Background

The Crisis Bureau (CB) is responsible for UNDP’s corporate crisis response strategy and capability. It develops and drives UNDP’s vision and priorities for crisis response, coordinates and facilitates UNDP’s crisis response with a whole-of-UNDP approach, provides oversight for all UNDP crisis response actions and ensures high quality engagement of the organization in crisis in general. The responsibility of CB focuses primarily upon and is confined to the two specific typologies of crisis listed below, to which CB provides support for limited duration: 

• Sudden onset crisis: This would include countries that have been affected by natural disasters or sudden outbreak of armed conflicts;
• Complex protracted crisis: Examples include countries that are impacted by protracted conflicts, often with regional implications. 

CB’s key functions, include: i) advising UNDP on identifying the level of a particular crisis or on scaling up or down a particular response; ii) leading timely and informed decision-making and management actions, particularly on high level crises; iii) supporting early warning and guiding corporate preparedness for crisis response; iv) managing UNDP’s crisis response tools (including Standard Operating Procedures for Crisis Response and the Crisis Response Packages); and v) managing deployments for crisis response through the SURGE and ExpRes rosters. The deployment of technical and operations experts through the SURGE (UNDP Staff), ExpRes (Consultants), and Standby Partnerships mechanisms are a key component of UNDP’s response to the immediate crisis and technical support to Country Offices. 

SURGE Advisors are UNDP staff with extensive crisis experience in at least one of 18 generic UNDP profiles who are deployed to fill capacity gaps within CO units facing unexpected workload/portfolio requirements due to a crisis.  

The Experts Roster for Rapid Response (ExpRes) is a recruitment and deployment mechanism which maintains pre-vetted consultants on a roster and contracts them quickly for country office support.  The primary purpose of this roster has been to deploy Crisis Prevention and Recovery (CPR) technical experts to UNDP Country Offices on short notice in the aftermath of a crisis and for CPR Programming. 

UNDP has Memorandums of Understanding with eight Stand by Partners who provide in-kind support to the UN through the deployment of technical expertise for crisis preparedness and response.  

The RRPT is also responsible for managing deployment infrastructure and this includes expert databases, deployment tracking systems (DTS), automated communication tools, trainings and communications materials. The experts database allow for collating of all information related to the experts such as qualifications, availability etc. and also serves as the search engine for identifying experts for specific assignments.     

Under the overall supervision of the Team Leader, Rapid Response and Preparedness Team, and the day to day management of the Programme Specialist (Deployments), the Consultant  will be responsible for the effective and efficient functioning of the CB’s Deployment mechanisms, support region specific deployments and maintain the various rosters in coordination with the UNDPs Bureau's, Country Offices and hubs in support of the selection, recruitment, deployment and support of field personnel in emergency situations

Duties and Responsibilities

Expected Outputs and Deliverables: 

• Deployment of experts from CB Rosters to country offices undertaken - ongoing, monthly targeting approx. 10 -15 deployments
• Deployment infrastructure and databases enhanced and kept up to date - ongoing, monthly with internal stick-taking every 3 months
• Vetting systems for new experts enhanced - 31st June 2019
• Support provided for capacity building initiatives and trainings -  30th September 2019
• Support provided for the integration of UNDP rosters across the Crisis Bureau and Development Policy Bureau. - ongoing, monthly

Competencies

Ethics & Values:

• Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity;
• Demonstrates and promotes the highest standard of integrity, impartiality, fairness and incorruptibility in all matters affecting his/her work and status.

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment understands the structure and hierarchy of UN/UNDP, process flows throughout the organization, products and services, their measures of effectiveness, and perceptions of clients;
• Excellent knowledge of development issues and internationally-agreed development goals;

Working in Teams:

• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work;
• Works collaboratively with colleagues inside UN/UNDP as well as its partners and other stakeholders to pursue common goals.
• Ability to work at ease in a multicultural setting.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
• Delivers verbal/written information in a timely, clear, organized and easily understood manner;
• Excellent oral and written skills to develop knowledge products in relevant areas;
• Strong communication skills and the ability to listen and take direction and leadership from others.

Self-Management & Emotional Intelligence:

• Creating synergies through self-control tolerates conditions of stress, uncertainty or ambiguity and continues to maintain a positive outlook and to work productively.

Knowledge Sharing & Continuous Learning:

• Ability to efficiently handle and share information and knowledge.

Functional competencies:

• Knowledge of crisis response and early recovery policies and inter-agency mechanisms;
• Ability to implement methods and tools for crisis situations;
• Excellent writing skills in English.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications:

Education:

• At least Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in international Relations and/or Regional Studies, Project Management, Human Resources or Information Technology.

Experience:

• Minimum  of 2 years of relevant work experience, in roster management, operations, talent management and/or HR, preferably in the development and/or humanitarian arena required
• General understanding of UN/UNDPs technical work, in development and/or the humanitarian area in general preferred
• Experience in working in fast paced environment on reporting, social media and events/workshops preferred; 
• Flexibility and organization and are highly preferred;
• Computer proficient and well versed in the use of the HR databases, online portals, Excel and Word required

Language Requirements:

• Proficiency in English both written and oral is a must;

Application Procedure

An application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):

• Online application with brief description of why the applicant considers her/himself the most suitable candidate for the assignment; and
• 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.

Note: The above documents needed to be scanned into one file and uploaded to the online application as a single 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; cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; 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 applicant 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 into the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.
• The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instructions in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.

Evaluation process

Applicants are reviewed based on the 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%.

Technical Evaluation - Total 70% (700 points)

• Criteria 1: Proven and relevant experience in working on deployment mechanisms, databases, rosters and/or human resources – 200 points (50 points for 1 year, 100 points for 2 years, 150 for 2 years, 200 for more than 2 years)
• Criteria 2: Understanding of operations and HR practices and ability to work in a multicultural setting – 150 points.
• Criteria 3: Proven ability to deliver in a timely manner related to supporting time bound work – 150 points
• Criteria 4: Proven networking skills including support to events and outreach – 200 points (experience with supporting social media efforts (+75p), trainings (+75p) and events (+75p))

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (500 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial Evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

• The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposals:
• 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

The 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 report to the SURGE Deployment Coordinator/Deployment Specialist in the Crisis Interface Team, UNDP Crisis Response Unit, New York. A work station will be provided to the consultant in the UNDP Crisis Response Unit. The consultant is expected to bring a laptop. Frequent interactions and consultations with a variety of UN stakeholders will form an integral part of the consultant’s duties.

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.