Background

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, as established by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is often referred to as “REDD+”.  The UNDP REDD+ team is based in UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support - BPPS. It is part of the Sustainable Development cluster and also works closely with the Climate Change team.

The REDD+ team is responsible for a growing portfolio.  The sources of funds include: (i) the UN-REDD Programme, a collaborative partnership with FAO and UNEP; (ii) the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF); (iii) the Central African Forests Initiative (CAFI); and (iv) the Green Climate Fund (GCF).  In addition, the team is responsible for other forest and climate initiatives and ensuring overall quality assurance. 

UNDP’s REDD+ Team is spread globally, with management based in Geneva.  Regional teams are located in UNDP’s Regional Centres in Bangkok (Asia-Pacific) and Panama (Latin America and the Caribbean), while the regional team for Africa is in Nairobi in order to be co-located with UNEP’s REDD+ Team.  The regional teams support UNDP’s country offices and partners in their region.  Support to UNDP country offices is coordinated closely with the Regional Bureaux through the regional centres.

The team works closely with UNDP’s Green Commodities Program (GCP) on drivers of deforestation related to agricultural commodity supply chains, the UNDP-GEF team to provide guidance on GEF-funded projects related to REDD+, and with the Low Emissions, Climate Resilient Development (LECRD) team to ensure UNDP’s efforts on REDD+ contribute to broader transformational change.  The team can support the REDD+ initiatives of the regions and country offices and provide quality assurance on a full cost-recovery basis.

The UNDP REDD+ team has recently been identified to support the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force (GCFTF) initiative.  This involves supporting the preparation and implementation of projects for the more than 30 developing country sub-national jurisdictions participating in the initiative to develop strategies and investment plans for innovative forested landscape transformation.  This will be done in coordination with the secretariat for the GCFTF (based in Colorado University), the governance arrangements for the initiative, and other existing partners.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

Under the supervision and leadership of the Principal Technical Advisor for REDD+, the prospective consultant will manage UNDP’s contribution to the GCFTF initiative, ensure effective delivery and play a significant role in ensuring the overall objectives of the initiative are met.

As a member of the UNDP REDD+ Team, the consultant will also contribute to the overall success of the team, engage effectively with team members, support their contributions to the GCFTF initiative, and contribute to the overall portfolio as needed.

The consultant will be responsible for the following:

Contribute to the development, implementation and adaptive management of the UNDP-GCFTF work plan

  • Develop and coordinate internal project management arrangements to ensure the effective delivery of funds
  • Engage with UNDP country offices to identify and develop appropriate financing and management arrangements for implementation at jurisdictional and regional level
  • Develop and coordinate systems for monitoring, and evaluation, including annual reporting by implementation partners
  • Coordinate annual monitoring, evaluation, and reporting to donors
  • Engage with the GCFTF Secretariat, subnational governments, and implementation partners.

Contribute to the quality assurance of REDD+ strategies and investment plans at jurisdictional level

  • Support and facilitate technical inputs from UNDP REDD+ team members and coordinate assistance to jurisdictions and partners during proposal development stage
  • Coordinate with other relevant UNDP programs to ensure alignment of objectives and interventions (e.g. Green Commodities Programme)

Contribute to the quality assurance of regional coordination

  • Develop a workplan and priorities for regional coordination processes in collaboration with the GCFTF Secretariat
  • Develop criteria and management arrangements for regional coordinators in collaboration with the GCFTF Secretariat
  • Develop and coordinate assessment criteria for regional coordinator proposals
  • Engage with regional coordinators in each GCFTF cluster
  • Support and facilitate technical inputs from UNDP REDD+ team members and other relevant UNDP inputs

Contribute to the achievement of expected GCFTF results

  • Facilitate the development of criteria for Window B funding proposals (innovative approaches to REDD+), in coordination with GCFTF Secretariat, members, and donors
  • Contribute to the identification and development of innovative, transformative approaches to forest and climate landscape management
  • Coordinate with donors, GCFTF Secretariat, subnational governments, and implementation partners
  • Coordinate with relevant private sector initiatives

Contribute to Knowledge Management and Communications

  • Support the sharing and disbursement of UNDP’s GCFTF results, lessons and experiences in 2018
  • Identify opportunities for South-South exchange and learning between GCFTF members developing jurisdictional strategies and investment plans
  • Represent UNDP at GCFTF meetings and other relevant events

Contribute to the success of the overall UNDP REDD+ Team

  • Provide any other assistance as requested by the REDD+ Principal Technical Advisor
  • Participate in UNDP REDD+ Team events, initiatives, strategic development and resource mobilization
  • Participate in relevant Communities of Practice and contribute to UNDP corporate requirements

 

Competencies

Corporate Competencies: 

  • Demonstrates commitment to UNDP´s mission, vision and values;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Highest standards of integrity, discretion and loyalty.

Functional competencies

  • Excellent English written communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize project outputs and relevant findings for the preparation of quality project reports;
  • Ability to understand new terminology and concepts easily and to synthesize information from different sources into a coherent project document;
  • Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high-ranking members of international, regional and national institutions;
  • Excellent team player with good interpersonal and communication skills;
  • Ability to demonstrate sufficient technical knowledge to perform effectively and independently;
  • Ability to manage workload with minimum supervision;
  • Ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines;
  • Ability to accommodate additional demands on short notice;
  • Displays sensitivity and adaptability to different cultures, genders, religions, races, nationalities and age groups

Required Skills and Experience

Education:  Masters’ degree in environmental management, international development, public policy or similar.

Experience:

  • At least 5 years work experience
  • Experience administering small grants/projects in developing countries required (liaising with local counterparts, coordinating partners, preparing donor reports)
  • Experience operating in Latin America required, particularly in terms of managing relationships with local counterparts
  • Experience managing relationships with private sector, desirable
  • Demonstrable understanding of the issue of REDD+ required
  • Experience working with an international forest & climate initiative (i.e. UN-REDD, FCPF, FIP, REM, GCF) required
  • Experience in jurisdictional approaches to REDD+ or low emissions rural development desired
  • Excellent drafting skills essential, particularly reports and articles

Language requirement: 

  • Operational fluency in English, French and Spanish required. 
  • Working knowledge of Portuguese required. Working knowledge of Bahasa desirable, but not required.

 

Scope of Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

The individual contractor will be compensated based on an all-inclusive daily fee, to be paid on a monthly basis upon submission of a signed IC time sheet, to be cleared and approved by the Principal Technical Advisor. (In the event that mission travel is required, this will be administered and compensated separately in accordance with standard UNDP travel policies and procedures.)

 

Presentation of Offer

The application submission is a two-step process. Failure to comply with the submission process may result in disqualification of the application.

Step 1:  Interested individual consultants must apply online and include the following documents when submitting the application. 

Note that only one (1) file is allowed to be uploaded in the online application; therefore scan documents together in one single PDF before uploading-submitting.

Step 2:  Submission of Financial Proposal

Applicants are instructed to submit their financial proposals using the IC Offeror’s letter template (click to download). Daily fee/rate must be expressed in US dollars. The offeror’s letter/financial proposal must be submitted separately by email to frances.lim@undp.org, with the following subject heading: “Financial Proposal: Support to GCFTF consultant”.  Deadline for submission of financial offer is the same date as application deadline.

Proposals received after the deadline will be rejected. In order to assist the requesting unit in the consistent comparison of financial proposals, the financial offer should be all-inclusive daily rate and indicated in US dollars. The term ‘all-inclusive” implies that all costs that could possibly be incurred by the Contractor are already factored in.

 

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

The consultant’s offer will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Combined Scoring method – where the technical qualifications will be weighted a maximum of 70%, and combined with the price offer which will be weighted a max of 30%. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70 points would be considered for the financial criteria.

A competencies-based interview will also be conducted for short-listed candidates.

The key criteria for rating the qualification and methodology are as follows:

Technical criteria (Weight 70%)

  • Academic background: Masters’ degree in environmental management, international development, public policy or similar background (7 points)
  • Experience administering small grants/projects in developing countries (22 points)
  • Experience operating in Latin America, in particularly managing relationships with local counterparts (15 points)
  • Experience working with an international forest & climate initiative (i.e. UN-REDD, FCPF, FIP, REM, GCF) and an understanding of the issues related to REDD+ (28 points)
  • Fluency in English, French and Spanish; working knowledge of Portuguese (28 points)

Financial Offer (Weight 30%)

  • Daily rate/fees must be expressed in US dollar currency (30% financial offer)

 

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.