UNDP Jobs - 90418- National Consultant on Cassava Sector Impact Revie

National Consultant on Cassava Sector Impact Review

Location :

Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

25-Mar-2020

Application Deadline :

19-Mar-20 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 working days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

25 March – 20 June 2020

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

Over years, many Cambodian smallholder farmers have benefitted from cassava production. Its financial returns have been found much more than other cash crops due to its high yield, low production cost, less labor requirement and growing demands from international markets. The income from cassava has contributed to improve farmers’ livelihoods in various aspects, such as increase of household assets, source of daily expenses, and fund for investment in long-term crops such as cashew nut, longan, rubber, mango, and pepper plantations. At the same time, the fast expansion of cassava production results in the growth of processing industries in the country such as starch and ethanol processing businesses. The processing industries have created many jobs for rural labors and for various supporting sectors.

Despite of having industries in the country, cassava production has outweighed the processing capacity and the processing activities is otherwise very basic. UNDP’s recent studies find that Cambodia has a good position to capitalize much benefits from its cassava production. Its potentials which can be exploited by moving up cassava value chain which many cassava-based products should be produced and directly exported to global markets.

Aiming to capture more values from cassava which its benefits directly allot to farmers, private sectors and related stakeholders, a team of development partners and line ministries, facilitated by UNDP and led by the Ministry of Commerce, has formulated a cassava policy. The policy will serve as a roadmap for the sector development which actions and resources from public and private sectors are pooled to implement it.

To reinforce the policy implementation, lessons from the past and recent cassava development by the government, UNDP, Development Partners, private sector and farmer communities are needed as critical inputs for the cassava working group and all stakeholders to be used in strategic planning, resource mobilization and impact monitoring.

UNDP as a strategic partner of MoC, continues to support cassava, especially to operationalize the cassava policy which will be approved by the Royal Government of Cambodia in the near future. UNDP has also worked with related stakeholders on several areas such as export promotion, investment attraction, private sector development, and cassava smart production.

Duties and Responsibilities

To complete this assignment, the consultant expects to carry out the following outputs:

An inception report is produced. Its details should include rational, aim, objectives, research tasks, study design, research methodologies, list of resource people/data source, data collection tools, ethics/code of conduct and work-plan as well as other aspects as needed and draft report outlines. There are three main aspects needing special attention:
- Literature review: a list of cassava projects/interventions (all projects of public and private sectors) is produced and attached in a report appendix. It counts in cassava projects which were already completed and are being implemented from 2009-2020.
- Research methodologies: based on the situation and context of each project, methodologies should be selected and utilized logically and accurately to gather data and acquire facts. Cassava projects can categorize into production focused, private sector development/product quality infrastructure improvement, export oriented, the entire value chain, and trade policy formulation. Data can be derived from primary (people) and secondary sources (documents such as case study, baseline, mid-term review, project evaluation, impact monitoring database etc.).
- Sampling technique: it should be a balance between the budget and research quality. Even so, the research quality should not be compromised in any circumstance. The number of sample size can be adjusted depending on the scope of work and practical options of research methodologies. In case that there are many projects, a cluster approach should be applied by selecting the best representation of all.
Produce a comprehensive Cassava Sector Impact Review report in which the methodology section includes data collection process, challenges, risk management and research quality assurance, is produced.
Ensure the report is produced by addressing the scope in the ToR and up to UNDP and stakeholders’ expectation, satisfaction and required quality standards.

Interested offeror must read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=63746 for more detail information about term of references, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online

Competencies

Proven capability to build networks with various local stakeholders particularly between farmers and relevant local stakeholders.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Master’s degree in development studies, economy, agriculture, preferable M&E

Experience:

Substantial knowledge on livelihood strategy, rural development and/or agri-business, preferable cassava;
At least 5 years of working experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative researches on development impact assessment;
Professional skills in research report writing in English; and
Experience working with multi-stakeholders including government officials, development agencies, and local communities

Language Requirement:

Fluency in Khmer and English (spoken and written).

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested individual offeror must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work

2. Financial proposal

3. Personal CV including experience in similar projects, list of publication written by Candidate and at least 3 references.

Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email aphikovith.phin@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice.