Background

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 47 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

UNCDF strategy ‘Leaving no one behind in the digital era’ is based on over a decade of experience in digital finance in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. UNCDF recognizes that reaching the full potential of digital financial inclusion in support of the Sustainable Development Goals aligns with the vision of promoting digital economies that leave no one behind. Please refer to https://www.uncdf.org/article/4931/global-strategy-leaving-no-one-behind-in-the-digital-era

UNCDF inclusive digital economy strategy in Uganda: 

Since 2013, UNCDF has been implementing a market development approach on digital finance in Uganda.  With the support of the Sweden Development Agency (SIDA), UNCDF will execute the “Leaving no one behind in the digital era” strategy in country until 2024.  The Programme has the aim to develop an inclusive digital economy in Uganda with a specific focus at empowering rural communities, smallholder farmers, agri-business and refugees - to lead productive and healthy lives, by expanding access and usage of digital services.

UNCDF inclusive digital economy strategy in Ethiopia: 

Currently, the Ethiopian digital financial services (DFS)follows a bank-led model where fintech companies are required to partner with financial institution to provide digital finance to their customers. In the last three years, the Ethiopian DFS market has grown from 5% adult population actively using DFS in 2014 to 12% in 2017. The broader digital economy on the other hand, assessed through the various components of policy and regulation, mobile infrastructure and digital payments, innovation ecosystem and customer empowerment – is still at a much lower stage.  

UNCDF in Ethiopia is working on 3 key areas of intervention:

Leverage MSMEs to Create Job opportunities & to help transition from an Agri-based to a manufacture-led Economy.
Increase access to Clean Energy Solutions with objective of improving access to finance and Economic Empowerment
Modernization of Payment Systems and Development of the Digital Infrastructure

UNCDF inclusive digital economy strategy in Rwanda:

UNCDF – Rwanda country strategy is developed with the aim of contributing to the achievement of both Rwanda’s development financial inclusion agendas and the global SDG’s as well as supporting donors on the expansion of their digital development programming plans working in 3 key areas of intervention.

• Expanding Financial Access and Digital & Financial Literacy.
• Driving Regulatory Regulation through FinTech Demand?.
• De-risking Agricultural Finance through Digital Platforms?.

UNCDF is therefore looking for an Inclusive Digital Economy Consultant to provide technical assistance to UNDF programmes in the South East Africa Region and globally.

The Digital Economy Consultant is expected to be engaged through a non-exclusive Long Term Agreement (LTA) or Framework Agreement formalized through an Individual Contract (IC). A Framework Agreement or is known in UNCDF as an agreement that establishes the terms, conditions and prices that will govern future contract or contracts (known as “call offs”) arising from the said Agreement during a period of 3 years.

Every call-off shall have specific tasks, scope of services and outputs to be delivered within a specific period.   For this work, the call-off shall be formalized through the issuance of a Purchase Order, attaching thereto the TOR, and any other document relevant to the call-off.  Financial commitments will only be established each time a Purchase Order for the specific services/TOR for Individual Contractor is committed.

The LTA shall have a cumulative ceiling amount that may accrue to the individual contractor during the life of the LTA, but said amount shall remain as an upper limit, and must not and cannot be interpreted nor understood as neither a financial commitment nor guarantee of business volume. 

It is important to note that, under an LTA, UNCDF does not guarantee that any specific quantity of services shall be purchased during the term of this agreement.  The LTA does not form a financial obligation nor commitment from UNCDF at the time the LTA contract is signed.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of UNCDF Technical Specialist in Uganda the Digital Economy Consultant will complete the following activities and deliverables.

1. Provide technical expertise to UNCDF´s Innovation hubs:

• Designing digital challenge-based innovation projects, including bootcamps / design sprints, accelerator programs and field pilots.
• Provide technical inputs to UNCDF’s Community of Practice around digital innovation.
• Provide training and learning sharing platforms at national, regional and global level to relevant government partners (ministries and other stakeholders).
• Provide inputs and quality support to UNCDF´s blogs, white papers, reports.

Indicative deliverables:

• Innovation challenges concept design documents and curricula
• Articles and blogs.
• Training materials

2. Provide technical expertise to UNCDF’s work on open ecosystems:

• Design projects , pilots and scale recommendations on open API’s and Open data systems
• Provide inputs to technical documents or presentations to private / public sector convening’s (forums) on matters of open innovation and open payments ecosystem.
• Draft materials for UNCDF at working groups concerning financial inclusion for the key segments, including: Refugee cash working groups, Connectivity working groups, Smart Communities Coalition, etc.

Indicative deliverables:

• Business case. Pilot plan, recommendations reports.
• Presentations.

3. Conduct sectoral and market systems analyses and at macro, meso and micro level to inform UNCDF’s digital strategy, programme interventions and learning agenda towards building an inclusive digital economy:

• Conduct market system research and surveys to inform UNCDF about market impact of its project interventions,
• Update country UNCDF’s Inclusive Digital Economy Scorecard (IDES) on an annual basis.
•  Engage with various ecosystem stakeholders to present / share key insights from UNCDF’s market analyses, scorecard, and lessons learnt from the field.
• Develop knowledge and learning documents, resulting in stronger messages and increased to UNCDF visibility and thought leadership in the inclusive digital innovation space.

Indicative deliverables:

• Market research reports.
• Country Inidcator dashborads.
• Insight reports.
• KM pieces.

4. Provide technical assistance to selected UNCDF grantees:

• Conduct ideation sessions with partners to project activities, target market, product options, and project parameters; the preparation of the ideation session can include market research;
• Provide quality advisory services to partner institutions relating to product development and the design of the solutions
• Draft and/or review policy documents, manuals and specifications related to inclusive digital finance;
• Document and analyse the innovation journey or project, business case, and customer impact resulting from the partnership working in close collaboration with results and insights team;

Indicative deliverables:

• Ideation workshops.
• QA reports.
• Policy Documents, SoPs, manuals.
• Customer journeys.

The table below outlines the list of key deliverables and estimated number of days:

Competencies

• Strong communicator;
• Ability to think and act strategically;
• Cultural sensitivity, creativity, and resourcefulness;
• Results-driven, problem-solver with structuring and analytic capabilities.
• Ability to establish strong working relationships with various stakeholder institutions in the public and private sector.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree in economics, international development, or related field is mandatory.

Skills & Experience:

• At least 5 years of experience in managing large-scale, high-impact projects in digital finance and digital innovation is mandatory.
• At least 3 years’ experience working in South East Africa is mandatory.
• Experience in managing innovation processes, bootcamps and acceleration programs is preferable.

Language requirements:

• English is mandatory.
• Knowledge of French is a plus but not mandatory.

Timeline, total number of working days, duty station:

Total Number of Working Days for Assignment:  517 working days spread over a period of 36 months.

Duty station:  Uganda home based, except when called by UNCDF to attend meetings or conduct missions. 

Travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses shall be agreed upon as per UNCDF policy, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel. Please note that consultants residing in the duty station of travel will not be compensated for living expenses.

Application process:

Interested individuals must submit the documents mentioned below as proposals in order to demonstrate their qualifications (Note: the system does not allow multiple uploads of documents. Applicants must make sure to upload all documents in one PDF file).

All applications must contain the following information:

• Cover letter with a summary statement of competencies in relation to the Terms of Reference (TOR);
• Earliest availability and proposed schedule for consultancy;
• Completed and signed P11, Personal History Form with names and current contacts of 3 referees (available from http://sas.undp.org/documents/p11_personal_history_form.doc)
• Signed financial proposal for the assignment outlining: All-inclusive fee (including professional fees and other professional expenses, such as insurance, taxes, etc.). All Unit Prices Indicated In The Financial Proposal Shall Remain The Same For The Duration Of The Ic, Including Amendments Thereto.

Evaluation: 

Step I: Screening: Applications will be screened and only applicants meeting the mandatory criteria will progress to the pool for shortlisting.

Step II: Shortlisting (20 points)

UNCDF will produce a shortlist of candidates and technically evaluate candidates from 1 to 100% as per experience requirements in the Terms of Reference. As applicable, only applicants scoring 80% or more shall be considered for an interview.

Shortlisting scoring:

20%- Education/Qualification;

50%- Mandatory Experience.

30%- Preferred Experience.

Step III: Technical test (50 points). Applicants from the shortlist will be requested to take a written test. The test will be scored from 1 to 100 points. The passing score being 71 points. 

Step IV: Interview (30 points): An interview shall be conducted to candidates having passed the test.

Step V: Financial Evaluation: Only candidates with scores above 70% of the technical evaluation (70 Points or above) will be considered. 

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal: lowest priced proposal/price of the proposal being evaluated x 30%.

Award Criteria

The contact shall be awarded to the 3 best applicants whose offer have been evaluated and determined as: Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and Having received the highest combined weight (technical scores) 70% + financial 30%= 100%.

Both individual consultants and individual employed by a company or institution are welcome to apply. 

Any individual employed by a company or institution who would like to submit an offer in response to a Procurement Notice for IC must do so in their individual capacity (providing a CV so that their qualifications may be judged accordingly). Women candidates or women-owned businesses are strongly encouraged to apply.