Background

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life, as envisaged by 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We are on the ground in more than 170 countries and territories, working with governments and people on their own solutions to global and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners that can bring about results.

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 and help countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.  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.

UNDP is a founding cosponsor of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), a partner of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, and a co-sponsor of several other international health partnerships. UNDP’s work on HIV, health and development, as described in the HIV, Health and Development Strategy 2016-2021: Connecting the Dots, leverages UNDP’s core strengths and mandates in human development, governance and capacity development to complement the efforts of specialist health-focused UN agencies. UNDP delivers three types of support to countries in HIV, health and development.

First, UNDP helps countries to mainstream attention to HIV and health into action on gender, poverty and the broader effort to achieve and sustain the Sustainable Development Goals.  For example, UNDP works with countries to understand the social and economic factors that play a crucial role in driving health and disease, and to respond to such dynamics with appropriate policies and programmes outside the health sector. UNDP also promotes specific action on the needs and rights of women and girls as they relate to HIV.

Second, UNDP works with partners to address the interactions between governance, human rights and health responses. Sometimes this is done through focused or specialized programmes, such as promoting attention to the role of the law and legal environments in facilitating stronger HIV responses, including the use of flexibilities in trade related legislation to lower the cost of drugs and diagnostics. UNDP also works to empower and include marginalized populations who are disproportionately affected by HIV, such as sex workers, men who have sex with men and people living with HIV. Beyond these focused efforts, UNDP plays a key role in ensuring attention to HIV and health within broader governance and rights initiatives, including support to municipal action on SDGs, sustainable responses for Health and HIV such as improving sustainability of AIDS financing, sustainable health procurement, strengthening of national human rights institutions and increasing access to justice for key populations.

 Third, as a trusted, long-term partner with extensive operational experience, UNDP supports countries in effective implementation of complex, multilateral and multisectoral health projects, while simultaneously investing in capacity development so that national and local partners can assume these responsibilities over time. The UNDP/Global Fund partnership is an important part of this work, facilitating access to resources for action on SDG 3 by countries that face constraints in directly receiving and managing such funding.  UNDP partners with countries in crisis/post-crisis situations, those with weak institutional capacity or governance challenges, and countries under sanctions. When requested, UNDP acts as temporary Principal Recipient in these settings, working with national partners and the Global Fund to improve management, implementation and oversight of Global Fund grants, while simultaneously developing national capacity to be able to assume the Principal Recipient role over time.

Access and Delivery of New Health Technologies for Neglected Tropical Diseases

The majority of deaths caused by infectious disease are of poor people living in LMICs with many occurring in children under five. HIV, malaria, tuberculosis (TB) and other epidemics continue to devastate communities throughout the developing world. The prevalence of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), endemic in 149 countries, also remains high. As part of its work on accelerating progress on the SDGs, UNDP is committed to working with partners to achieve the health-related SDGs specifically aimed to address the sector gap in research and development (R&D) funding for new global health technologies through our partnership with the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund.

New health technologies are broadly defined as drugs, diagnostic tools and vaccines that are relevant for the prevention, treatment or cure of TB, malaria and NTDs, but have not yet been introduced in LMICs. The introduction of new health technologies can place a weighty burden on existing health systems. These burdens may include new requirements for drug regulation, supply and distribution, and health personnel training.

The Access and Delivery Partnership (ADP) supports LMICs enhance their capacity to access, introduce and deliver new health technologies for TB, malaria and NTDs. The ADP focuses on strengthening the capacity of LMIC stakeholders to facilitate the development of the systems and processes required to effectively access new health technologies, and introduce them to the patients in need. Led and coordinated by UNDP, the ADP is a unique collaboration among UNDP, WHO, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases at the World Health Organization (TDR) and PATH. Working together, the partners leverage the expertise within each organization to provide the full range of technical skills necessary to strengthen capacity in LMICs.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective and Scope of Work

The consultant will be home based and work under the overall guidance of the Team Leader, Rights, Key Populations and Treatment Access based in New York and the ADP Programme Advisor based in Bangkok. The consultant will also support the establishment of partnerships with development partners, government, UN agencies and the civil society organizations on health technology innovation and access.

More specifically, the consultant will be responsible for undertaking the following deliverables in collaboration with colleagues within the HIV, Health and Development Team:

• Drawing on existing UNDP materials, support the design and implementation of capacity strengthening activities to promote the use of competition law to promote access to health technologies;
• In conjunction with UNDP staff, support activities related to the scale up the Access and Delivery Partnership;
• Follow up on 2017 capacity strengthening activity on policy coherence and South-South cooperation on health technology innovation and access in the Africa region;
• Provide relevant legal and policy advice and research on enabling legal environments and access to treatment as required by UNDP Global Fund procurement and UNDP country and regionals’ teams; and
• Any other activities as required by the HIV, Health and Development Team.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

• Organization of a training on the use of competition law to promote access to health technologies for selected LMICs (expected deadline: September 2018)
• Provision of organizational and technical support for inception meetings of the Access and Delivery Partnership in Malawi and Senegal, and contribute to conceptualization and implementation of meetings to develop Platform/s for Technology Delivery Preparedness (expected deadline: October 2018)
• Completion of a capacity strengthening activity to promote policy coherence and South-South cooperation on health technology innovation and access in the Africa region (expected deadline: November 2018)
• Finalization and dissemination of a publication on price and regulatory status of HIV treatments in priority regions (expected deadline: December 2018)
• Provide relevant legal and policy advice and research on enabling legal environments and access to treatment as required by UNDP Global Fund procurement and UNDP country and regionals’ teams (throughout consultancy).

Institutional Arrangement

The consultant will regularly evaluate progress in meeting the set targets with the Team Leader on Rights, law, key populations and Treatment Access and the ADP Programme Advisor.

Duration of the Assignment

The duration of the assignment is from 1 June – 31 December 2018; the substantive component of the assignment is expected to take maximum 130 working days to complete.

Duty Station

The assignment is home based.

Travel

No travel is anticipated under this consultancy. In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

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

Educational Qualifications:

• An advanced degree in international trade law, intellectual property law, international affairs, public health law and a knowledge of at least one of the other substantive areas

Experience:

• A minimum of 10 years’ relevant work experience in HIV or health technology innovation or treatment access, international trade or a related field;
• Knowledge of HIV, access to treatment, public health, international law an asset;
• Experience working with the UN or other multilateral organizations in providing technical and capacity-building support to low and middle-income countries as asset;
• Extensive experience in conducting research and analysis, and advocacy with UN Member states on health technology innovation and access;
• Work experience in a developing country context is highly desirable;
• Excellent writing, research, analysis and presentation skills.

Language Requirement:

• Excellent written and spoken English;
• Fluency in Spanish and/or French would be highly desirable.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment :

Payment will be certified through the Certificate of Payment (COP) and timesheet, certified by the direct supervisor. The rate will be based on the all-inclusive daily rate or rate mentioned in the Offeror’s letter to UNDP. Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Daily Fee.

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 submitted timesheet 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

Technical Evaluation Criteria (maximum 70 points):

• An advanced degree in human rights, public health, intellectual property, international law, international affairs or a related degree (maximum points: 15);
• Minimum of 10 years of relevant work experience in the field of HIV, access to treatment, public health, international trade, international affairs or a related field (maximum points:25);
• A demonstrated knowledge of HIV, access to treatment, public health, international law as evidenced by a publications record (maximum points:15);
• Strong experience in public speaking on access to treatment issues as evidenced by previous speaking engagements (maximum points:15)

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points of the total technical points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria for financial evaluation (30 points maximum):

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

Shortlisted candidates shall be called for an interview which will be used to confirm and/or adjust the technical scores awarded based on documentation submitted.

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 in Annex III;
• 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 all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided.  If an 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 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.

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

Annexes:

Annex I - TOR_ Consultant to support UNDP’s work on Health technologies innovation and access to treatment

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=46162