Background

The global population is the youngest it has ever been. Successfully engaging with youth - through both tackling the challenges they face and harnessing the opportunities they provide - is therefore critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the most significant challenges that youth in the region face is unemployment due to interrelated causes such as the global economic slowdown, rapid population growth, changes within the workplace, and skills shortages. Unemployment and underemployment can have strong social and economic consequences including negatively impacting human and social capital; creating marginalization within communities and break up of communities as youth migrate to find work; increasing the number of youth seeking employment in dangerous or illegal work; and increasing the occurrence of social unrest. As an empowered and engaged youth demographic will be vital to achieving global sustainable development, there is an urgent need to meet this challenge and contribute to SDG 8 Target 8.6. “By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training”.

UNDP is seeking to develop and implement a multi-year Asia-Pacific Regional Youth Project on Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Innovation. With the interest from the identified partners and to align with the focus of the national government on innovation and entrepreneurship, the project is expected to initiate from China and expand to other countries in the region. Specifically, the project will focus on establishing a network to foster youth-led social entrepreneurship, support youth leadership initiatives, and provide grants for incubation financial mechanisms to fund youth-led programmes aimed at achieving the SDGs. The project will also support research and knowledge exchange activities to inform current and new youth initiatives.

UNV has worked since its inception with stakeholders to engage youth on a wide range of issues. UNV interventions cover, among others, the promotion and recognition of youth volunteerism as a people-centered resource sustainable development, and the formation of young leaders through greater citizen participation in the form of volunteerism. Worldwide there is growing recognition that youth volunteerism not only engages that large segment of the population in positive activities that contribute to peace and development, but also bolsters the personal growth and employability of young people. Volunteerism can impart hard and soft job skills, thereby increasing the employment prospects of young people. It can also introduce young people to various fields of work or study, enabling them to explore different types of occupations and helping them make informed decisions about their future.

ILO is committed to helping governments and social partners in identifying main employment issues and in designing and implementing integrated policy responses. Recognizing the pressing need to begin marshalling global expertise to make the future of work the one we want, the ILO launched the Future of Work Centenary Initiative in 2015. Under this initiative, ILO aims at gaining greater understanding on the challenges and opportunities young people are facing when transitioning in the world of work, and what are possible future scenarios in terms of youth employment.

In this context, UNDP, UNV and ILO will commission a research on the status of youth, volunteerism and life skills development in Asia Pacific (with a focus on ASEAN countries) and how it supports youth economic empowerment.

The research will focus broadly on the following:

  • Horizon scanning on the links between youth, volunteerism, life skills development and economic empowerment in Asia-Pacific and identify key trends, issues and possible future scenarios
  • Initial mapping of actors (research institutions, think tanks, implementing agencies, etc.) working on the topic in Asia
  • Overview of good practices and potential case studies from the region that could become replicable models
  • Existence of formal, non-formal, volunteer and capacity-building programmes, with a focus on enhancing the employability, leadership and social skills of young people.

Presence of National volunteer infrastructure, including policies and legislative frameworks that support and recognize volunteer experience as a credential of competency and leadership for career advancement.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

 Under the overall guidance of the UNV Regional Programme Specialist for Volunteer Infrastructure at the UNV Regional Office for Asia Pacific, the Consultant is expected to:

  • Review relevant literature, data and research on volunteering and development of skills for life and work in Asia and the Pacific.
  • Identify key contextual issues and trends on the topic in Asia-Pacific
  • Identify the linkages between these issues and the Sustainable Development Goals.
  • Provide policy recommendations arising from the research.
  • Based on the above, develop an Issue Brief of no more than 25 pages (including infographics) on Youth, volunteerism, life skills development and economic empowerment in Asia.
  • Develop a list of actors working on this topic in Asia to form the basis for a potential follow up activities to unpack the issue in more depth

 Expected Outputs and Deliverables

 The timeline and deliverables are as follows:

  • Phase 1: 25th May 2017: Development of structure for issue brief and first horizon scanning
  • Phase 2: 10th June 2017: First draft of the issue brief submitted for comments; (comments returned by 17th June)
  • Phase 3: 26th June 2017: Comments incorporated, and arrangements made for final review.

 Institutional Arrangement

  • The UNV Regional Programme Specialist for Volunteer Infrastructure in Asia Pacific will directly supervise the consultant.
  • The consultant researcher will keep the supervisor regularly informed of the progress made via weekly updates via skype and/or email. The deliverables will be developed in the order described above with proper coordination for input and feedback and approval on completion of each of them.
  • It is foreseen that the work should be able to be undertaken remotely. There are no travelling requirements envisaged.
  • The work should be submitted, in electronic word files, as it is completed, for approval by UNV Regional Programme Specialist for Volunteer Infrastructure.

 Duration of the Work

  • The assignment will begin on 15 May 2017 and is expected to be completed by 26 June 2017. It is estimated that the preparation and finalization of the research will take approximately 30 working days.
  • The exact dates for outputs deadlines will be determined in agreement by the consultant and the supervisor.
  • Coordinated by the Regional Programme Specialist, UNV, UNDP and ILO will review outputs, give comments, and certify approval of outputs 5 working days after submission of Phase II.

 Duty Station

  • Home based with no travel required.

Competencies

  • Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
  • Strong analytical, reporting and writing abilities skills;
  • Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback;
  • Ability to plan, organize, implement and report on work;
  • Ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines;
  • Comprehensiveness knowledge of youth-related issues on employment, vocational skills development, volunteerism, economic empowerment.
  • Proficiency in the use of office IT applications and internet in conducting research;
  • Outstanding communication, project management and organizational skills;
  • Excellent presentation and facilitation skills.
  • Demonstrates integrity and ethical standards;
  • Positive, constructive attitude to work;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Required Skills and Experience

Educational Qualifications:

  • Master’s Degree or PhD in a development-related field (e.g., development studies, sociology, public policy and management, economics, international affairs, quantitative social research) or related discipline is a requirement.

Experience

  • At least five years of relevant research experience in the areas of economic empowerment, youth, education, vocational training, labour market in developing or developed countries;
  • Excellent knowledge of substantive and policy issues related to topic of the research in Asia-Pacific;
  • Advanced quantitative data analysis skills;
  • Proven ability to produce clear and cogently written research reports.

 Language requirements

  • Fluency of English language is required;

 Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

 The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, travel costs, living allowance (if any work is to be done outside the IC´s duty station) and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will have fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:

  • Deliverable 1 [Phase 1]: 30% of total contract amount
  • Deliverable 2 [Phase 2]: 35% of total contract amount
  • Deliverable 3 [Phase 3]: 35% of total contract amount

Evaluation Method and Criteria

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%). and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment.

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 500 points)

  • Criteria 1 Relevance of Education – Max 100 points
  • Criteria 2 Special skills, Language, etc.- Max 100 Points
  • Criteria 3 Relevance of experience in area of specialization Max 100 points
  • Criteria 4 Relevance of experience in key areas – Max 100 points
  • Criteria 5 Assessment of approach/methodology to assignment – Max 100 Points

 Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 350 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Documentation required

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:

  • Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.
  • Technical proposal, including a) a brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment; and b) a methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.
  • Financial Proposal that indicates the daily rate/fee of the candidate, in US dollars.

 Incomplete proposals may not be considered.

 Annexes

All documents can be downloaded at : http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=36887