Background

UNDP works in some 170 countries and territories, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion. We help countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience in order to sustain development results.

Inclusive growth, better services, environmental sustainability, good governance, and security are fundamental to development progress. We offer our expertise in development thinking and practice, and our decades of experience at country level, to support countries to meet their development aspirations and to bring the voices of the world’s peoples into deliberations.

Coming together under the new framework of the Global Policy Network (GPN), UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.  BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working.  BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more inclusive, innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

UNDP helps countries to simultaneously reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development that leads to transformational change, bringing about real improvements in people’s lives. We promote an integrated approach to achieve sustainable development that tackles the connected issues of multidimensional poverty, inequality and exclusion, and sustainability, while enhancing knowledge, skills and production technologies to reduce risks and sustain development gains. UNDP supports countries localize, implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and monitor progress towards the achievement of the SDGs.

Central to UNDP’s New Strategic Plan 2018 – 2021, UNDP aims to better capture the organization’s knowledge, innovation and good practices and lessons learned from country, regional and global experience, drawing from a network of internal and external expertise, in order to address complex problems. To this end, UNDP is re-established Communities of Practice (CoPs), of which UNDP has a rich history, to promote and support knowledge flows within and across the GPN areas of work and enrich UNDP’s global policy and programme functions.

The Community of Practice on Poverty and Inequality aims to effectively connect UNDP’s staff across country, regional and global teams working to promote dignity, opportunity and prosperity for all. To this view, UNDP is seeking to recruit a consultant to provide research and knowledge management support to the Community of Practice on Poverty and Inequality. The Consultant will report to the Policy Advisor on Inclusive Growth, who also functions as thematic lead for the COP, and the COP Facilitator.

Duties and Responsibilities

The CoP Research Analyst plays an important role in fostering strong substantive engagement within and across the CoPs, supporting content curation, quality assurance, and providing substantive advice and feedback loops. Recognizing that each CoP member has unique needs and comfort levels related to participation, the facilitator will offer a variety of opportunities and approaches for engagement.

Expected outputs and deliverables:

Under this contract, the Consultant is expected to deliver the following

Competencies

Corporate Competencies

• Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Organizational Awareness:

• Promotes the mission, vision and strategic goals of UNDP;
• 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;
• 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:

• Substantive knowledge of the Community of Practice (CoP) subject matter (inclusive growth, poverty reduction strategies, and inequality reduction);
• Strong skills in networking, knowledge sharing, collaboration and facilitation online and in-person events;
• Experience in production, development and dissemination of knowledge and communication products;
• Good familiarity with social media, web content management and other online tools for collaboration, knowledge sharing and communication;
• Ability to engage collaboratively with partners (including other UN agencies), donors, and other development stakeholders;
• Excellent organizational skills and proven ability to deliver projects within assigned deadlines

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in international development, economics, statistics, social sciences, knowledge management, or related area, required.

Years of experience:

• A minimum of 2 years of professional working experience in relevant fields related to international development (required) and working in knowledge management within an international organization (required);
• Proficiency and proven experience in the use of Microsoft Office suite (e.g. Word, Excel, Power Point) is required.
• Proven experience in the development and design  of infographics, online surveys, power point slides, posters, banners (using different software tools);
• Proven experience in the organization of virtual webinars, trainings, workshops, conferences;
• Proven work experience and use of knowledge management platforms (e.g. Yammer or other relevant platforms/tools is required);
• Proven ability to work under pressure with tight deadlines, and to deliver in a timely manner within cost and quality standards;

Language:

• Fluency (verbal and writing communication skills) of English is a prerequisite
• Fluency in other UN languages is an asset (preferably French and/or Spanish)

Application Procedure

The application package should contain the following documents:

• A cover letter with a brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment;
• 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; and
•  Link to the writing  Samples

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one 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 shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around the specific and measurable deliverables of the TOR. Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR, and deliverables accepted and certified by the technical manager. 
• 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.

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% (700 points):

• Criteria 1. Experience in managing and/or coordinating a Community of Practice Maximum Points: 200 points;
• Criteria 2. Proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office, Yammer, web content management and other online tools for collaboration, knowledge sharing, and communication (based on experience and online platforms previously facilitated) Maximum Points: 200 points;
• Criteria 3 Experience in designing knowledge products, flyers, posters- using different design software and tools. Maximum Points: 200 points;
• Criteria  4, Proven experience and technical understanding in the areas of poverty and inequality Maximum points  100 points

The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (700 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (300 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

Contract Award

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 work under the guidance and direct supervision of UNDP BPPS SD Cluster Thematic Lead on Inclusive Growth and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the deliverables as specified above.

The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop.

Payment modality

Payment will be done as a lump-sum based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified above and deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager. The lump-sum shall be broken down into 3 payments:

• Payment 1: upon completion of deliverable 5 and 6
• Payment 2: upon completion of deliverable 3 and 4
• Payment 3: upon completion of deliverable 1 and 2

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.

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

Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 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 cpu.bids@undp.org 

The UNDP Central Procurement Unit will respond by email and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants.