UNCDF Jobs - 77155- Junior Qualitative Analysis and M&E Consultant, Cl

Junior Qualitative Analysis and M&E Consultant, CleanStart Program SHIFT ASEAN SHIFT SAARC.

Advertised on behalf of

UNCDF

Location :

Bangkok, THAILAND

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

23-Feb-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

up to 120 days intermittent

Languages Required :

English French

Expected Duration of Assignment :

12 months

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

UN Capital Development Fund

The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 49 least developed countries. It creates new opportunities for poor people and their small businesses by increasing access to microfinance and investment capital.

UNCDF focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict or crisis. It provides seed capital – grants and loans – and technical support to help microfinance institutions reach more poor households and small businesses, and local governments finance the capital investments – water systems, feeder roads, schools, irrigation schemes – that will improve poor peoples’ lives.

UNCDF programmes help to address sustainable development goals through improved financial inclusion, and are designed to catalyze larger capital flows from the private sector, national governments and development partners, for maximum impact toward the Millennium Development Goals. The consultant will support with a variety of action research and analysis and M&E activities at the Bangkok regional office, and working under the SHIFT ASEAN, SHIFT SAARC, and CleanStart programmes.

SHIFT ASEAN has been established in 2014 with initial funding from the Australian Government and focuses on ASEAN’s frontier economies of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam (CLMV). The progamme aims to catalyze access to formal financial services to advance women’s economic empowerment and gendered financial inclusion for millions of women in the ASEAN.

SHIFT SAARC has been established in mid-2016 with initial funding of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation earmarked for Bangladesh. SHIFT SAARC pilot in Bangladesh aims for Digital Finance Services to become widely recognized by regulators and providers as enabler of financial inclusion and thereby increasing its use among the adult population from 9% to 30% by 2019.

UNCDF’s CleanStart works in close collaboration with SHIFT to catalyze digital energy finance (or Pay-Go energy systems) as a promising solution to reduce energy poverty for over 175.000 consumers, in particular women and poor people in rural areas. CleanStart operates in Uganda, Myanmar, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal and is looking to expand to West Africa.

CleanStart Program

The consultant will primarily work under the CleanStart Programme which supports low-income consumers to transition to cleaner and more efficient energy through digital energy finance. CleanStart aims to reduce energy poverty for 2.5 million people by 2020. The programme provides risk capital and technical assistance to competitively selected financial service providers and energy enterprises. CleanStart partners with microfinance institutions and energy enterprises – offering seed capital and advice – to test scalable financing solutions in varying market conditions. At the heart of the CleanStart approach is brokering risk-sharing partnerships between downstream as well as upstream value chain actors, and de- risking some investment opportunities. Of particular value to CleanStart is developing partnership and financing models that can be replicated and scaled-up by other public and private actors working towards a common vision of expanding energy access for the poor.

Duties and Responsibilities

Qualitative Analysis of the CleanStart Challenge Fund

Monitoring and Evaluation

Support and coordinate the KPI and qualitative monitoring processes and forms for its CleanStart and SHIFT partners;
The consultant maintains the qualitative database system (Nvivo) and conducts systematic periodic case study analyses that identifies challenges and opportunities of challenge fund partners in implementing digital finance innovations. A comparative analysis between the PAYGO business model and non PAYGO delivery channels should be conducted for CleanStart. Analysis needs to capture externality effects, un-intended effects and outputs accomplished by partners using a wide range of materials and data;
Consultant needs to coordinate and maintain the quantitative database indicators and forms;
Implement a RECF solar and Cookstove partner database when companies submit baseline reports and then their quarterly reporting using data scrapping methods;
Perform qualitative analysis of quarterly reports and deep dive into specific issues (gender/business challenges/partnerships/job creation) from quarterly reports to produce case studies and other knowledge products including blogs, website materials, presentations etc.;
Conduct and analyze beneficiary interviews to gain consumer insights on key partner achievements and challenges.

CleanStart Monitoring and Evaluation System in Uganda

Consolidate and maintain the EOI qualitative database and dashboard of all CleanStart window applicants;
Following the Open Street Map project, harvest data on solar companies and perform analysis of trends of funded and non-funded partners;
Beneficiary studies: document beneficiary stories and use cases of partner products;
CleanStart Brochure/results knowledge product: Support the development of a M&E/Impact sections of a CleanStart results publication.

Research and Analysis Activities

If requested, the consultant is to analyse the business proposals from challenge fund applicants to identify players in the industry, their business models, the emerging markets in financing clean energy and financial inclusion;
Support in the CleanStart’s Big Data impact assessment, if requested;
Support in the design and content provision of action research concept notes.

Final products

Synthesis of lessons learned. Systematic qualitative analyses and reviews of energy finance innovations – by Dec 2018;
Generate knowledge products on partner’s achievements and challenges by Dec 2018;
Publication of Clean Start’s results via blogs, articles, infographics and working papers to inform policy and implementation of finance for last mile outreach or for the clean energy sector;
Strengthening of monitoring and evaluation systems, KPI and quartlerly monitoring data collected and analyzed and reported by April 2018, by Aug 2018 and by Nov 2018;
Open Street Map dashboard supplemented with all solar window applicants by April-2018;
On time reporting and monitoring of programs objectives.

All products are to be delivery by Dec 2018.

Monitoring and Progress Control

The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the CleanStart Program Analyst in Uganda and the Data Management Specialist in Bangkok.

Payments will be made upon satisfactory achieved deliverables under each assignment and submission of time sheet in accordance with number of days worked. All payments are subject to the clearance and approval of the direct supervisor. Final payment shall require a signed performance evaluation of the consultant.

Competencies

Ability to work in a multicultural environment;
Ability to establish priorities, plan, coordinate and monitor own work;
Demonstrates aptitude in business planning and financial modelling;
Ability to speak comfortably with enterprises about their businesses;
Good project management skills;
Demonstrates ethics and integrity;
Demonstrates calculated risk taking;
Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

University and Master’s Degree in Sociology, Development Studies, Development Economics or related field.

Experience

Demonstrated expertise in Systematic Qualitative Analyses, with ability to handle complex unstructured data;
Demonstrated expertise in NVivo is required;
At least 1 year of working experience in systematic qualitative research, women’s economic empowerment, energy access, and financial inclusion; field work experience in Asia desired;
Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (Stata, Excel business intelligence in particular) are required.

Languages

Fluency in English (written and verbal) and French (for West Africa).

Application

Interested individuals must submit the following as proposals in order to demonstrate their qualifications: (NOTE: the system does not allow multiple uploads of document. Applicants must make sure to upload all documents in one PDF file).

All applications must contain the following information:

Cover letter with a summary statement of competencies in relation to the TOR;
Earliest availability and proposed schedule for consultancy;
Completed and signed P11, Personal History Form with names and current contacts of 3 referees (available from http://sas.undp.org/documents/p11_personal_history_form.doc);
When applying for this consultancy position, please apply with your official name as shown in the government issued identification document (e.g. passport and/or driver license). Contract award is subject to this verification;

Travel

Travel to UNCDF partner countries may be required. The applicant shall not quote any travel expense in the financial proposal. UNCDF will not provide relocation expenses. All travels shall be agreed upon in advance and shall be reimbursed to the consultant according to UN policies.
Please note that consultants residing in the duty station will not be compensated for living expenses.
Please note that UNCDF cannot guarantee residence permits or visas for consultants. Consultants are responsible for securing their work documentation. In the case of national consultants, applicants that are not nationals of the duty station requested will have to prove their residence status. Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when traveling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org

Evaluation

Step I: Screening/Longlisting
Applications will be screened and only applicants meeting the following minimum criteria will progress to the pool for shortlisting.

Education: A Master’s Degree in Sociology, Development Studies, Development Economics or related field;
Experience: At least 1 year of working experience in systematic qualitative research, women’s economic empowerment, energy access, and financial inclusion;
Experience with Nvivo software is required;
Language: Fluency in English and French required.

Step II: Shortlisting by Desk Review
UNCDF will conduct a desk review to produce a shortlist of candidates by evaluating the following criteria:

Strong NVIVO and systematic qualitative analysis skills with demonstrated capacity to utilize evaluation outcomes to directly improve financial inclusion practice and program planning (50 points).
Experience in evaluating digital financial inclusion innovations with specific reference to countries where SHIFT and CS operate (30 points).
M&E and fieldwork experience within the UN and other multilateral agencies (20)

As applicable, only the first top 3 ranked applicants achieving 70% of the points will be considered as technically qualified and will be reviewed further for financial evaluation.

Step III: Financial Evaluation
The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:
Lowest priced proposal/price of the proposal being evaluated x 30%.

Contract Award

The contract shall be awarded to the applicant whose offer have been evaluated and determined as Responsive/compliant/acceptable and having received the highest combined weight (technical proposal & Interview) 70% + financial 30%= 100%.

Both individual consultants and individual employed by a company or institution are welcome to apply.

Any individual employed by a company or institution who would like to submit an offer in response to a Procurement Notice for IC must do so in their individual capacity (providing a CV so that their qualifications may be judged accordingly). Please note that in such case the company institution will be asked to issue an RLA http://www.undp.org/content/dam/vietnam/docs/Legalframework/Reimbursable%20Loan%20Agreement.doc.