: The purpose of the intervention is to produce a policy paper on youth entrepreneurship with policy-level and programmatic recommendations, which will include selected methods that are informed by human-centred design practices. The assignment will be completed by a team of two consultants: one national, who will take the lead, and one international who will ensure application of human centred design methods in the development of the policy paper.

Objectives of this international consultancy are:

• To incorporate selected methods of human centred design in the Policy paper development (e.g. ethnographic research, co-design workshops, prototyping).
• To support the local consultant in applying the selected all phases of the intervention, specifically when it comes to the field research and the preparation of policy and programmatic recommendations,
• To enhance the capacities of national and local counterparts, as well as UN staff, for application of human-centred design in programme design and implementation.

Project activities and time frame:

Job content: Under direct supervision of the Project Coordinator on the Joint UN Youth Programme, and in close cooperation with National Consultant for Preparing Policy Paper, the consultant will:

• In collaboration with local consultant, design the methodology for the Policy paper development, including selected methods that are informed by human-centred design practices, such as ethnographic research, co-design workshops, prototyping or similar;
• Support local consultant to apply human centred design methods during the desk and field research;
• Support local consultant to apply human centred design methods in the development of policy recommendations and at least two programme/project proposals for the support to youth entrepreneurship;
• Implement one-day training on human centred design for the stakeholders in charge for the implementation of the policy paper recommendations.

The expected deliverables:

1. Methodology for the development of the Policy paper on Youth entrepreneurship, no later than 30th September 2016;
2. Implement one-day training on human centred design and selected methods used in this process, for the consultant and stakeholders in charge for the implementation of the policy paper recommendations, no later than 15th October;
3. Regular support to the local consultant in the implementation of the methodology – human centred design based methods (through advice, consultations, etc.,) for the duration of the research, September-October 2016;
4. Advise local consultant on translating the research results in the Policy and programmatic recommendations, November-December 2016;

Reporting: The consultant will be responsible for written regular reporting to the UN Coordination Office and Project Coordinator, and it should contain sufficiently detailed information that would allow for the appraisal of effectiveness of the assignment’s activities to date.

Time duration and travel: The consultant will be engaged under Individual Contract, for a total of 13 consultancy days, in the period from 15th September 2016 to 30th May 2017. The Consultant is expected to work from home and in Podgorica or elsewhere in Montenegro during the assignment duration. The nature of the tasks involves presence for at least 2 working days in Montenegro.

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UN;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Excellent inter-personal and communication skills;
• Excellent time management skills;
• Excellent organizational skills with developed attention to detail;

Proven ability to:

• Research, analyse, evaluate and synthesize information,
• Produce compelling reports and convey complex concepts to workshop participants,
• Work well under pressure and manage conflicting priorities;
• Think strategically:
• Express ideas clearly and concisely;
• Work both independently and in teams
• Demonstrate self-confidence combined with sensitivity to gender and culture;
   

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced University Degree in Economy, Entrepreneurship, Public administration, or similar;

Experience:

• Knowledge and minimum 5 years of relevant working experience in human centred design;
• Experience in applying human-centred design in public sector;
• Experience and knowledge of (youth) entrepreneurship is preferable;
• Excellent computer skills.

Language:

• Excellent knowledge of written and spoken English language;

Criteria for selection

Combined Scoring method will be used. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the inidividual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: (i) responsive, compliant, acceptable, and (ii) 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% (Background and education 10%; Relevant previous experience 20%; Substantial knowledge/Required competencies 30%; Required language 10%);
• Financial criteria weight - 30%.

Only offerors obtaining a minimum 490 points for technical criteria will be considered for the financial evaluation.

For more information on procurement methodology for Individual Contractors, please refer to Procurement Notice.

Application procedure:

Interested applicants are requested to submit their applications by August 24th,  2016 by using the Apply now button. The application should contain a duly completed Personal History Form (P11) that can be downloaded from http://www.me.undp.org/content/montenegro/en/home/operations/jobs.html. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file.

Only the short-listed applicants will be contacted and requested to submit a letter of interest including a price quotation indicating the lump sum (in EUR) requested for the work envisaged in the section "Description of Responsibilities".

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1. National Statistics Office, official data for 2015
2. Labour Market Transition of Young Women and Men in Montenegro, International Labour Organisation, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UPLWXA
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Labour Market Transition of Young Women and Men in Montenegro, International Labour Organisation, 2015, http://bit.ly/1UPLWXA
6. The Report on Business Barriers Identified through the Campaign „No Barriers. So Business Doesn’t Wait``, UNDP/Ministry of Finance, 2016.
7. Knowledge, attitudes and practices survey on youth employment and participation, UN System in Montenegro, 2013, http://bit.ly/2akgrTI