UNDP Jobs - 74096- Website and Visualization Development for the Mode

Website and Visualization Development for the Modeling Tools for Sustainable Development Website, BPPS/SPU

Location :

Home-based, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

08-Sep-2017

Application Deadline :

29-Aug-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

60 working days, between September and 31 December 2017

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

60 working days, between September and 31 December 2017

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. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

The purpose of this procurement exercise is to contract an individual consultant for Website and Visualization Development for the Modeling Tools for Sustainable Development Website to update the modelling tools for sustainable development website, improve existing/develop new visualizations, and generate an online training course to further disseminate the work done by the UNDP-UNDESA partnership in countries to support quantitative assessments for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices, advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

The Strategic Policy Unit (SPU) within BPPS has the primary objective to lead UNDP’s policy research agenda, policy incubation, provide forward-looking analysis, identify emerging development trends in multiple contexts (including crisis) and collaborate with academia and think tanks to advance UNDP’s contribution to global policy debates and the implementation of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.
In September 2015, UN Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda), a universal and transformative set of commitments for ending poverty and protecting the planet. The 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out concrete aspirations to eradicate poverty, fight inequality and discrimination; and to foster peaceful and inclusive societies as a prerequisite and indivisible component of sustainable development.

UNDP will support UN Member States and other stakeholders in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. This support is framed by the United Nations Development Group (UNDG) common approach to supporting SDG implementation, MAPS, comprising: Mainstreaming of 2030 Agenda, Acceleration towards the SDGs, and Policy Support drawing on the expertise and programmatic experience of different parts of the UN. As UNDG Chair at the global and regional levels, custodian of the Resident Coordinator system, UNDP will mobilize the UN development system towards supporting SDG implementation.

In this context, the role of the SPU Unit is to ensure that UNDP plays a constructive and supportive role to UNDG in its efforts to support SDG implementation. The Unit is tasked to ensure that UNDP’s offering on SDG implementation is informed by the experiences with implementation on the ground and by the broader debates and analytical advances on SDG implementation. The Unit steers the operationalization of the MAPS approach. The Unit is also leading on providing analytical contributions to the policy discussions around SDG implementation.
In 2016, SPU initiated a collaboration with UN DESA, through UNDP country offices and UNCTs, to make modelling tools for sustainable development accessible to policymakers and UN staff in support of SDG implementation. The joint objective of UNDP and DESA is to help countries address the important policy challenges they confront while defining national policies in line with the 2030 Agenda. To this end, SPU and the Development and Policy Analysis Division (DPAD/DESA) have put in place two strategies: 1) a website showcasing the modelling tools for sustainable development which have been implemented in DESA’s capacity development projects with UNDP-COs support, and 2) an outreach training course designed to provide detailed information to policy makers and UN staff on each of the modelling tools, the main policy issues that can be addressed with the quantitative results they provide, and their data and time requirements presented in a non-technical manner. Furthermore, modelling needs to be accompanied by capacity building of government technical staff and researchers in the country, if models are to be used on a sustained basis.

To effectively provide this information UN DESA-UNDP and partners commissioned the development of a set of user-friendly, interactive and open source visualizations of modelling results based on country projects, as well as global and case studies developed by UN DESA with partnering institutions. These visualizations are now hosted in the website Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development, which was launched on February 2016. The website needs an update to integrate additional visualizations showcasing new material and country project results, as well as to include a subspace dedicated to the Outreach Training Course on Modelling Tools, incorporating training material and manuals, as well as establishing an open online course set as modules. In addition, further development is required to provide countries with a user-friendly visualization and data analyzer tool with the ability to manage large sets of data with complex interactions, and ease access of technical government officials to country results, manipulate data and make changes to parameters for a more flexible data analysis. A beta version of this table analyzer has been developed for capacity development projects, however further improvements are required.

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK, RESPONSIBILITIES AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED ANALYTICAL WORK

The consultant will work in close collaboration with the UNDP and UN-DESA team to update and upgrade the Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development website. Improvements will be made to the overall design of the webpage, existing model visualizations and table analyser. In addition, a new model-based visualizations will be developed as well as a side page to host the Outreach Training Course in an online format.

The consultant will complete the following tasks:

Web design and development

Assess the web architecture of the site and re-design it to improve ease of navigation of menus, submenus, homepage, models, sections/subsections, and githubs.

Create CSS framework to add consistency to the pages and tools hosted on the website, facilitate the update of contents, and improve user experience in the navigation of the websites.
Update website design as agreed with the team, with fully operational headers, sections and subsections and working links to each of the featured contents (Home; About; Models; Country Projects; Teams; Training material; Contact;) developed by the UNDP- UN-DESA team.
Update “About this site” to include UNDP as a collaborative partner with UN-DESA and OICT, as well as “Partners” section to include OpTIMUS.
Generate and upload new designs to buttons and navigation tools for each of the menus, sections and sidebars.
Review website to improve speed and reliability
Re-design banner for the website to reflect UNDP- UN-DESA partnership.
Adjust structure to select examples of modelling tools, highlighting the country level climate, land (food), energy and water systems integrated model (CLEWs).
Facilitate access to UNDP and UN-DESA staff and/or consultants to website framework

In close coordination with UNDP and UN-DESA team, generate a side page to the Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development website for the Outreach Training Course

Design the site architecture to best display training material and ease navigation to explore training contents.
Design and develop homepage for the outreach training course, which will display the objective of the course and options to access the training modules by i) modules with downloadable links to materials or ii) online training course.
Include links to the websites of collaborating partners and additional resources as specified by UNDP and UN-DESA team.
Generate landing page to modules, populated with contents provided by the team

- For the online training course, transform training material (short readers of 16 lines provided by the team) to HTML text along pedagogical standards.

- In the architecture for the online course, include a display for exercises in each of the modules to display statement of tasks and for answers.

- Insert “Read more” button to access supporting documents and references

- Include links to downloadable materials (Manuals, presentations)

- Bring, when relevant, pptx slides to HTML

- Test Outreach Training Course site in Beta mode.

Visualizations/table analyser development

Update and fine-tune design and display of existing visualizations of the modelling tools hosted on the Modelling Tools for Sustainable Development website, as well as the development of two new visualizations of microsimulation and economy wide modelling results from country projects and/or new visualizations of country case studies for the CLEWs integrated model.
Provide an improved design to the CLEWs visualization in the modelling tools website, in accordance to UNDP-UN-DESA collaborative team’s suggestions, upgrading interactive features and overall design of buttons, graphs and navigation tools.
Update designs, navigation buttons and graphs of the growth and social inclusion tools, including legends, scrolling features and data display with cursor over graphs.
Under the guidance of UN-DESA staff, generate a quick exploration interactive “step by step” guide to each of the models, including explanations and short policy insights of modelling results prepared by UN-DESA staff.
Update the general visualization table analyser to improve user-experience to enable scenario definition, label and coding; and compatibilities for data and comparison.

- Specify source-units, display units, code names and variable labels

- Specify differences in plotting units between scenario pairs

- Add percent changes between time plots

- Integrate time stack bars and options for different graph styles to be defined by users.

Expected outputs and deliverables:

A - Updated version of the modelling tools for sustainable development policies website

with updated contents

B - Side page for the Outreach Training Online Course as well as downloadable version

C - Improved version of existing visualizations as well as 2-3 new visualizations.

Competencies

Team Work - Work collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organisational goals; solicits input by genuinely valuing others’ ideas and expertise
Leadership – Responsible for own work, takes initiative, inclusive in decision-making, creates excitement for work through demonstrated excellence.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, Computer Science, or related field is required.

Experience:

Minimum 5 years experience in web design, required,
Minimum 5 years experience with modelling- and scenario-based data visualization, required
Experience with sustainable development modelling visualizations is an asset.
Strong capabilities in computer programming
Strong capabilities in data management and data structures required to best display visualization results
Expertise in server administration is an asset.
Excellent skills in both written and verbal English. Spanish is a plus.
Experience in working with international organizations, and in making available information to be understood by a wide audience from governments, civil society, and the private sector, required.

Language:

Fluency in written and spoken English is required; Spanish is a plus.
Working knowledge of another UN language (preferably Spanish) would be an asset

Application Procedure

The application package contains the following:

UNDP 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.
Financial Proposal using template provided.
The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around the specific and measurable deliverables of the TOR. Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR, and deliverables accepted and certified by the technical manager.
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.
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.

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. Experience in programming languages and website development Weight = 25%; Maximum Points: 250;

Criteria 2. Experience in web-visualizations and data presentations (also covers experience in modelling and scenario-based data visualizations, data management and data structures) Weight = 25%; Maximum Points: 250

Criteria 3. Experience in working with international organizations, and in making available information to be understood by a wide audience from governments, civil society, and the private sector 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.

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will work under the direct supervision, seek approval/acceptance of outputs from the Strategic Specialist, SPU, BPPS, UNDP, and Capacity Development DPAD-UNDESA during the course of the assignment and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the deliverables as specified above.

The consultant will be available for teleconference and meetings when required.

The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop.

Payment modality

Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified above and deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager.

The work week will be based on 35 hours, i.e. on a 7 hour working day, with core hours being between 9h00 and 18h00 daily.