UNDP Jobs - 79984- Senior Advisor on Green Finance

Senior Advisor on Green Finance

Location :

Home based consultancy – with possible travel to Non-Ara & Arab countries

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

05-Aug-2018

Application Deadline :

12-Aug-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

44 working days over a period of 2 months

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

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

The Regional Hub for Arab States leads UNDP’s provision of policy and programme support to regional and local partners across the region on a range of development issues. The Regional Hub’s staff supports the formulation and implementation of regional initiatives, provides technical advice to UNDP Country Offices and local partners regards national programming; advocates UN and UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at regional fora and dialogues, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination for common frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

Today the Arab States region, as a global hotspot for climate risks and ecological fragility, is experiencing one of the most dramatic periods of change in history – with an escalation of conflict, reduction in energy, food and water security, more frequent drought cycles, a resurgence of poverty, and emergence of unprecedented levels of displacement. As leaders in the Arab region strive to achieve stability and resilient development pathways, they do so in the face of risks from climate change and ecosystem disruption. These trends pose risks for achieving the SDGs and for achieving long-term recovery in fragile and crisis contexts. As a result, issues of climate change and ecosystem resilience have risen the development agenda, with growing level of partnership sought with UN and other development partners.

A top priority in that is the support to scale up green finance for taking action. The region’s financial systems need reshaping to achieve the ambitious goals of the SDGs and the Paris Agreement and to finance an inclusive, prosperous and environmentally sound future. However, today’s momentum remains inadequate to deliver the transformation needed to finance sustainable development.

Natural capital continues to decline precipitously, alongside growing social inequality and unrest.
Sustainable financial flows and stocks remain marginal to the deployment of capital.
Financial system remains disconnected from the long-term needs of the real economy.
Financial stability is increasingly threatened by the effects of climate change and ecosystem disruption.

Given the complex nature of countries within the Arab region – the political frameworks, the environmental challenges, particularly climate change, and with their varied financial systems, there is the need to assess country capacity and develop new mechanisms to scale up private finance to achieve the SDGs and Paris Agreement. As countries in the region consider ways to promote more rapid and lasting economic growth and recovery from crisis, financial sector reform should be high on the agenda, particularly sustainable finance. Policies aimed at enhancing financial sector performance result in higher economic growth, and more developed financial system promotes efficiency and growth by reducing information, transaction and monitoring costs.

Whilst the focus is predominantly on private financial flows, the importance of both international and domestic public flows is fully recognized, especially for many crisis contexts in the region. Diverse financing arrangements will be required to address different SDGs and climate-related financing needs. Such diversity concerns not only the broad distinction between public and private finance, but also between differing forms of each, and in many instances the importance of their relationship as scarce public finance is deployed to leverage private finance, and as greater attention is placed on the nexus of humanitarian and development finance in crisis contexts.

Although enhanced mobilization of financing for sustainable development is the substantive policy goal, the need is clearly to realize this whilst at the same time improving the efficiency (costs), effectiveness (pricing of risk and opportunities) and resilience (stability) of the financial system. This will include a range of actions across the financial system, including market innovations and developments, such as green bonds; voluntary individual and collective actions by financial institutions, such as the adoption of principles and codes; actions by and market-makers such as rating agencies and stock exchanges; and non-market interventions including policy, regulatory, judicial, standards, fiscal and institutional measures. Such developments are complementary to the two other principle pathways to improved alignment of the financial system with sustainable development: (a) real economy policies and market innovations, and (b) the use of public financing instruments. In practice, these three pathways are related and in part inter-dependent.

Duties and Responsibilities

To address this issue, UNDP and UNEP are joining forces to engage a Senior Advisor on Green Finance services to develop a set of guidelines and assessments in the region on the state of green finance and means to scale up results on the road to 2030. This would be a basis for joint establishment along with other sister UN agencies, regional entities and country partners of a green finance innovation platform as means of bringing together various actors and sources of green finance and scaling up results in the region.

The Senior Advisor on Green Finance will be responsible for providing policy advice to UNDP and UNEP in fulfilling the designing of a diagnostic toolkit for scaling up green financing through financial and capital markets, including credit, investments and insurance, and related aspects of the monetary system and policies.

Specifically, the Sustainable Finance Diagnostic Toolkit should have sections that cover the following areas:

mapping national financial structures in the Arab region to assess the relative importance of banking, capital markets, insurance, investment, informal sector and other assets and actors, considering their key characteristics;
mapping the national financial architectures in the region to assess the various rules and institutions governing key segments of national financial systems;
sustainable finance needs to develop a picture of the key sustainable finance requirements across the region, as well as the magnitude of business-as-usual flows to high carbon and climate vulnerable sectors; and
sustainable finance stocks and flows to assess the flows relevant to sustainable finance needs and generate a directional estimate of the investment gap. The toolkit should be applicable to the diversity of development and crisis contexts in the region.

Competencies

Corporate

Demonstrates integrity and fairness, by modeling the UN/UNDP’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.

Functional

Proven technical and intellectual skills in understanding and interpreting regional, national and local green financing issues;
Ability to understand and analyze and political dynamics in the region;
Demonstrated ability for facilitation and coordination skills;
Demonstrated entrepreneurial abilities and demonstrated ability to work in an independent manner;
Background knowledge about the SDGs, United Nations and UNDP;
Good teamwork and interpersonal skills;
Flexibility and ability to handle multiple tasks and work under pressure;
Excellent drafting and formulation skills;
Excellent computer skills especially Word, Excel and PowerPoint;

Leadership

Demonstrated ability to think strategically and to provide credible leadership;
Demonstrated intellectual leadership and ability to integrate green finance with broader strategic overview and corporate vision;
Demonstrated flexibility in leadership by performing and/or overseeing the analysis/resolution of complex issues;
Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development experience.

Managing Relationships

Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain strategic partnerships;
Demonstrated well developed people management and organizational management skills;
Excellent negotiating and networking skills with strong partnerships in academia, technical organizations and as a recognized expert in the practice area.

Managing Complexity

Ability to address global development issues;
Demonstrated substantive leadership and ability to integrate knowledge with broader strategic, policy and operational objectives.

Knowledge Management and Learning

Ability to strongly promote and build knowledge products;
Promotes knowledge management in UNDP and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example;
Seeks and applies knowledge, information and best practices from within and outside of UNDP;
Demonstrates a strong capacity for innovation and creativity in providing strategic policy advice and direction.

Judgment/Decision-Making

Mature judgment and initiative;
Proven ability to provide strategic direction to the project implementation process;
Independent judgment and discretion in advising on handling major policy issues and challenges, uses diplomacy and tact to achieve result.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications:

Master’s degree in climate change, environment, green finance, or any other closely related field.

Years of experience:

Minimum 10 years of previous working experience in climate change, environment, green finance, or any other closely related field with international or regional organizations;
5 years of previous working experience in developing assessment and strategies on green finance;
5 years of previous working experience in the policy development processes on green finance;
Previous working experience with the United Nations (UN) is an advantage.

Language Requirements:

Language proficiency in both written and oral English is required. Knowledge of in other UN languages, particularly French and/or Arabic, is an asset.

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT

The individual is required to exhibit his or her full-time commitment with UNDP-RBAS;
S/He shall perform tasks under the general guidance of the Director of UNDP Regional Hub for Arab States and the direct supervision of the Team Leader in the Arab Region for Climate Change, DRR & Resilience / Energy & Environment Portfolio. The supervision will include approvals/acceptance of the outputs as identified in the previous section;
The individual is expected to liaise and collaborate in the course of performing the work with other consultants, suppliers and UN colleagues;
The individual is required to provide periodical progress reports on regular and needed basis throughout the assignment in order to monitor progress;
The individual is required to maintain close communication with UNDP-RBAS on regular and needed basis at any period throughout the assignment in order to monitor progress. In the event of any delay, S/he will inform UNDP promptly so that decisions and remedial action may be taken accordingly;
Should UNDP deem it necessary, it reserves the right to commission additional inputs, reviews or revisions, as needed to ensure the quality and relevance of the work.

DURATION OF THE WORK
The duration of the work is expected to be 44 working days from contract signature date over a period of 2 months.

DUTY STATION

This is a home-based assignment with possible travel to Arab and/or Non-Arab countries. If unforeseen travel outside the consultant home based city is requested by UNDP and not required by the Terms of References (ToR), such travel shall be covered by UNDP in line with applicable rules and regulations and upon prior written agreement. In such cases, the consultant shall receive living allowances not exceeding the United Nations (UN) Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) rate for such other location(s).

FINANCIAL PROPOSAL

Interested candidates should provide lump sum fees for requested services with detailed breakdown (consultancy fees * number of working days). Please note that the terms “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, communications, consumables, etc.) that could possibly be incurred are already factored into the final amounts submitted in the proposal. Also, please note that the contract price will be Deliverables/Outputs based - not fixed - subject to change in the cost components.

The contractor will be paid an all-inclusive Deliverables/Outputs based lump sum amounts over the assignment period, subject to the submission of Certification of Payment (CoP) duly certified and confirmation of satisfactory performance of achieved work (deliverables/outputs) in line with the schedule of payments table hereunder, noting that the maximum number of working days for this assignment shouldn’t exceed 44 working days.

SCOPE OF PRICE PROPOSAL & DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

All necessary information including: Complete Procurement Notice, the Selection Criteria, and Annexes are found on the following link under Procurement http://procurement-notices.undp.org/
Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications to Job advertisement website, and should submit their proposal by e-mail to the following address: proc.contract.rscjo@undp.org not later than 22 July 2018. Candidates that fail to submit the required information on or before the set deadline (22July 2018) will not be considered.

Duly accomplished 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;
Technical Proposal (A half page technical proposal detailing how they will approach the assignment, prioritizing activities to meet the deliverables as set above in the most efficient and effective manner);
Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive Deliverables/Outputs based total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided for 44 working days over period of 2 months. The terms “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, travel costs, living allowances, communications, consumables, etc.) that could possibly be incurred are already factored into the final amounts submitted in the proposal. If there is any travel during the contract period, it will be covered by unforeseen travel. 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.

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

Step I: Screening and desk review:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Applications will be first screened and only candidates meeting the following minimum requirements will progress to the pool for shortlisting:

Criteria A: Master’s degree or equivalent in climate change, environment, green finance, or any other closely related field;
Criteria B: Minimum 10 years of previous working experience in climate change, environment, green finance, or any other closely related field with international or regional organizations;
Criteria F: Language proficiency in both written and oral English is required;

Shortlisted Candidates will be then assessed and scored against the following evaluation criteria:

Technical evaluation Criteria max 100 points (Weighted 70):

Criteria A: Master’s degree or equivalent in climate change, environment, green finance, or any other closely related field (20 points);
Criteria B: Minimum 10 years of previous working experience in climate change, environment, green finance, or any other closely related field with international or regional organizations (25 points);
Criteria C: 5 years of previous working experience in developing assessment and strategies on green finance (15 points);
Criteria D: 5 years of previous working experience in the policy development processes on green finance (15 points);
Criteria E: Previous working experience with the United Nations (UN) is an advantage (15 points);
Criteria F: Language proficiency in both written and oral English (10 points);

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation

For those offers considered in the financial evaluation, the lowest price offer will receive 30 points.
The other offers will receive points in relation to the lowest offer, based on the following formula:
(PI / Pn)* 30 where Pn is the financial offer being evaluated and Pl is the lowest financial offer received.

Step II: Final evaluation

The final evaluation will combine the scores of the desk review and the financial proposal with the following weights assigned to each:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis methodology (weighted scoring method), where the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Technical Criteria weight: [70%]
Financial Criteria weight: [30%]

Only Individual Consultants obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70%) on the Technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.