UNDP Jobs - 82179- Consultancy – Programme Criticality Secretariat Su

Consultancy – Programme Criticality Secretariat Support, UNDP/CB

Location :

New York City, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

19-Dec-2018

Application Deadline :

05-Dec-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

3 months, Up to 31 March 2019

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

3 months, Up to 31 March 2019

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 Programme Criticality (PC) Framework is a common United Nations system policy for decision-making on acceptable risk. It is closely linked to the United Nations security risk management (SRM) process to determine levels of acceptable security risk for programmes and mandated activities implemented by UN personnel. It is a key mechanism to enable the UN to stay and deliver the most critical programmes and mandated activities even at high or very high security risk. The PC Framework is implemented as a mandatory policy of the Organization in environments of high or very high security risk. ?The determination of the PC level for specific United Nations activities within a given geographic location and timeframe is done through a PC assessment. All UN entities whose personnel operate in high or very-high risk areas are required to participate in a PC assessment and to use its results in day-to-day decision-making on acceptable security risk. Accountability for the conduct of the PC assessment rests with the senior most UN official in country (SRSG/Head of Mission in mission setting, RC in non-mission setting).

At HQ level, the inter-agency Programme Criticality Steering Group exercises strategic oversight, while the Programme Criticality Coordination Team (PCCT) and the Programme Criticality Secretariat provide day-to-day operational support and advice to UN country presences in conducting PC assessments and implementing its results. The PCCT and the PC Secretariat are the main points of contact for United Nations teams and senior leaders on Programme Criticality.

The PCSG and PCCT are coordinated by a rotating co-chairmanship. From 2015 until 2018, UNDP has acted as one of the two co-chairs (alongside OCHA until 2017 and since 2018 alongside UNFPA). UNDP has also hosted the PC Secretariat since early 2016. As of 2019, UNDP will hand over its co-chair role to another entity, and the PC Secretariat and the administration of the cost-shared budget will move to UNFPA.

Note: The PCCT is currently co-chaired by UNDP and ??UNFPA; other members are FAO, DOCO, DPA, DPKO-DFS, OCHA, UNDSS, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, WHO.

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK, RESPONSIBILITIES AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED ANALYTICAL WORK

Expected outputs and deliverables:

Provide Secretariat support to the inter-agency Programme Criticality Coordination Team (PCCT) and Programme Criticality Steering Group (PCSG):

Support co-chairs and PCCT/PCSG members in substantive follow-up on Programme Criticality implementation and maintain PCCT/PCSG documentation;
Work with PCCT/PCSG co-chairs and members in preparing and supporting PCSG meetings and preparing/maintaining documentation, drafting minutes and tracking follow-up actions.

Act as first point of contact to UN field presences and provide support in preparing for Programme Criticality assessment

Under the guidance of the PCCT co-chairs, liaise with UN field offices and provide timely support to preparations for and execution of Programme Criticality assessments. Respond to queries and requests for information on the Programme Criticality methodology and/or assessment process from UN Country Teams and/or field missions;
Coordinate the deployment of inter-agency teams of trained PC facilitators; Receive and review facilitators’ back to office reports and Programme Criticality assessment results and maintain up-to-date records of assessments.
Support co-chairs in providing briefings on Programme Criticality to country offices, as requested;
Maintain oversight of past and planned Programme Criticality country assessments and results.

Coordinate training courses and maintain a pool of Programme Criticality facilitators:

Work with PCCT co-chairs on preparing and carrying the first of two annual trainings of PC facilitators, with a focus on Africa/MENA;
Keep the inter-agency pool of Programme Criticality facilitators up to date.

Facilitate knowledge management and support the successful transfer of the PC Secretariat from UNDP to UNFPA

Maintain the PC website, database of PC assessments, Yammer community of practice and internal archive of the Programme Criticality Secretariat;
Support the operational closure of the Programme Criticality project in UNDP, including through the preparation of financial and narrative reports;
Facilitate the successful transfer of the PC Secretariat to UNFPA latest by 31 March 2019.
Any other duties as may be assigned.

Competencies

A.Core Competencies

Innovation - Ability to make new and useful ideas work.
Coordination - Ability to engage in inter-agency processes and ensure UNDP positioning.
Partnerships - Ability to engage with other agencies and forge productive working relationships.
Communication - Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform.
Delivery - Ability to get things done
People Management - Demonstrates behaviors of teamwork, collaboration, knowledge sharing, maintaining relationships

B. Functional Competencies:

Crisis Response and Early Recovery - Knowledge of crisis response and early recovery policies and inter-agency mechanisms.
Communicating Information and Ideas - Excellent oral and written skills to develop knowledge products in relevant areas;
Knowledge Management - Ability to capture, develop, share and effectively use information and knowledge
UN System & Organizational Awareness - Knowledge of the UN System and ability to apply to strategic and/or practical situation

Working in Teams - Works collaboratively with colleagues across the UN system at field level and HQ

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications:

Education

Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in international development, economics, business administration, social sciences or related disciplines. An undergraduate degree and at least four years of relevant work experience are acceptable in lieu of a Master’s Degree

Experience

A minimum of five years of relevant experience providing advisory and technical support in the area of crisis response, UN coordination and in supporting UN inter-agency processes, required
Experience with UN programme criticality and/or security risk management is highly desirable
Field experience in an emergency/crisis context, required.
Demonstrated professional interest in UN field operations in fragile and conflict-affected settings, required.
Proven ability to deliver in a timely manner within cost and quality standards.
Proven ability to work in a multicultural setting

Language requirements

The candidate should have excellent command of the English language, both written and oral. Very good knowledge of French, Spanish or Arabic would be an asset.

Application Procedure

The application package containing the following:

A cover letter with a brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment;
Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references; and
Financial Proposal using template provided.

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.

The financial proposal should specify an all-inclusive daily fee (based on a 7 hour working day - lunch time is not included - and estimated 21.75 days per month).
The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; (excluding mission travel); living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual 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.
If the 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 a 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
The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.

Evaluation process

Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below. Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.

Criteria for long-listing:

Above-mentioned qualifications, with emphasis on minimum of five years of relevant experience providing advisory and technical support in the area of crisis response, UN coordination and/or in supporting UN inter-agency processes.

Technical evaluation - Total 70% (70 points):

Field experience in an emergency/crisis context. Weight=280 points
Experience with UN programme criticality and/or security risk management. Weight=175 points
Demonstrated professional interest in UN field operations in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Weight=175 points
Relevance of education to the position. Weight=70 points

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (49 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

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

Contract Award

Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into contract with UNDP.

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will be based in the UNDP Crisis Bureau in New York and will report to the P4-Programme Specialist (outgoing PCCT co-chair). The consultant will work closely with the 2019 PCCT co-chairs.

The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop.

Payment modality

Payment to the Individual Contractor will be made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager.
The work week will be based on 35 hours, i.e. on a 7 hour working day, with core hours being between 9h00 and 18h00 daily.

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 Form for ICs

Annex 2 - IC Contract Template

Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions

Annex 4 – RLA Template

Any request for clarification must be sent by email to cpu.bids@undp.org

The UNDP Central Procurement Unit will respond by email and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants.