Background

UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub, along with the Pacific Office in Suva, primarily provide the 24 UNDP Country Offices in Asia and the Pacific with easy access to knowledge through high quality advisory services and technical support based on global applied research and UNDP lessons learnt. The second priority is to provide regional thought leadership, build partnerships and promote regional capacity building, which allow UNDP, governments and other development partners to identify, create and share knowledge relevant to solving urgent development challenges.

UNDP ensures inclusive and effective democratic governance by advocating, advising, fostering impartial spaces for dialogue, achieving consensus and building institutions. UNDP helps governance institutions in countries bring constitutional reforms, organize credible elections, strengthen parliaments, and address policy and institutional options for peace, risk-reduction and development through reconciliation, empowerment and inclusion.

Duties and Responsibilities

Project Description

UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub is addressing peacebuilding, conflict-prevention and gender equality through multiple regional development initiatives. It has also been sustaining robust communication and knowledge management activities to contribute to UNDP’s delivery of strengthened gender, peace and conflict-prevention results in the region. Two regional programmes within Asia and the Pacific Governance and Peacebuilding team are looking for support on their project communications, knowledge management and outreach.

The first regional initiative, the UNDP Asia Pacific flagship initiative N-Peace, has a dedicated focus on Women, Peace and Security. Since 2010, UNDP and its partners have been working through the N-Peace Network to promote, support and build the capacity of grassroots peace-builders across Asia and the Pacific. N-Peace Awards recognise individuals whose work advances the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, and is currently active in Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. The N-Peace Network is implementing a new small grants component to the N-Peace Awards this year. These grants will support civil society organizations (CSOs) that work on the ground in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda to recognise the powerful hands-on work of people and organisations working toward inclusive peace, support services for women affected by post-conflict violence and women’s access to education and training services, campaign for an increase in numbers of women in local and national leadership positions, and advocate for women’s rights in conflict-ridden areas in the Asia-Pacific region.

The second regional initiative focuses on conflict prevention, particularly violent extremism. In recent years, the world has witnessed new waves of violent extremism that have taken the lives of many innocent people. Developing counter-narratives to combat violent extremism has become a popular and relatively common method of countering the threat of violent extremism. The PVE team are currently implementing two projects closely relating to communication and outreach. The first is a partnership with Facebook to expand upon a Facebook Live series that was launched in 2017, Extreme Lives, covering on-the-ground stories on violent extremism across South East Asia. This initiative combines the development expertise of UNDP with the networking and outreach capacity of Facebook to provide a strong platform for stories and perspectives that are not often heard at the regional and international levels. In doing so, the Extreme Lives series seeks to create and encourage new online spaces for critical conversations on understanding and preventing violent extremism today. The second, Creators for Change, takes into account that the internet has become a key platform for the dissemination of extremist messaging. Extremist organisations have proven adept at using social media to expand their following, increase their presence, and create knowledge for potential terrorists. Spaces such as YouTube can offer powerful narratives and information to not only counter extremist content, but to create new ideas and solutions to the various challenges confronting societies today. Creators for Change will find, showcase and stimulate credible and inspiring emerging content creators and young role models presenting alternatives to extremism and promoting tolerance and pluralism.

The main objective of this consultancy is to support communication activities focusing on the promotion of women, peacebuilding and the prevention of violent extremism, working across teams with guidance from the Governance and Peacebuilding Team and the Communications Team. In particular, the consultant will both lead and support the preparation and implementation of communication, outreach and knowledge management tasks relating to (a) the roll-out of the N-Peace small grants component, (b) the maintenance of N-Peace’s network outreach and public relations (c) the Extreme Lives Facebook Live series, and (d) the Creators for Change YouTube collaboration to promote tolerance and alternatives to extremism. The consultant will also support other communications, knowledge management and outreach tasks broadly relating to gender equality.

Scope of work:

Under the overall guidance of the Women and Inclusive Peacebuilding Specialist and the Governance and Peace Building Advisor at the UNDP Asia Pacific Regional Hub, the Communications Consultant will be responsible for the following:

Leading communications content creation relating to:

• The facilitation of video creation, telling the stories of civil society organizations successfully awarded grants under the N-Peace small grants initiative;

• Interviewing CSOs and managing the procurement of multimedia assets;
• Drafting the video narrative and guiding video production process;
• Publishing and promoting videos via social media.

• The writing of articles telling the stories of civil society organizations successfully awarded grants under the N-Peace small grants initiative;

• Interviewing CSOs and managing the procurement of multimedia assets;
• Drafting the articles and managing the approvals process;
• Publishing and promoting the articles via social media.

Leading the planning and implementation of:

• A sustainable communications and outreach strategy for the N-Peace Network; including developing communications asset templates for social media platforms, such as graphics, banners, online flyers, announcements;
• A digital campaign for the N-Peace Network Small Grants capacity-building training week;
• Communications tasks around the lunch of the Creators of Change initiative, including supporting the communications and outreach tasks relating to the National Academy Programmes and regional events (some international travel may be required).

Supporting:

• The planning and implementation of communications tasks relating to the #ExtremeLives Facebook Live video series (some international travel may be required);
• The management and maintenance of the #ExtremeLives webpage;
• The creation and implementation of a communications strategy for Preventing Violent Extremism initiatives;
• Other communications, knowledge management and outreach tasks broadly relating to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

The consultant is expected to work towards the following work plan.

Institutional Arrangement

The Senior Consultant will work under the overall guidance of the advisors on    Gender and Inclusion in Peacebuilding, and Governance and Peacebuilding.

Duration of the Assignment

Up to a maximum of 261 working days over a period of maximum 12 months. The period of the assignment is estimated to be from 15th May 2018 – 15th May 2019

Duty Station

The duty station will be Bangkok with international travel as and when required.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism.

Technical Competencies:

• Analytic capacity and demonstrated ability to process, analyse and synthesise complex, technical information;
• Proven ability to support the development of high quality knowledge and training materials, and to train technical teams;
• Proven experience in the developing country context and working in different cultural settings.

Communication:

• Communicate effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner.

Professionalism:

• Capable of working in a high pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
• Excellent analytical and organizational skills.

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

The Communications Consultant should possess the following expertise and qualifications:

Essential:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Communications, Journalism, Literature, Gender Studies, International Relations, or other related subjects in the arts and/or humanities;
• At least 18 months working in communications and outreach, with demonstrable experience leading the development and implementation of communications campaigns;
• Excellent/native command of written English.

Desirable:

• Experience planning and managing corporate event/conference communications;
• Experience in video production;
• Experience writing press releases, articles, blogs, and social media content plans;
• A good understanding of handling basic graphic design software;
• Experience in webpage management platforms, such as Adobe CQ5 or WordPress;
• Excellent verbal communications skills, and the ability to write persuasively and collaboratively with a wide range of partners;
• Ability to complete tasks independently and take initiative, but also work well as part of a team;
• Ability to perform tasks in a timely manner, under pressure, and to tight deadlines;
• Previous relevant experience with UNDP or the broader UN system would be an asset.

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment :

In accordance with the requirements above, the duration of this assignment is maximum days. Consultant shall quote an all-inclusive Daily Fee for the contract period. The term “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, communications, consumables, etc.) that could be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment are already factored into the daily fee submitted in the proposal. If applicable, travel or daily allowance cost (if any work is to be done outside the IC’s duty station) should be identified separately. Payments shall be done on a monthly basis based on actual days worked, upon verification of completion of deliverables and approval by the IC’s supervisor of a Time Sheet indicating the days worked in the period.

In general, UNDP shall 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.

In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Travel costs shall be reimbursed at actual but not exceeding the quotation from UNDP approved travel agent.  The provided living allowance will not be exceeding UNDP DSA rates. Repatriation travel cost from home to duty station in Bangkok and return shall not be covered by UNDP.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis

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. [Remove this paragraph if Lowest priced is selected]

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points)

• Criteria 1 Eg. Relevance of Education – Max 10 points
• Criteria 2 Eg. Special skills, fluency in English language , etc.- Max 10 Points
• Criteria 3 Eg. Relevant experience in  in communications – Max 30
• Criteria 4 Eg. Experience in implementing communication campaigns for initiatives such as N-Peace and Extreme Lives  (e.g. leading research teams) – Max 20 points

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

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals

Candidates wishing to be considered for this assignment are required to submit the following documents to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document/ or one ZIP File as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:

• Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
• 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;
• Financial Proposal that indicates the daily rate/fee of the candidate, in US dollars; Incomplete proposals may not be considered;
• A sample of a social media campaign plan/ package led by the applicant;
• Online link to sample of multimedia communications materials developed by the applicant, including videos;
• Online link to sample of written communications materials developed by the applicant.

Incomplete proposals may not be considered. The short listed candidates may be contacted and the successful candidate will be notified.

Annexes

Annex I - TOR_ Communications Consultant (Women, Peacebuilding, and Preventing Violent Extremism)

Annex II- General Condition of Contract

Annex III - Offeror’s Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability for the Individual IC, including Financial Proposal Template

All documents can be downloaded at :http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=45490