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 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 Programme Advisory, Access and Delivery Partnership (ADP), Bangkok Regional Hub.

The ADP requires a Communications Expert to support the development and dissemination of high-quality content, materials and key messages to ensure impactful communication of ADP’s work and achievements. More specifically, the consultant will undertake the relevant tasks as follows:

• Provide technical support to Programme Advisor in planning and implementing a strategic approach to communicating about ADP;
• Lead content development, management and design of various communications materials and platforms; namely, websites, social media, brochures, infographics, blog and news stories, video clips, etc.;
• Develop or update project-related online materials, visibility materials, publications and other knowledge products.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

The consultant is expected to deliver the followings:

Institutional Arrangement

The consultant will regularly evaluate progress in meeting the set targets with the ADP Programme Advisor.

Duration of the Assignment

The duration of the assignment is from 16 July 2018 – 30 March 2019. the substantive component of the assignment is expected to take maximum 100 working days to complete

Duty Station

The assignment is home based. 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:

• Tertiary qualifications in communications or public relations, journalism, media studies, political science, social science, public affairs, development studies or other relevant fields

Experience:

• A minimum of 10 years relevant experience in developing and implementing communication strategies for international or multilateral organizations;
• Strong record of developing promotional and visibility materials/content for health and development projects;
• Experience in developing high quality reports, blogs, press releases, briefing notes and other communication products, including for social media and other online platforms, relating to public health, health technologies and human development;
• Demonstrated international experience working with multiple stakeholders from government, civil society and development partners;

Language Requirement:

• Excellent written and spoken English.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment :

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. Payment will be certified through the Certificate of Payment (COP), and approved by the direct supervisor. Payment will be based on the all-inclusive fee quoted in the Offeror’s letter to UNDP. Consultant must send a financial proposal based on each deliverable.

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):

• Tertiary qualifications in communications or public relations, journalism, media studies, political science, social science, public affairs, development studies or other relevant fields (maximum points: 15);
• A minimum of 10 years relevant experience in developing and implementing communication strategies for international or multilateral organizations (maximum points: 25);
• Experience in developing high quality reports, blogs, press releases, briefing notes and other communication products, including for social media and other online platforms, relating to public health, health technologies and human development (maximum points:15);
• Demonstrated international experience working with multiple stakeholders from government, civil society and development partners (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

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document 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 communications activities for the Access and Delivery Partnership

Annex II- General Condition of Contract

Annex III - Offeror’s Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability and Financial Proposal

All documents can be downloaded at :http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=47513