Background

Business and Human Rights in Asia: Promoting Sustainable Business through Regional Partnerships Project & Human Rights Programme Project

National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh is taking a lead on implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in the country. In this premise to support the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP) in Asia-Pacific, the UNDP Regional Hub has launched the initiative, “Supporting Regional and National Partnerships for the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in Asia-Pacific” through the Business and Human Rights in Asia: Promoting Sustainable Business through Regional Partnerships Project. The goal of this regional initiative is to increase state and business compliance with international human rights standards. It will achieve this by strengthening the implementation of the UNGPs through awareness raising, advocacy, peer learning, and training. This regional strategy will be implemented by promoting the development of National Action Plans on Business human rights with the relevant stakeholders including UNDP, NHRIs and CSOs in Bangladesh. The Human Rights Programme (HRP), UNDP Bangladesh is supporting implementation of the initiative in Bangladesh.

The Human Rights Programme (HRP) is a new initiative undertaken by UNDP, Bangladesh supported by a consortium of donors. UNDP has developed the Human Rights Programme to complement but not limited to support previous work of National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh (NHRCB). The Human Rights Programme is designed to contribute to build the capacity of existing human rights architecture in Bangladesh. The programme supports the National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh (NHRCB), as well as other government institutions or agencies including law enforcing agencies, CSOs, media and other relevant stakeholders to improve human rights practice and culture across the country.

The Human Rights Programme has five Outputs:

Output 1: Strengthened capacity of the National Human Rights Commission to deliver on its mandate.

Output 2: Enhanced capacity of civil society and community-based organisations to engage in human rights advocacy and awareness raising.

Output 3: Enhanced capacity of law enforcement agencies, in particular police, on human rights issues.

Output 4: Strengthened capacity of national stakeholders to better protect and promote women’s rights.

Output 5: Strengthened capacity of national stakeholders to better protect and promote the rights of ethnic minorities.

The Human Rights Programme has been working with the National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh since 2016 and has been engaged with CSOs on human rights issues. Human Rights Programme is making interventions with the law enforcing agencies and working in the area of women & child rights, with the disadvantaged groups including ethnic and religious minorities, migrants’ workers, workers’ rights, private sector & business entities, climate and elderly people’s rights.

Debates and discussions on business and human rights has fast evolved. Stakeholders including consumers, civil society, manufacturer and business leaders are becoming increasingly aware of the risks associated with economic growth. They are progressively raising concerns highlighting the need to mitigate risks. The governments are gradually realizing that policy corrections are needed to ensure recognition of human rights and can in fact enable new levels of trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) needed to sustain job growth, strengthen health and education provision, and achieve sustainable development.

NHRCB has a dedicated thematic committee on Business and Human Rights and it has several small interventions in the past in this area. Recently Human Rights Programme has supported NHRCB to organize the National Dialogue on the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights. A Workshop was also organized recently on UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights where an overview of the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights: Protect, Respect, Remedy Framework was presented.

Scope of Work:

In recent years, there has been significant improvement at the global level in several economic aspects including the growth rate. Despite enormous potential for investment, Bangladesh fails to attract new investors from home and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The vital source of FDI in Bangladesh continues to be reinvested earnings.  Reinvested earnings have accounted for a large share of FDI received last year which may indicate that Bangladesh is not receiving new investments. It is believed that an underline reason for this may also be human rights or precisely labour rights issues which remain unaddressed discourage new investors. Thus, as part of the second objective the study will look at some business areas which are indicating a decline in receiving investment and identify root causes and reasons leading to the decline and make recommendations to address the issues if any.

It is expected that the mapping will identify the key stakeholders and their priority areas both in the private and public sector. The study will examine in detail account of the status of protection of human rights regarding business activities in Bangladesh.  This study will examine the measures taken by the government to protect human rights from adverse impacts of business activities through laws, policies, regulations and case law as well as provisions available for remedy. It will further identify strengths and weaknesses of the current approach and mechanisms related to the subject and make recommendations to address gaps.

Duties and Responsibilities

This consultancy seeks to hire an International Individual Consultant to achieve the following three objectives and tasks elaborated in the table of deliverables.

Objective 1: To map the Business and Human Rights Landscape in Bangladesh and provide an overview of the existing policies and practices to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in Bangladesh.

Objective 2: To identify the key business and human rights issues in Bangladesh, and to assess their impact on current trends of   investments in Bangladesh.

Objective 3: To enumerate the positive developments in the field of business and human rights in the country.

Details of deliverables:

Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

The Consultant will work under the direct supervision of the Chief Technical Advisor of the Human Rights Programme and will report to her. S/He will be working with the National Programme Coordinator & the Investigation & Human Rights Expert, HRP of UNDP, Bangladesh who will provide support to consultant with all available materials and necessary information for tasks achievement and facilitate the meetings, as required.  The Consultant will also be under close guidance provided by the Business & Human rights Specialist Asia-Pacific Regional Centre as and when required.

Timeframe and deadlines and Duty station:

The assignment will be for 15 working days over the period of two (2) months.

 Reporting authority:

The Consultant will directly report to Chief Technical Advisor of the Human Rights Programme & Business & Human Rights Specialist, Asia Pacific Regional Centre, UNDP Regional Hub, Bangkok.

Travel:

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. 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. In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit (Business and Human Rights in Asia: Promoting Sustainable Business through Regional Partnerships Project & HRP) and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Travel and DSA:

No DSA will be paid at the duty station. If unforeseen travel outside the duty station not required by the Terms of Reference is requested by UNDP, and upon prior agreement/approval, such travel shall be UNDP’s expenses and the individual contractor shall receive a per-diem not to exceed United Nations daily subsistence allowance rate in such other location(s).

Deliverables linked with payment: 

Competencies

 Professional Competencies

• Strong background in research. Demonstrated knowledge of human rights issues, business & human rights and workers’ rights;

• Excellent writing, IT and communication skills.

Behavioural Competencies

• Ability to plan, organize, implement and report on work;
• Positive & constructive attitude to work, effective problem solving, self-improvement, analysis and synthesis;
• Openness to change and ability to responds positively to feedback and differing points of view and integrates & updates accordingly; adaptability, creativity;
• Demonstrates integrity and ethical standards & maintains confidentiality;Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, age sensitivity and adaptability.

Required Skills and Experience

 Academic Qualifications:

• Minimum Master’s Degree in law/human rights/international relations/development studies/ business studies/social science or any other related field in social science.

Experience:

• Demonstrated understanding and experience of working on business and human rights, preferable in Asia.
• Minimum 8 years of experience in research on human rights issues.
• At least 3 (three) years’ experience as a team leader for similar assignments.
• Experience in human rights research, data collection, analysis and report writing. 
• Proven experience in writing and publishing on human rights issues, preferably related to business and human rights.

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English language and ability to writing write report as required.

Financial Proposal 

Lump sum contracts

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in instalments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals. In case of travel, the consultant will receive Daily Subsistence Allowance as per UNDP’s rules.

Payment of the consultant as per deliverables

Travel

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel to a higher class, he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs, including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Evaluation 

Individual Consultant will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should 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 a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

• Technical Criteria weight: 70%

• Financial Criteria weight: 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of (80 points) in technical criteria would be considered for the Financial Evaluation

Financial Evaluation: (Total obtainable score – 30)
All technically qualified proposals will be scored out 30 based on the formula provided below. The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal. All other proposals receive points according to the following formula:
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

Recommended Presentation of Offer 
Interested individuals must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications.
 a) Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;

b) Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; P11 can be downloaded from the link below: http://www.bd.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/operations/jobs/

c) Brief description of why the individual considers him/her self as the most suitable for the assignment and work plan, as to how they will approach and complete the assignment. Provide link for the relevant publications (at least 3)

d) Financial Proposal: Financial Proposal has to be submitted through a standard interest and availability template which can be downloaded from the link below: http://www.bd.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/docs/Jobs/Interest%20and%20Submission%20of%20Financial%20Proposal-Template%20for%20Confirmation.docx

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