Background

The UNDP Global Centre for Technology, Innovation, and Sustainable Development (the ‘Global Centre’) aims to identify, co-design and share innovative and technological solutions for sustainable development - catalysing new insights, partnerships and action on the ground in the countries where UNDP works. Our initial areas of focus are Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Finance, and Smart Cities and Digitalisation.

The Global Centre is a joint initiative of the Singapore Government and UNDP, currently being led by a small team that is focused on programme and partnership development – both with the public and private sector in Singapore and international partners (including the above UNDP network). Singapore Government partners include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE), and the Economic Development Board (EDB).

Within the Global Centre’s broad mandate of digitalisation, the issue of digital and distanced learning has come to the forefront as the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the challenges for children and young people in attending and completing education. In a context of extensive digital foundations, there is scope to leverage these assets in order to produce an end-to-end – and transferable – digital delivery mechanism for education, learning, and capacity building.

The Global Centre is embarking on an initiative with the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway (MFA-Norway). This aims to assess the potential of - and provide associated recommendations -  leveraging new and readily-available digital technologies to enhance the extent and quality of education services in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Viet Nam (‘CLMV countries’). The purpose of this work isto mitigate the negative multiplier effects of non-access to physical education services as result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this initiative also has relevance beyond COVID-19 through building a scalable approach to delivering education, capacity building, and similar efforts

Duties and Responsibilities

This initiative will assess the learning-related needs and realities of students, teachers, and other stakeholders; and identify the required technology, innovation and modalities to deliver inclusive and end-to-end solutions that can improve education or broader learning outcomes. The main output will be to produce a set of recommendations relating to these needs and usage of technology and other components. These recommendations will inform the structure (including the potential methodology, anticipated partners, and to strengthen the evidence-base for the intervention), scope, and deliverables of the second phase of this project (tobe implemented in 2021).

More specifically, and due to the contemporary nature of this issue, there is an emerging (but not always documented) evidence-base regarding the delivery of this learning experience in similar contexts to the CLMV countries – and more widely. With this in mind, a key part of this work will be to draw on and also develop this evidence-base – including identifying and exploring:

• The most suitable channels for education delivery;
• Profiles and needs of students;
• The capacity and needs of educators;
• Priority subjects for each context and audience; and
• Learning outcomes in a digital context

The consultant is expected to deliver the following outputs:

• Conduct literature review and desk research on the topic of digital approaches for inclusive education delivery
• Conduct interviews and consultations with key stakeholders, including governments, civil society organisations, UN Offices and beneficiaries
• Develop a draft assessment report which must contain the following, but not limited to:
  • Landscape analysis: understanding context; and identifying needs and realities of students and teachers;
  • Problem Definition: identification of set of relevant challenges and problem statements via an initial concept note;
  • Solution Identification: identification of  tangible and practical solutions to address the chosen problem statement.
• Organise virtual/online workshop to review the findings and recommendations of the assessment;
• Revise and finalise the assessment report based on feedback from the workshop

 Deliverables timeline:

Intellectual Property

All information collected for the report pertaining to the assignments as well as outputs produced under this contract shall remain the property of the UNDP who shall have exclusive rights over their use. The products shall not be disclosed to the public nor used in whatever format without written permission of UNDP in line with the national and International Copyright Laws applicable.

Institutional Arrangement / Reporting Relationships  

The Consultant will report to the Programme Advisor and work closely with the team at the Global Centre. 

Duration of the Work

The Consultant will work up to 35 days to complete the above deliverables within the period from 2 November to 31 December 2020.

Duty Station

This consultancy will be home-based, with possible travel to field locations (field travel to be covered by UNDP). The Consultant will be required to use her/his own computer.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

 Ethics and Values:

• Demonstrates commitment to the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Demonstrates and promotes the highest standard of integrity, impartiality, fairness and incorruptibility in all matters affecting his/her work and status.

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;

 Self-Management and 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 and Continuous Learning:

• Ability to efficiently handle and share information and knowledge.

 Functional competencies:

• Substantive knowledge on digital technologies for education and learning;
• Experience in design, production, development and dissemination of knowledge products and reports;
• Ability to engage collaboratively with partners (including other UN agencies), donors, and other development stakeholders;
• Excellent organisational skills and proven ability to deliver projects within assigned deadlines;
• Ability to be flexible and respond to changes as part of the review and feedback process.
• Demonstrated accuracy and attention to details;
• Good familiarity with social media, web content management and other online tools for collaboration, knowledge sharing and communication.’ 

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Master’s or Bachelor’s degree in education, behavioural or social science, international relations, economics or related field.

 Experience

• Minimum 8 years’ experience with Master’s degree, or 10 years with Bachelors’ working in an education and learning related field (required);
• Minimum 5 years working in digital and tech solutions for learning and skills building (required);
• Strong research capacity in a related area (required);
• Experience working with government and other public sector entities on the development of a knowledge product (required);
• Experience designing and conducting interviews with a variety of stakeholders (required);
• Experience designing and implementing virtual and in person interactive workshops (required);
• Experience working in international development (desired);
• Experience implementing initiatives in LIC and LMICs (desired);
• Experience managing partnerships with tech companies (desired);
• Strong familiarity in the tech for social impact space (desired).

 Language

• Fluency in English (required)
• Working knowledge of another UN language (desired)

Important Note:

The Contractor is required to have the aforementioned professional and technical qualifications. Only the applicants who hold these qualifications will be shortlisted and contacted

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 weigh 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.

Technical evaluation - Total 70% (70 points):

The technical evaluation will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Experience working in an education and learning related field – 20 pts
• Experience working in digital and tech solutions for learning and skills building – 15 pts
• Experience working with government and other public sector entities on the development of a knowledge product – 10 pts
• Experience designing and conducting interviews with a variety of stakeholders – 10 pts
• Experience designing and implementing virtual and in person interactive workshops – 10 pts
• Strong familiarity in the tech for social impact space – 5 pts

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (49 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) shall be considered 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

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 a contract with UNDP.

Payment Modality:

Payment to the Contractor will be made according satisfactory completion of the deliverables.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE APPLICATION.

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

1. Financial proposal and availability form: Offeror's Letter to UNDP

2. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references

General Conditions of Contract is available here: GENERAL CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT

Note: Please note you can upload only one document to this application (scan all documents in one single PDF file to attach).