Background

The Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA) is responsible for UNDP’s external relations and advocacy functions. The Bureau leads and supports the organization in cultivating, building and nurturing strategic relationships and alliances that are essential for advancing and successfully achieving the mission of UNDP. These relationships encompass a wide range and number of key constituencies and development partners especially those related to resource mobilization and donors relations, intergovernmental affairs with member states, programme countries, existing and prospective donor countries/emerging economies, multilateral institutions, such as the IFIs, the European Commission, civil society, the private sector, foundations, academia and think tanks, the wider UN system, various UN inter-governmental bodies. BERA also leads the Organization’s communication functions, establishing UNDP branding and interface with global, regional and national media. The bureau coordinates and acts as a facilitator of information exchange, knowledge management, network building and dissemination of best practices throughout the UNDP in resource mobilization, intergovernmental and inter-agency affairs and communications.

Within BERA, the UN System Affairs Group (UNSAG) is responsible for managing UNDP’s relations with the UN and its many inter-agency and inter-governmental bodies and platforms such as the Chief Executives Board [CEB] and its subsidiary bodies, the UN Sustainable Development Group [UNSDG] , the High Level Political Forum, as well as the General Assembly, ECOSOC and their subsidiary bodies). UNSAG supports the leadership of UNDP by positioning and promoting UNDP in inter-agency and intergovernmental affairs and is responsible for scanning and anticipating trends that influence UNDP policy, preparing proactive strategy options for coherent multi-stakeholder engagement. The group consist of two teams: the Intergovernmental and Multi-stakeholder Engagement team and the UN Coordination and Coherence team, working seamlessly and collaboratively to leverage resources within the group and address the group’s functional results for analysis and advocacy, strategic positioning, reporting and documentation. UNSAG is the corporate focal unit for engagement in, and compliance with, the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review of Operational Activities for Development (QCPR) of the General Assembly.

Duties and Responsibilities

Results:

The consultant will contribute to the following results:

• Build and maintain a repository of evidence of how UNDP is working more strategically with its UN partners at global, regional and country level in support of better and more impactful development results; and
• Develop a roadmap for how the organization identifies, builds and promote strategic partnership opportunities within the UN family in line with the mandate and ambition of the UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021.

Expected outputs and deliverables:

Deliverable 1: 10-12 case studies on UN reform in action

• Review existing materials/documents and, where necessary, conduct additional research, in collaboration with Regional Bureau staff, of instances of UNDP collaborations with other UN agencies, including but not limited to joint programmes and other joint initiatives, to identify “best practices” against a set of key criteria, including examples:
  • That show agencies’ specific comparative/complementary advantages coming together in new strategic ways;
  • That have led (or promise to lead) to development results we wouldn’t have been able to achieve alone – e.g., work in sensitive areas, scaling up, more integrated approaches etc.;
  • That are generating new efficiency gains in programming and/or operations;
  • That show the added value of UN coordination (role of RCs and RCOs);
  • That demonstrate how resident and non-resident agencies can work together;  
  • That show agencies working differently together in specific challenging country contexts, e.g. fragile settings, SIDS, etc.;
  • That demonstrate where joint fundraising makes sense and adds value; also examples of joint applications to vertical funds/pooled funds;
  • That demonstrate the UN’s comparative (multilateral) advantage vis-à-vis other bilateral development players.

• Draw on the above examples to identify a number of ‘success factors’ for enhanced UN collaboration which can be utilized in various policy and other analytical products developed by UNDP in the lead up to the QCPR.  

• Develop a repository of case studies that can be used for communication purposes with (a) external (EB) audiences to demonstrate how UNDP is working differently in the UN reform context, and (b) with internal audiences (country offices, HQ) to give practical examples of how collaboration with UN partners can be leveraged. These would be two separate products.

Deliverable 2: Strategic UN agency relationship management.

• Provide secretariat functions for UNSAG’s role as coordinator of the UNICEF strategic partnership, including monitoring and tracking of progress, compiling a repository of relationships, etc. 
• Develop draft Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for developing, managing, tracking and communicating new UN agency partnerships.

Competencies

Core competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’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;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with the ability to convey complex development concepts and recommendations in a clear and persuasive manner that is tailored to a range of audiences;
• Understanding of different communications tools;
• Excellent knowledge of international media, social media tools and applications;
• Demonstrated understanding and ability of effective outreach and monitoring;
• Proven networking skills and ability to interact with staff at all levels, including senior management;
• Ability to produce quality outputs;
• Creativity;
• Familiarity with global development issues;
• Familiarity with the UN development system, RC system, and inter-agency architecture at country, regional and global level;
• Familiarity with UN country programming processes and mechanisms;
• Productive and efficient worker, highly motivated;
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to prioritize tasks; and
• Strong initiative and is comfortable pro-actively reaching out to new and existing external partners.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced degree in a subject relevant to development work, including economics, social studies, international relations, etc.

 Experience:

• Minimum of 7 years’ experience working in the UN system, with a specific focus on inter-agency coordination and UN agency partnership; 
• Demonstrable experience in writing clear and succinct reports with inputs from multiple stakeholders, and synthesizing and communicating information for various audiences; 
• Minimum of 7 years experience in project management, including development of process improvement tools.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in written and spoken English is required. 

Application Procedure: 

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

• Personal CV
• Motivation letter

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%.

Technical evaluation - Total 70% (70 points)

Desk review of applications based on the following criteria.

• In-depth / relevant professional expertise working in the UN system, with a specific focus on inter-agency coordination and UN agency partnerships (maximum 40 points: scored according to breadth and depth of exposure);
• Proven experience in writing clear and succinct reports with inputs from multiple stakeholders, and synthesizing and communicating information for various audiences (20 points);
• Proven experience in project management with special emphasis on development of process improvement tools (10 points)

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) will be considered shortlisted and invited 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

• The financial proposal should specify an all-inclusive daily fee
• 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 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.

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will work under the guidance and direct supervision of UNSAG Manager and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the deliverables as specified above. The consultant should be available for meetings within UN/UNDP as required.

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.

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

Annex 1 -  UNDP P11 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 bera.procurement@undp.org