Background

The Government of Ukraine is in urgent need to secure the availability of the State Programme medicines and essential health commodities at affordable prices and in sufficient quantities. Acknowledging the challenges of the State procurement and supply management system and following recently adopted legislation, allowing the selected international organizations to provide procurement support services, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine has requested the UN to support the procurement and distribution of a number of 2016 State Programme medicines and other medical products as an emergency measure. As well UNDP is expecting to sign another agreement with the Ministry of Health for a number of 2018 State Programme medicines and other medical products.

UNDP in Ukraine is fully committed to play this role in resolving the immediate crisis and to support the Ministry of Health of Ukraine in its mid- and long-term efforts to reform its procurement and supply management system. UNDP brings its extensive expertise in establishing the procurement system that corresponds to the highest standards of transparency, accountability, cost-efficiency, equity and sustainability. 

Since 2015 UNDP implements the aimed at strengthening the national health care procurement system and thereby improving the effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment of the patients of Ukraine. Specifically, in the framework of the project, UNDP plans to (i) procure medicines and medical products for the National Public Health Programmes for 2016 and ongoing years as needed, (ii) strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Health to ensure transparency, accountability and effectiveness of the public procurement of medicines and other medical products.

It is expected that for achieving the project goal, the international consultant will be hired and closely cooperate with the project, country office in Ukraine, Ministry of Health and other UN agencies.

To this end UNDP seeks an international consultant to provide expertise on effective implementation of the program’s goals and objectives, as well as developing recommendations on capacity building and exit strategy relating to the ongoing public procurement reform in the healthcare sector in Ukraine.

Duties and Responsibilities

Main objective

The International Consultant will report to the Deputy Country Director Programmes, and will work closely with the Deputy Country Director, Operations, Business Development Unit and other portfolios. S/he will assist towards the effective and efficient implementation of the UNDP “Health and Transparency programme” with providing the international expertise and advice on effective and efficient implementation of the programme components: (a) procure medicines and medical products for the MOH; and (b) strengthen the capacity of the Ministry to ensure transparency, accountability and effectiveness of the public procurement of medicines and other medical products. The consultants will also provide the technical assistance and guidance to the Ministry of Health on the public procurement reform, effective HIV/AIDs response assist in development the appropriate sustainability strategy. S/he will also engage closely with the other UN agencies, specifically WHO, UNAIDS and UNICEF.

Description of responsibilities / scope of work 

In order to achieve the overall goal of the assignment, the consultant is expected to:

• Provide substantive guidance and oversight for the implementation of the whole Health and Transparency Programme;
• Ensure successful delivery of resources and results for the whole health and transparency programme, including health procurement, capacity building, promotion of health reform, implementation of HIV and TB interventions; 
• Ensure that all health products procurements are done with highest standards of quality and in a timely manner, following the terms in the agreements with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and corporate standards;
• Coordinate communication regarding the programme performance, planning and lessons learned with the key counterparts (including the Ministry, donors, patients’ associations, pharmaceutical companies etc);
• Lead development of the risk management strategy ensuring regular updates and careful risk mitigation;
• Negotiate with WHO PP team, arrange and facilitate trainings to pharmaceutical companies to ensure that they meet the highest standards of transparency, abide by the quality assurance standards and provide hands on support to companies to meet the WHO prequalification requirements and obtain WHO prequalification;
• Provide substantive guidance and support to new programming on health and recovery working closely with the Recovery and Peacebuilding team;
• Conduct regular assessment of the programme needs, including by engaging experts, and depending on the demand arrange the necessary trainings (e.g. quality assurance, PSM, medical products specifications development and procurement specificities trainings);
• Provide substantive guidance and leadership on the reform agenda and overall efforts to promote health, transparency and sustainable procurement, including in follow up to various research and studies with World Bank (PETs), SIVA etc.;
• Provide substantive advice with regards to new financing agreement with the Ministry of Health;
• Provide guidance and support on policy and legal development on HIV/TB, intellectual property, health reform agenda, etc.;
• Provide expertise and solid inputs to analysis, presentations, policy papers, issues related to registration of medicines etc.;
• Provide expert inputs towards the development of new proposals related to healthcare sector facilitated by Developed Solution Team;
• Work closely with the team to conduct cost analysis, market research and effective ways to deliver medicines in the country in the most transparent and efficient ways;
• Present UNDP results and work to all concerned parties.

Deliverables

The expected duration of the assignment is up to 4 months. The target date for the start of work is 1 September 2018. Due to routine nature of the given assignment, the Consultant would be required to regularly coordinate the list of short and medium-term plans/deliverables with DCD and proceed with implementation.

Deliverable1: Monthly reports capturing the list of deliverables and progress made and the plan for next month - each month.

Deliverable 2: Final report covering the whole assignment, followed with recommendations and all relevant Annexes (e.g. project’s sustainability strategy, presentations, updated AWP, concept notes, etc. - by the end of 4th contractual month.

Copyright

The Intermediate and Final reports should be submitted in English. The title rights, copyrights and all other rights whatsoever nature in any material produced under the provisions of this TORs will be vested exclusively in UNDP.

Monitoring/reporting requirements

• Work-progress reporting/monitoring meetings will be held with the Consultant on a regular basis. UNDP will be the final authority to control the quality and evaluate the work. No reports or documents should be published or distributed to third parties without approval of UNDP;
• The Consultant will work under the overall supervision of the DCD (P) with cross cutting reporting to the Program Specialist.

Proposed payment method

Daily fee remuneration will be disbursed on a monthly basis upon satisfactory delivery of agreed services based on time-sheets indicating the days worked and short details of tasks completed per week approved by Deputy Country Director.

Management Arrangements 

The consultant shall be responsible for managing the process of the work implementation, its resources, logistics and expenditures related to the tasks in timely and accurate manner. The consultant shall report directly to Deputy Country Director Programmes .

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling 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 favoritism;
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

• At least Master’s degree or equivalent in Public Health, Pharmacy, Management, Health Economics and/or other relevant area. PhD will be an asset;
• At least 8 years of work experience and proven track record in capacity building, health and development and overall procurement areas;
• Understanding of the international policies and procedures on public health and health governance will be an asset;
• Expertise with UNDP and overall UN procurement rules is an asset;
• Expertise in capacity building interventions in healthcare sphere on national or international levels;
• Strong interpersonal and presentation skills;
• Fluent in English, professional knowledge of Russian. Good knowledge of Ukrainian language would be an asset;
• Prior experience of working in UN or other international organizations would be an asset.

Applicants shall submit the following documents:

• Letter of interest/proposal, explaining why the applicant considers him- or herself the most suitable for the work;
• Personal CV in the form of P11, including information about past experience in similar projects / assignments and contact details for referees;
• Financial proposal.

Evaluation

Education:

University degree in Public Health, Pharmacy, Management, Economics and/or other relevant area – max 10 points (master’s degree – 7 points, PhD – 10 points).

Experience:

• Prior experience in leading the health programme in UN or other international organizations – 10 points max;
• Relevant work experience and proven track record in capacity building, health and development areas – max 20 points (8-10 years of experience – 12 points, 10-15 years – 15 points, more than 15 years – 20 points);
• Expertise in capacity building interventions in healthcare sphere on national level – max 15 points (1-4 years of experience – 10 points, more than 5 years – 15 points);
• Language skills - 10 points max (7 points –fluent English and professional knowledge of Russian; fluent English, professional knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian – 10 points);
• Prior experience of working in UN or other international organizations – 5 points max (5 points –one or more assignments).

Maximum available technical score – 70 points.

Evaluation method: Cumulative analysis

Contract award shall be made to the incumbent whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
• having received the cumulative highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

* Technical Criteria weight: 70% (70 points)

* Financial Criteria weight: 30% (30 points)

Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70% from the maximum available technical score (49 points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal and will equal to 30. All other price proposals will be evaluated and assigned points, as per below formula:

30 points [max points available for financial part] x [lowest of all evaluated offered prices among responsive offers] / [evaluated price].

The proposal obtaining the overall cumulatively highest score after adding the score of the technical proposal and the financial proposal will be considered as the most compliant offer and will be awarded a contract.

Travel

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 the Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should 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.