UNDP Jobs - 81686- Individual Contractor (IC)

Individual Contractor (IC) –Energy Advisor Consultancy

Location :

Home based consultancy – with possible travel to Arab countries Project:

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

15-Nov-2018

Application Deadline :

24-Oct-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

52 working days from contract signature date over a period of 6 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. UNDP is the UN’s largest provider of grant assistance in sustainable energy and climate change, with over $3 billion of projects today. Under UNDP’s Strategic Plan (2018-2021), a key focus of technical assistance is support for promoting innovative solutions that scale up finance from a diversity of public and private sources and accelerate results towards sustainable energy and climate targets. Today’s momentum remains inadequate in delivering the needed transformation especially in attracting private sector investments in sustainable energy. Financial flows for sustainable energy, low carbon, climate resilient development remain marginal to the deployment of capital, while the financial system remains disconnected from the long-term development needs.

Climate change and sustainable energy have risen to the top of the development agenda in recent years, with action supported by the passage of the SDGs especially SDG-7 and SDG- 13, and the entry into force of the Paris Agreement on climate change. As countries move to achieve local results, a key focus has turned to the need for expanded access to finance. It has been estimated that achieving the goals set in the countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement will require over $53 trillion of new investments by 2030. Mobilizing this magnitude of capital in turn requires new and innovative solutions that lower the risk investors face in scaling up sustainable energy and climate investments in developing countries.

This is particularly important for the Arab region, already the world most water insecure, food import dependent region, and with temperatures rising faster than the global average. Climate impacts are converging with broader drivers of social instability, generating new forms of poverty and displacement with regional and global consequences. Furthermore, while hosting the world’s highest levels of solar radiation, solar makes up just 7% of the region’s power mix.

The region hosts some of the world’s largest solar farms, in Morocco, UAE and Egypt, examples of how blended finance can achieve scale. But beyond large projects in stable MIC/HIC markets, a major challenge exists to reduce investor risks and scale up finance for more challenging contexts in the region, and in a way that generates SDG benefits for poverty reduction, women’s empowerment, water security, etc. This is a core challenge for NDC achievement across the region, with USD hundreds of billions of new investments foreseen to accelerate a shift to a climate resilience future.

The Green Finance Innovation Platform: De risking Renewable Energy Investments in the Arab Region project is a partnership complementing effort of de-risking renewable energy investments work of UNDP with other partners. It supports the embryonic Pan-Arab Clean Energy (PACE) platform, a network of public and private partners across 18 countries in the Arab region (Middle East, North Africa, Arab Peninsula and Horn of Africa) being established by IRENA and RCREEE. PACE aims to serve four platform functions: generation of analytics and information for decision-making, convening policy dialogues on challenges and solutions, brokering partnerships for action, and supporting the project development and investment cycle.

Duties and Responsibilities

UNDP is engaging a De-risking Renewable Energy Investments (DREI) Energy Advisor Consultancy services to explore opportunities for De-risking Renewable Energy Investments in the Arab Region. The Advisor will be responsible for generating information to get the Pan-Arab Clean Energy (PACE) platform off the ground with the aim of de-risking low carbon investments, generating innovative solutions for nexus results across SDGs, and bringing together public-private partnerships to finance bankable initiatives.

Activities in 2018 will commence with the initial generation of analytics and information about de-risking scaled up investment into low carbon solutions, across the various country typologies that exist in the Arab region: LDCs, MICs and crisis contexts. This could help identify finance gaps in implementing NDCs and means by which innovative de-risking policies and approaches can help unlock new investments. Following this, 2019 will see the project activities focused on jointly establishing a sustainable energy marketplace among Arab member countries of PACE to support project ideation, development and financing of low-carbon investments; mobilizing private finance, impact investors, Islamic finance, crowd funding and other forms of innovative finance. Specifically, the advisor will do the following: scoping exercise of opportunities and mapping of on-going and completed country office projects that have de-risking elements, extract emerging lessons, identify gaps, challenges and opportunities based on the typologies of countries including High Income Countries (HIC) especially the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries, Middle Income countries (MIC), LDCs and Countries in Crisis context. Finally, the advisor will document the outcome of the work into de-risking of sustainable energy investments in the Arab region as a publication.

III. EXPECTED OUTPUTS AND DELIVERABLES

Expected Outputs and Deliverables Target Due Dates Expected number of working days for each deliverable Review and Approvals Required

• Scoping exercise for identification of countries for analysis for de-risking sustainable energy investments across the various country typologies that exist in the Arab region.

Initial report of analysis based on the scoping exercise.

15th December 2018

Up to 23 working days

• Analytics and information processing including about challenges and solutions for de-risking scaled up investment into low carbon solutions in LDCs, MICs, HICs and crisis contexts.

15th of February 2019

14 working days

• In concert with IRENA and RCREEE, identify gaps in implementing sustainable energy programmes including energy related NDCs and means by which innovative de-risking policies and approaches can help unlock new investments.

• Produce a report of the analysis and information for decision-making depicting lessons, experiences, gaps, challenges and opportunities for scaling up de-risking actions in the Arab region.

15th May 2018

15 working days

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 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 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.

V. DURATION OF THE WORK

The duration of the work is expected to be 52 working days from contract signature date over a period of 6 months.

VI. 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).

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

Managing Complexity
o Ability to address global development issues;
o Demonstrated substantive leadership and ability to integrate knowledge with broader strategic, policy and operational objectives.
Knowledge Management and Learning
o Ability to strongly promote and build knowledge products;
o Promotes knowledge management in UNDP and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example;
o Seeks and applies knowledge, information and best practices from within and outside of UNDP;
o Demonstrates a strong capacity for innovation and creativity in providing strategic policy advice and direction.
Judgment/Decision-Making
o Mature judgment and initiative;
o Proven ability to provide strategic direction to the project implementation process;
o Independent judgment and discretion in advising on handling major policy issues and challenges, uses diplomacy and tact to achieve result.

Required Skills and Experience

I. Academic Qualifications:

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

II. Years of experience:

Minimum 10 years of previous working experience in climate change, energy environment, green finance, or any other closely related field with international or regional organizations;
7 years of previous working experience in preparing reports or documents or publications about sustainable energy or climate change mitigation sub-sectors .
5 years of previous working experience in the policy development processes on sustainable energy
Previous working experience with the United Nations (UN) is an advantage;

III. 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.

VIII. FINANCIAL PROPOSAL
Interested candidates should provide lump sum fees for requested services with detailed breakdown. This amount must be “all-inclusive”. 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 52 working days. Milestone Estimated due date Expected number of working days for each deliverable Payment

IX. 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 24 of October 2018. Candidates that fail to submit the required information on or before the set deadline will not be considered.
a) Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
b) Personal CV or P11, indicating all experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
c) 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)

d) Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive Deliverables/Outputs based total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided for 52 working days over period of 6 months.

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.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF THE BEST OFFERS
This selection criteria will follow the Combined Scoring method – where the qualifications and methodology will be weighted a max. of 70%, and combined with the price offer which will be weighted a max of 30%; using the following evaluation criteria: Criteria Weight Max. Point

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: 7 years of previous working experience in preparing reports or documents or publications about sustainable energy or climate change mitigation sub-sectors(15 points);
• Criteria D: 5 years of previous working experience in the policy development processes on sustainable energy(15 points);
• Criteria E: Previous working experience with the United Nations (UN) (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.