Background

Illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts is an escalating driver of biodiversity loss. Unprecedented biological or commercial extinction of many life forms is now a critical reality throughout the world, jeopardizing the very foundations of biodiversity, including the future well-being of humans and requiring unprecedented political will, social sacrifice and law enforcement action to stem further losses. Progressively, through the advent of the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1976, together with a host of national legislative and regulatory instruments and mechanisms, the global community has moved to address the threat to thousands of species of wildlife poised by unfettered trade. Although the value of illegal trade remains uncertain, it has variously been estimated at between USD 5 – 20 billion per annum. These estimates suggest that wildlife crime is the fourth most lucrative type of transnational crime after illegal narcotics, humans and armaments.

In partnership with the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation (DNP) of Thailand, IUCN, TRAFFIC and TRACE, UNDP in Thailand has developed a Project Document on “Combatting Illegal Wildlife Trade, focusing on Ivory, Rhino Horn, tiger, and Pangolins in Thailand” with the support of USD 4.5 M from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Cycle 6 under the Biodiversity Focal Area (Program 3).  This is a UNDP supported national child project under the ‘Global Partnership on Wildlife Conservation and Crime Prevention for Sustainable Development” led by the World Bank.

The Project Objective is to reduce the trafficking of wildlife (focusing on elephant ivory, rhinoceros horn, tiger and pangolins) in Thailand through enhanced enforcement capacity and collaboration and targeted behavioral change campaigns.  To achieve this objective, the project will utilize four strategies as follows

Component 1: Improved Cooperation, Coordination and Information Exchange.  This will strengthen the collaboration mechanism and provide a platform for exchange of information among the responsible agencies for illegal wildlife trade (IWT) law enforcement.

Component 2: Enhanced Enforcement and Prosecution Capacity.  This will increase the coherence and capacity of law enforcement agencies to address and deter illegal trafficking of wildlife (focusing on elephant ivory, rhinoceros horn, tigers and pangolins) through strengthening the cross-sectoral enforcement and prosecution framework.

Component 3: Reduced demand for illegal wildlife products and targeted awareness actions to support law enforcement.  The project will work with partners to learn from existing efforts and achieve cumulative impact through a Steering Group and the Community of Practice on Demand Reduction.  The activities will focus a well-defined systematic process for developing, implementing and evaluating SBCC initiatives.  This component aims to increase awareness of prevailing laws and upcoming WARPA reforms and publicize convictions to strengthen deterrence of wildlife trafficking.

Component 4: Knowledge Management, Monitoring and Evaluation and Gender Mainstreaming.  This component closely links with and underpins the other three, by supporting the sharing of knowledge, experiences and lessons learned through project implementation with project stakeholders the wider public in Thailand, and globally through the GEF-financed, World Bank-led Global Wildlife Program, of which this project is a part.

To support the implementation of the project and ensure effective implementation and timely delivery, UNDP Thailand Country Office is recruiting a Senior Advisor (SA) to work with the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP) and UNDP to support Thailand in combatting illegal wildlife trade in Thailand.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective:

The objectives of the assignment are to:

1. Advise the Project Board, Task Forces, Working Groups on strategic’s project management and technical issues, including oversight of a day-to-day management, supervision over consultants and sub-contractors;
2. Support the Project Director who will be responsible for meeting government obligations under the Project;
3. Perform an advisory role with the government officials, local NGOs/CSOs, private sectors, universities, community leaders, with particular attention towards engagement of the Royal Thai Police and other Responsible Parties.

Scope of Work:

The SA will provide advice for the overall management and technical input to the Project, including day-to-day management, supervision of consultants and sub-contractors. The SA will report to the Project Director in close consultation with UNDP Programme Specialist for all of the Project’s substantive and technical issues. Generally, the SA will support the PD who will be responsible for meeting government obligations under the Project, under the NIM execution modality. The SA will perform an advisory role with the government partners, INGOs and project partners, with particular attention towards engagement of the Royal Thai Police and IUCN, TRAFFIC and TRACE as Responsible Partner. The SA will work closely with and in support of the Project Manager and the Co-Manager.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide advice on overall management and technical issues of the project to the project director in close cooperation with the project manager
• Provide technical inputs with regards to the implementaton of overall project to PMU on planned activities of the project to ensure that the project results are technically sound, coherent, and in accordance with the result framework.
• Provide technical inputs especially to Component 1 of the project, including leading and facilitating project inputs to Thailand WEN, and the development and operation of local inter-agency task forces for Sadao & Rattanawapi District border regions led by the Royal Thai Police.
• Provide support for implementation of the overall project to PMU and monitor progress against the approved work-plan.
• Supervise the production of project outputs, as per the project document in a timely and high-quality fashion.
• Supervise the work of consultants and sub-contractors ensuring timing and quality of outputs.
• Liaise and coordinate with the Responsible Parties with regard to the deliverables of the project results and ensure that technical inputs from sub-contractors are integrated in the implementation of the project
• Liaise and coordinate with the Technical Advisory Consortium to ensure that their advice is taken into account during project planning and implementation processes
• Network with different stakeholders in the field
• Provide advice on the preparation, revision and submission of the project work plans, as required by Project Board and UNDP.
• Assist in the preparation of the ToRs for hiring consulants and provide quality assurance for the consultants’ technical reports
• Supervise the management and monitor the project risks initially identified and submit new risks to the project board for consideration and decision on possible actions if required; update the status of these risks by maintaining the project risks log.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

The consultant is expected to deliver the followings:

FINAL PRODUCTS:

• Project 1st Year Project Work Plan and Activity Plan for consideration of Project Board
• Inception Report
• ToR for operational task forces under Thailand WEN
• Organisational structure and revised membership of Thailand WEN
• Draft TORs of project consultants (see above)
• Workplans of responsible parties engaged by UNDP
• Agreement for an information-sharing protocol for Thailand WEN agencies
• List of the designation of specified staff of relevant agencies as Competent Officers under WARPA, or official wildlife officer
• Project Work Plan and 2nd year Activity Plan for consideration of Project Board
• Updated Project risk log
• Monthly progress report must be submitted at the end of each month, detailing the outputs, key observations, and work plan for the following months.

Institutional Arrangement

The consultant will report to the Project Director and UNDP Programme Specialist, IGSD Unit, UNDP Thailand.

Duration of the Assignment

The consultant is expected to work 96 working days during the period from 15 November 2018 to 30 November 2019.

Duty Station

The consultant will work in Bangkok with travels to related project sites in Nong Khai and Songkla or other provinces in Thailand up to 4 trips. The travel will be up to 3 days for each trip.

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

• Thai national
• An advance university degree (MSc or PhD) in Wildlife conservation and management, forestry, natural resource management, environmental management, or related field.
• At least 10 years of experience in natural resource management, with senior responsibilities related to wildlife protection, wildlife law enforcement, CITES implementation and/or similar specializations;
• At least 5 years of demonstrable project/program management experience;
• At least 5 years of experience working with high ranking officials of ministries, national or provincial institutions that are concerned with natural resource and/or environmental management;
• Sound knowledge and understanding on illegal wildlife trade issues, biodiversity conservation and protected area land/seascape management would be preferable;
• Have experience in project implementation and result-based management;
• Have working networks with government institutions, non-governmental organisations and local practitioners related to illegal wildlife trade are a plus;
• Excellent communication (both oral and written) and partnership building skills with multi-dimension partners, people skill for conflict resolution and negotiation;
• Computer proficiency especially related to professional office software packages (Microsoft Office)
• Excellent language skills in English (writing, speaking and reading) and Thai with strong technical writing skills.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment:

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, travel costs, living allowance (if any work is to be done outside the IC´s duty station) and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:

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 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 Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points)

1. Relevance of Education – Max 10 points
2. Special skills (e.g. writing, presentation and facilitation etc.) - Max 10 Points
3. Relevance of experience in area of specialisation (e.g. wildlife conservation and management, environmental management, development study, issues in developing countries, institutional capacity development etc) - Max 15 points
4. Relevance of experience in key areas (e.g. project development and/or programme management) – Max 20 points
5. Assessment of a cover letter – Max 15 Points

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Documents to be Included When Submitting the Proposals:

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

ANNEXES

Annex I - TOR_Senior Advisor

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=50862