UNDP Jobs - 84302- Innovation Consultant

Innovation Consultant

Location :

Amman -Jordan

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

21-Apr-2019

Application Deadline :

31-Mar-19 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

25 working days from contract signature date until 31 May

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.

The Green Finance Innovation project is a regional initiative (2018-2019) to help partners in the region scale up investments to achieve the goals of the new Arab Sustainable Energy Strategy (ASES) and the Pan-Arab Clean Energy (PACE) initiative, both led by the Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (RCREEE) in partnership with IRENA and other partners. It focused on two key outputs: (i) development of a regional report on derisking renewable energy investments to assess the challenges and opportunities for sustainable energy finance, and (ii) support to regional entities to establish a regional platform to serve as a marketplace for generating solutions, public-private partnerships and new investments.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the Green Finance Innovation project, UNDP is engaging Innovation Specialist for output (ii), to support regional entities in establishing a regional platform to serve as a marketplace for generating sustainable energy solutions, public-private partnerships and new investments. UNDPs partner RCREEE is in process of developing an Investor Platform for Renewable Energy in the Middle East and North Africa (IPREME) in partnership with European Investment Bank (EIB), Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the Netherlands. UNDP plans to join as a partner in IPREME and support emergence of the new mechanism in the region. The Innovation Specialist will help identify means to enhance the development of the platform with the aim of infusing the process with UNDP approaches to the design and functioning of innovation and investment platforms and ways IPREME could connect to UNDPs country level activities in the region. This could include but not be limited to the role of the platform in facilitating project ideation, development and financing of low-carbon investments; mobilizing private finance, impact investors, Islamic finance, crowd funding and other forms of innovative finance. This will draw on UNDPs tools and expertise in expanding support to partners on innovative finance with models and lessons around the world.

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 innovation, finance, or = other closely related field.

Years of experience

Minimum 3 years of previous working experience in innovation, finance, or any other closely related field with international or regional organizations; including preparing reports on the topic.
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 Arabic, is an asset.

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT

The individual is required to exhibit his or her full-time commitment with UNDP;
S/He shall perform tasks under the general guidance of UNDPs Team Leader in the Arab Region for Climate Change, DRR, Energy & Environment and the direct supervision of the Regional Energy Specialist. 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 UNDP 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 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.

DURATION OF THE WORK

The duration of the work is expected to be 25 working days from contract signature date until 31 May.

DUTY STATION

The assignment is based at UNDPs Regional Hub in Amman, with possible travel to countries in the Arab region for sake of consultation.

TRAVEL PLAN

If unforeseen travel outside the consultant duty station is requested by UNDP and not required by the Terms of References (ToR), such travel shall be covered by UNDP 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).

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
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;
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);

Interested candidates shall submit above documents to the Job Advertisement Website: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm as one document not later than 31st March, 2019

Interested candidates can find Procurement notice, letter of confirmation of interest and availability and P11 on http://procurement-notices.undp.org/

Please do not submit financial proposal in this stage. Financial proposal shall be requested from Candidates who are considered technically responsive.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF THE BEST OFFERS

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 innovation, finance, or any other development related field;
Criteria B: Minimum 3 years of previous working experience in innovation and finance, or any other related field with international or regional organizations;
Criteria D: Language proficiency and writing skills in English

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 innovation, finance, or any other development related field (20 points);
Criteria B: Minimum 3 years of previous working experience in innovation, finance, or any other related field with international or regional organizations, including development of reports on the topic (40 points);
Criteria C: Previous working experience with the United Nations (UN) (15 points);
Criteria D: Language proficiency and writing skills in English (10 points);
Criteria D: Technical proposal 15 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.