Background
Objective:
The purpose of this procurement exercise is to contract an individual consultant to support the development of a framework for implementing a responsible sourcing strategy for UNDP.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) operates under a decentralized business model, where procurement is delegated to over 170 Country Offices, Regional Bureaus, Regional Offices, and Headquarter Units within and outside of New York, who are all responsible for the results and management of procurement business processes in accordance with the established procurement policies, processes and procedures. UNDP procurement has experienced explosive growth in the past ten years, with its portfolio totaling over US$3 billion, making UNDP one of the three largest procurement organizations in the UN. The Procurement Services Unit (PSU), based at UNDP Headquarters under the Bureau of Management Services (BMS), provides the overall direction and guidance for UNDP’s procurement activities.
As a leader in sustainable development, UNDP has achieved substantial progress and is committed to further “walk the talk” and minimize potential (negative) social and environmental impacts of its operations, projects and programmes as well as procurement, often defining new standards and reference cases within the UN and beyond. Moreover, UNDP has implemented extensive programs and initiatives to showcase how responsible corporate operations, procurement and programming can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While results-based reporting of UNDP’s impacts from project and programme outcomes are communicated in UNDP’s annual public report, improvements in the sustainability of UNDP operations, are not developed and monitored systematically, nor reported publically in a coherent and comprehensive format so far.
On this background, and in support of the pillar for improving organizational effectiveness under the UNDP strategic plan, PSU is developing a “Responsible Sourcing Initiative” to develop a framework for CSR in UNDP procurement.
Duties and Responsibilities
The overall objective of the initiative is to;
Provide framework for implementing a responsible sourcing strategy for UNDP, aligning with industry best practices, outlining existing responsible sourcing legislation and benchmarking against policy in place across other UN agencies/INGOs. The process will further outline existing challenges with responsible sourcing implementation and any unintended costs of responsible sourcing issues.
Secondly, the initiative will design and implement vulnerability measures for assessing UNDP exposure across its procurement portfolio and Supply Chain Risk Segmentation. Based on the risk assessment and outlined challenges, a series of recommendations for risk mitigation shall be presented across policy development, template design, risk monitoring, plus a methodology for CSR risk exposure mapping and monitoring. The outcome will define a practical due diligence process for CSR through selection of vulnerable industries and location to be incorporated into UNDP policy framework.
Finally the initiative will action the approved risk mitigation measures and develop the framework for monitoring CSR KPIs and communicating improvements in the sustainability of UNDP operations through an annual public report. The Annual Report shall outline performance against pre-identified KPIs and include a series of Success Stories - Positive Impacts from Responsible Sourcing Initiatives at UNDP, sharing best practices.
DELIVERABLES
The consultant will report to the Director, OSO/BMS and deliver the following outputs:
Review stage
Conduct a comprehensive review of responsible sourcing legislation and best practices relevant to UNDP operations, including but not limited to: The UK Modern Slavery Act, the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, the Dodd-Frank conflict minerals requirements. In addition upcoming legislative initiatives from the EU, Switzerland, France and Canada need to be captured in the analysis to provide trend forecast. The review shall inform the scoping of needed CSR compliance requirements and best practices for a UNDP CSR strategy. Additional review requirements may be added pertaining to and other bilateral regulations.
Conduct a comprehensive mapping exercise of CSR implementation levels across other international organizations and private sector to establish a benchmark for UNDP CSR strategy scope.
Outline key CSR strategy implementation challenges and lessons learned from other organizations, informing an implementation strategy for UNDP.
KPI development and Annual CSR reporting stage
Define relevant UNDP CSR KPIs to be automated and included in the UNDP Procurement Risk Radar.
- Develop an Annual Report framework for communicating improvements in the sustainability of UNDP operations through an annual public report. The Annual Report shall outline performance against pre-identified KPIs and include a series of Success Stories - Positive Impacts from Responsible Sourcing Initiatives at UNDP, sharing best practices.
Competencies
Corporate Competencies
Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
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.
Professionalism:
Excellent analytical and organizational skills;
Exercise the highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner.
Teamwork:
Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
Focuses on results for the client;
Welcomes constructive feedback.
Required Skills and Experience
Academic qualifications:
As a minimum BA in relevant field (Political science, International development, international law etc.). Master level an advantage.
A recognized accreditation in CSR is an advantage.
Years of experience:
Required knowledge of CSR related topics i.e. human trafficking, modern slavery and/or migration issues.
Experience with preparing UN communication material in terms of reports and communication leaflets.
Previous experience working with the UN or other multilateral organizations is an asset.
Language:
Fluency in written and spoken English. Please provide two samples of previous work with your CV.
Application Procedure
The application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):
Online application with brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment; and
Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references.
Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.
Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.
The financial proposal should specify an all-inclusive daily fee (based on a 7 hour working day - lunch time is not included - and estimated 21.75 days per month).
The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
This consultancy is a home-based assignment, therefore, there is no envisaged travel cost to join duty station/repatriation travel.
The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own working station (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, etc.) and must have access to reliable internet connection;
The consultant will report via email, skype calls and meetings at UNDP HQ (if necessary with an advance notice of at least one day) to the Task Manager;
In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. 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.
If the Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.
The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.
Evaluation process
Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below. Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
Being 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 where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.
Technical evaluation - Total 70% (700 points):
Criteria 1. A recognized accreditation in CSR is an advantage. Weight = 10%; Maximum Points: 100 points;
Criteria 2. Experience with preparing UN communication material in terms of reports and communication leaflets. Weight =20 %; Maximum Points: 200;
Criteria 3. Previous experience working with the UN or other multilateral organizations is an asset. Weight = 20 %; Maximum Points: 200; and
Criteria 4. Experience in CSR related topics i.e. human trafficking, modern slavery and/or migration issues. Weight = 20 %; Maximum Points: 200.
Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (700 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.
Financial evaluation - Total 30% (300 points)
The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:
p = y (µ/z), where
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
Contract Award
Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into contract with UNDP.
Framework Agreement
UNDP plans to enter into the Long-Term Agreement (LTA) with the top ranked successful Individual Contractor to assure resources availability at the required time fame and/or increased demand for services requested. The service of who will be used on an intermittent and repetitive basis when needed and based on the fixed unit price.
Please note that the LTA does not form a financial obligation or commitment from UNDP at the time the LTA contract is signed, and that such an agreement is non-exclusive. When a specific need arises, the successful Individual Contractor/s will be approached and be provided with a specific TOR and deliverables (and time frame) but still within the scope of the responsibilities stated in the LTA. The successful Individual Contractor(s) is expected to provide Confirmation of Interest on the specific services required at the agreed LTA Daily Rate Consultancy Fee. Financial commitments will only be established each time a Purchase Order for the specific services/TOR for Individual Contractor is committed.
This LTA has a cumulative ceiling amount that may accrue to the individual contractor during the life of the LTA, but said amount shall remain as an upper limit, and must not and cannot be interpreted nor understood as neither a financial commitment nor guarantee of business volume.
Institutional arrangement
The review and approval of deliverables will be at the discretion of the assigned case manager. The consultant will be expected to engage with both internal UNDP staff and external sourcing practitioners, plus UN departments like the Global Compact and international CSR related associations.
Payment modality
The assignment is based on a long term agreement and payment is based only upon the certification and acceptance of the outputs as stated above for each assignment. The Consultant and PSO will agree on the required number of days to perform the case-specific services. Payment will be issued against the daily fee multiplied by the number of pre-agreed days for completing the case-specific review, in accordance with the scope outlined in the TOR above.
In the event of non-performance or premature termination of a case review for any reason, the final payment will be pro-rating against number of days spent at the date of termination and submission of corresponding deliverables.
Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):
Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 Form for ICs
Annex 2 - IC Contract Template
Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions
Annex 4 – RLA Template
The above templates and forms can be accessed from the following link:
Any request for clarification must be sent by email to cpu.bids@undp.org The UNDP Central Procurement Unit will respond by email and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants.
The above templates and forms can be accessed from the following link: Procurement Notice 37863