Background
The United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) aims to be a robust knowledge hub providing advisory and consulting services to member states, UN entities, IGOs, NGOs and other stakeholders on South-South and triangular cooperation (SSTC). It enables developing countries to effectively face their development challenges and harness opportunities to address them, while monitoring progress on the implementation of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, New Directions Strategy and the Nairobi Outcome Document.
UNOSSC engages with Member States globally, regionally, as well as within the UN system to facilitate practical expressions of Southern solidarity towards the achievement of internationally agreed development goals. UNOSSC ensures that our southern constituencies have timely access to high quality analytical planning, mapping, programming, and reporting on data, trends and opportunities that will propel South-South and triangular cooperation in ways that ensure success.
In light of the growth of South-South cooperation and increasing importance of UNOSSC’s mandate, it is critical for UNOSSC to strengthen its efforts to communicate the importance and successes of its own services in support of South-South cooperation – among its constituents, the development community and the world at large. Its communication, both with the internal UN community and its external constituencies, is critical to the fulfillment of its global mandate. This consulting proposal will focus on the strategic design and implementation of a Communication and Social Media Strategy for UNOSSC.
Duties and Responsibilities
Details of Engagement
Under the overall guidance of the Office of the Directorate and the direct supervision of the Strategic Communications Officer, and in close cooperation with relevant UNOSSC staff, the qualified individual or company will be tasked to accomplish the following specific tasks:
- Support the creation of a new comprehensive Communications Strategy for the Office.
- Support development and implementation of a UNOSSC Social Media Strategy that integrates application of e-tools and social media in order to achieve extensive dissemination and communicational engagement among UNOSSC constituents, partners (internal and external).
- Support the organization/creation of a coherent, attractive toolkit of multimedia and multilingual materials in support of the UNOSSC mission.
- Build a monitoring and impact evaluation framework to assess rollout and impact of UNOSSC’s Communication and Social Media Strategy.
- Design, deploy and host (in beta until launch) a structured website for UNOSSC in line with UN standards and guidelines. The multilingual website will:
- serve as the source for updated information on the Office and its activities;
- harmonize under the same design/branding all relevant contents, initiatives and projects carried out by the Office;
- serve as a knowledge platform for UNOSSC’s stakeholders, where all knowledge products developed by the Office, solutions documented and lessons learnt stories etc. will be made available with open access;
- link to other webpages managed by key external partners;
- be guided by the following aspects: attractiveness, simplicity, updatability, dynamism, responsiveness and interactive capacity;
- match a unified visual identity of all printed and multimedia materials used by the Office.
With regard to the website the qualified individual or company will:
- Create/customize a Content Management System (CMS) that is reliable and is supported worldwide, that will permit non-technical staff to instantly update web site content and add modules or sections;
- Integrate basic content from the existing website;
- Provide search capabilities using key words or phrasing that will identify content from throughout the site;
- Incorporate the following capabilities to the website:
- Searchable library of ‘Key Policy Documents’
- Searchable library for publications
- Searchable library of South-South and triangular solutions
- Searchable roster of South-South experts
- Pages detailing UNOSSC work in Advocacy, Knowledge Building and Innovative Programming (including South-South Fellowship Programme, South-South National Focal Points Network, and Inter-agency Mechanism among others)
- News page and photo archive
- UNOSSC Calendar
- RSS feeds
- Administrator and user-level access
- Tracking application to produce site log reports to monitor web visitor behavior and improve web site performance and availability
- Compatibility with all the latest internet browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) and mobile/tablet browser compatible;
- Fully search engine optimized so that it can easily be found on search engines by searching with selected key words
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;
- Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
- Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.
Functional Competencies:
- Inter-personal skills;
- Exceptional analytical skills, solution oriented program design skills;
- Research and evaluation skills including ability to synthesize information;
- Excellent oral, and effective presentation and report-writing skills;
- Ability to meet deadlines;
- Demonstrated ability of timely completion of assignments;
- Excellent social and communication skills;
- Strong facilitation skills;
- Ability to work in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural settings;
- Excellent computers skills required.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
- Advanced Degree in international development, social sciences, information systems, or a relevant field is desirable.
- Technical knowledge on emerging internet technologies and building social networks.
Experience:
- At least 10 years’ experience in implementing communications strategies and tools in the international development arena, preferably using multimedia materials and open source technologies.
- Experience and advanced knowledge in open source CMS (Content Management System) installation and management.
- Working knowledge of web security technologies.
- Excellent writing, and communications skills – verbal and written.
- Creativity and innovation abilities to deliver quality results based on the agreed deadlines.
- Awareness of current web trends.
Required Expertise:
- Proficiency in creative web design and creating online user interfaces
- Proficiency in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other relevant technologies
- Familiarity with integrating disparate platforms and ability to work with external development teams
- Experience in providing technical support for non-technical users
- Familiarity with handling integration with Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube an asset
- Familiarity with United Nations system, UN Teamworks experience an asset
- Familiarity with South-South and triangular cooperation within the international development context an asset
Languages:
- Fluency in English is required. Fluency in two or more additional official languages of the United Nations is as asset.
Documents to be included when submitting the application
Interested individual contractors must submit the following documents/information:
- Letter of interest and confirmation of availability including
a) technical examples of web design,
b) background information about other development projects handled
c) proposed strategy/methodology
d) workplan and detailed timeline
- P-11 form or Detailed CV;
- Financial proposal that indicates fees and any other expenses, if applicable
Incomplete application and applications received after the deadline will not be considered.
Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.
Evaluation
Method: cumulative analysis method will be used to evaluate proposals.
The evaluation criteria as shown below shall be used to evaluate all the proposals received.
The award of the Individual Contractors Contract shall be made to the individual contractors 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 points;
Financial Criteria weight: 30 points.
Only candidates that obtain a minimum of 70% in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.
Financial Proposal (30%): The proposal will specify all-inclusive lump sum fee over the period of the assignment. All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal, if any.
The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal: p = y (µ/z),
- 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;
Criteria for technical evaluation:
- Advanced University Degree in international development, social sciences, information systems, or another relevant field (20%)
- 10 years’ experience in implementing communications strategies and tools in the international development arena, preferably using social networks, multimedia materials and open source technologies (20%)
- Experience with and proven knowledge on South-South and triangular cooperation in the UN system and/or development cooperation agencies (20%)
- Proficiency in creative web design and creating online user interfaces using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other relevant technologies (20%)
- Previous work experience providing technical support for non-technical users (10%)
- Language skills (10%)
Other information:
UNDP Individual Consultant General Conditions for Contract apply and can be downloaded at:
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.