The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with the support of IMPACT Initiatives has developed the Household and Building Damage Assessment (HBDA) toolkit to facilitate the assessment of buildings and infrastructure affected by crises, as well as assess a series of basic socio-economic indicators in Health, Food Security, Education, and WASH at the household level. The HBDA allows prompt collection of digital and georeferenced data on damages in order to inform government prioritization for recovery planning.

Based on the past experiences of UNDP implementing Household Building Damage Assessment, (HBDA) implemented in natural disasters contexts in the Caribbean and in Albania, UNDP and Impact developed a digital assessment toolbox to serve in diverse contexts.

The rapid geographic and demographic spread of the COVID 19 worldwide is causing a ripple effect on health and economic systems that include trade restrictions, limited mobility of people and goods, slowdown in production in those countries where the virus has a high incidence. Assessments of socio-economic impact of the COVID are thus important for governments to identify urgent and medium to long-term measures to mitigate the impact and support recovery.

UNDP is adapting the HBDA toolkit to be used to run digital assessments on socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on households and micro and small enterprises. The adaptation has produced a digital Socio-economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) tool. Similarly, to the HBDA, the SEIA tool uses KoboToolbox, an open source for digital data collection, and Microsoft Power BI to analyze and visualize the data from the assessment. The SEIA uses also Microsoft Teams and other MS Office Products such us (MS Excel) for logistics, operations and team management.

This assessment will be implemented in multiple UNDP country offices in close coordination with national and international partners.  It is likely that digital SEIA will reach a regional and global coverage, giving a unique experience to the experts to work a large-scale implementation and help to understand the impact of COVID-19.

UNDP has set up a Remote Support Unit (RSU) with multidisciplinary experts that can provide remote technical support to UNDP country offices and partners in setting up and implementing digital SEIA. The RSU will include experts on economics, statistics, information management, digital data collection tools (e.g. Kobo toolbox), data analysis and visualization, assessment design, GIS, among others. The RSU is coordinated by the Crisis Bureau and will have team members working from home

SCOPE OF WORK, RESPONSIBILITIES AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED WORK

The junior economist/statistician will be part of the Economists/statisticians team of experts dedicated to methodological work on the digital SEIA toolkit as well as to assist UNDP country offices and partners with technical support required to the design and implementation of the SEIA at country level. This includes conducting analyses of humanitarian and socio-economic developments of developing and emerging economies, supporting in quantitative-qualitative analyses of the impact of Covid-19 on households and enterprises; and supporting in the selection of key indicators, sampling methodology, secondary data review and analysis, primary data analysis, etc.

The junior economist will provide support in the following tasks in the context of the team’s country (and regional) support on digital SEIAs:

• Conduct analyses of humanitarian and socio-economic developments of countries supported
• Support in quantitative-qualitative analyses of the impact of Covid-19 on households and enterprises
• Set assessment objectives and strategy;
• Provide guidance on baseline information and data sources of information;
• Secondary data review including the use of innovative data sources/information (e.g. big data, satellite imagery, etc.)
• Support survey design and guidance on how the surveys can be run in countries;
• Define sampling frames and provide sampling options;
• Prepare a template for a draft report format and presentation in close collaboration with the Information Management expert;
• Perform data analysis on survey data

  Expected deliverables

The following deliverables are needed:

• Briefs on humanitarian and socio-economic developments of countries supported
• Sections of quantitative-qualitative analyses of the impact of Covid-19 on households and enterprises
• Analyses and visualization of household and enterprises survey data
• Compilation and processing of socioeconomic databases derived from a variety of sources;
• Revision of training modules on digital SEIA;
• Revision of guidance material on digital SEIA and updated HBDA guidance;
• Provision of inputs to presentations, project documents and research papers related to socio-economic impact assessments methodologies.

Technical Competencies

Knowledge of humanitarian and development theories and research; and socio-economic policy measures in developing countries context.

 Professional Competencies

 Communication:

Speaks and writes clearly and effectively and demonstrates openness in sharing information and keeping people informed.

 Teamwork: 

Works collaboratively with UN colleagues and partners to achieve deliverables for assessment.

 Planning& Organizing: 

Develops clear goals that are consistent with agreed work deliverables for the assignment; identifies priority activities and allocates appropriate amount of time and resources for completing work; uses time efficiently.

I. Academic Qualifications:

Education: Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in development economics, humanitarian affairs, statistics, or other relevant area. required 

II. Years of experience:

• 1 year of experience in academia, research, statistics, and/or analytical writing in the above-mentioned areas is required;
• Research experience, volunteer experience or internships related to the aim of the project and/or conducting microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis and human impact analysis is highly desirable;
• Knowledge of statistical software packages and languages such as R, Stata, EViews, Python, Stan is required;
• Knowledge of macro-economic modeling, poverty economics, vulnerability assessments, and/or statistical computing is highly desirable.

III.  Language:

Fluency in written and spoken English is required; Knowledge of other UN languages is a determinant advantage

EVALUATION METHOD

The award of the contract shall 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% (desk review)

* Financial Criteria weight 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 490 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation

Technical Evaluation (700 points, Weight 70%)

All applicants will be initially screened against the minimum qualification requirements as specified above.

Responsive candidates will then be further evaluated against the following criteria:

DESK REVIEW OF TECHNICAL CRITERIA AS EVIDENT IN THE SUBMITTED APPLICATION:

• Criterion 1. Relevance of the experience in academia and in the field of research, statistics, analytical writing (Maximum of 350 points)
• Criterion 2. Knowledge of statistical software packages and languages such as R, Stata, EViews, Python, Stan (Maximum of 200 points);

• Criterion 3. Knowledge of macro-economic modeling, econometrics, poverty economics, vulnerability assessments, and/or statistical computing (Maximum of 100 points);
• Criteria 4. Fluency (written and spoken) in an additional relevant language Maximum 50 points (one additional language 25 points, two additional relevant languages, 50 points).

Only those candidates who obtain a total technical score of 490 points and above on the technical evaluation will be considered for financial evaluation and will asked to submit a financial proposal

Financial evaluation (300 points, Weight 30%)

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

For the General Conditions of contracts for the Services of Individual Contractors, see http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf.

Note: only shortlisted candidates will be invited to submit a financial proposal. Please do not include your financial proposal in your technical application package.

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

Application Procedure

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

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 reference 

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 junior economist will report to the Programme Specialist in the Country Support Management Team (CSMT), Crisis Bureau UNDP.

 Payment modality

Payment to the individual contractor will be made based on effective working days and by monthly payment conditional to deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the supervisor.