Background

UNCDF makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

UNCDF’s financing models work through two channels: financial inclusion that expands the opportunities for individuals, households, and small businesses to participate in the local economy, providing them with the tools they need to climb out of poverty and manage their financial lives; and by showing how localized investments — through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance — can drive public and private funding that underpins local economic expansion and sustainable development. By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to SDG 1 on eradicating poverty and SDG 17 on the means of implementation. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile and address exclusion and inequalities of access, UNCDF contributes to a number of different SDGs.

Since 2008, UNCDF has been supporting digital finance with significant success, with digital finance currently the largest part of its inclusive finance portfolio. This includes digital innovations linked to on an off-grid energy, agriculture, employment, health and transport.

UNCDF is also host to the Secretariat of the Better than Cash Alliance, a partnership of governments, companies, and international organizations that accelerates the transition from cash to digital payments in order to reduce poverty and drive inclusive growth.

With 60 professionals with strong digital finance experience across the globe and with several hundred projects in digital on-going, UNCDF is one of the leading development agencies in digital finance with a mission and expertise to reach very low-income customers in some of the world’s most difficult markets. UNCDF’s digital team and resources are currently spread across several programmes and UNCDF is in the process of consolidating its financial and technical resources to create a comprehensive team of experts in various domains to drive the new strategy “Leaving no one behind in the digital era”.

Based on this experience UNCDF started in 2017 to expand the scope of its programmatic agenda to go beyond digital finance. Through the “Leaving none behind in the digital era” strategy, UNCDF is supporting, through its digital finance interventions, the emergence of inclusive digital economies. The strategy recognizes that reaching the full potential of digital financial inclusion in support of the SDGs aligns with the vision of promoting digital economies for the following reasons:

• The value of DFS is not obvious, especially to poor and vulnerable populations, as it is not closely linked to their ability to respond to their specific constraints and needs around agriculture, education, health, energy and other key aspects of their daily lives.
• New innovative services should be developed to address these unmet needs. Innovation will not come from traditional providers but mainly from a range of new players (entrepreneurs, start-ups in various sectors, and platforms like Facebook, Grab, WeChat, etc.).

The ‘Leaving no one behind in the digital era’ strategy, to move from DF to digital economies builds upon and constitutes a logical integration of UNCDF interventions in financial inclusion and digital, developed over many years. The legacy of UNCDF intervention programmes was built through a range of country/regional programmes and global thematic initiatives, which has established a very strong reputation for UNCDF vis-à-vis donors and peers.

Please refer to www.uncdf.org

International Remittances

The UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. The 2030 Agenda recognizes migration as a core-development consideration, marking the first time that migration is explicitly integrated into the global development agenda. It also recognizes a major relevance of international migration as a multidimensional reality of and for the development of countries of origin, as well as transit and destination, which requires coherent and comprehensive responses.

Migration is also considered key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The adoption of the SDGs and explicit references to migration in 76 of its 17 goals, mainstreamed migration into global development policy. Migration can reduce poverty (SDG 1), improve health and education outcomes (SDGs 3 and 4), gender equality outcomes (SDG 5), foster growth and innovation (SDGs 8 and 9) and reduce inequality (SDG 10).

Remittances, on the other hand, can also contribute to reaching the SDGs in a variety of ways:

• Household level: by recognizing the positive socioeconomic impact of remittances on families and communities
• Community level: Benefits associated at sub-national or municipal levels including reduced rural poverty, lower income inequality, increased micro small and medium enterprises (MSME) activity, and strengthen resilience to adverse effects of climate change or disaster risks
• Government level: Benefits for public sector institutions including greater transparency, better communication with citizens, and increased private sector development and entrepreneurship as a result of access to capital and domestic credit
• Macro level: At macro-economic level, remittances can foster much needed foreign currency exchange, stabilize BOP, reduce dependency on government aid, and re-allocate capital resources into more productive investments and other financial services – moving money from international to domestic, consumption to investment, and from urban to rural.

Guided by the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and informed by the Declaration of the High-level dialogue on International Migration and Development adopted in October 2013, the Heads of State and Government and High Representatives adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration in 2018 that expresses a collective commitment to improving cooperation on international migration, leading to the focused objectives on remittances:

• Empowering migrants to catalyze their development contribution, and to harness the benefits of migration as a source of sustainable development
• Promoting faster, safer, and cheaper transfer of remittances by enabling competition, regulation, and innovation in the remittance market
• Initiatives to implement these objectives will also lead to developing financial safety net and wealth stock for migrants and their families in the home countries and have the potential to facilitate dignified and sustainable return of the migrants.

UNCDF aims to improve the functioning of the remittance market in order to improve the financial health of migrant families while strengthen economic development efforts of the origin and host countries. In doing so, UNCDF engages with public and private sector stakeholders to strengthen the capacity of the regulators to monitor and analyze the remittance transaction data towards evidence-based policy making, enable a conducive policy and regulatory environment, and deliver financial and technical assistance to a wide range of financial institutions (e.g. banks, cooperatives, microfinance institutions, money transfer operators, and mobile networks operators) to improve the digital remittance ecosystem and design migrant-centric financial products and services (e.g. savings, credit, insurance, payment services, remittances, pension, and investment).

UNCDF requires the services of a research consultant to support the Migration and Remittances Programme across all activities at the country, regional and global levels through conducting research and providing programmatic support.

The research consultant is expected to be engaged through a non-exclusive Long-Term Agreement (LTA) or Framework Agreement formalized through an Individual Contract (IC). A Framework Agreement or is known in UNCDF as an agreement that establishes the terms, conditions and prices that will govern future contract or contracts (known as “call offs”) arising from the said Agreement during a period of 3 years. Every call-off shall have specific tasks, scope of services and outputs to be delivered within a specific period.  

For this work, the call-off shall be formalized through the issuance of a Purchase Order, attaching thereto the TOR, and any other document relevant to the call-off.  Financial commitments will only be established each time a Purchase Order for the specific services/TOR for Individual Contractor is committed. The LTA shall have a cumulative ceiling amount that may accrue to the individual contractor during the life of the LTA, but said amount shall remain as an upper limit, and must not and cannot be interpreted nor understood as neither a financial commitment nor guarantee of business volume.

It is important to note that, under an LTA, UNCDF does not guarantee that any specific quantity of services shall be purchased during the term of this agreement.  The LTA does not form a financial obligation nor commitment from UNCDF at the time the LTA contract is signed.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Lead Specialist, Migration and Remittances, the consultant will support the following areas of work:

1. Research and knowledge: Provide support to the global and in-country teams in conducting research, with a focus on bridging knowledge gaps in order to: build stakeholder capacity across the private and public sectors, improve the digitalization of remittances, and increase the adoption of migrant-centric financial products.

• Conduct research related to migration and remittances to support activities across the four workstreams: empowered customers, inclusive innovation, open digital payment ecosystems, and enabling policy and regulation; assess trends in the delivery of remittances, product development for migrants and stakeholder collaboration.  Contribute to research and knowledge projects to continue positioning UNCDF as a thought leader on the digitization of remittances and migrant-centric product development.
• Support the team to identify and build effective and efficient research partnerships with think tanks, academia, members and other stakeholders to expand the adoption of digital remittance channels and migrant-centric product development.
• Provide support to the policy consultant and country teams in implementing remittance policy frameworks, including conducting background research, updating policy benchmarking, diagnostics and questionnaires, participating in stakeholder interviews, and assisting with the compilation of findings, as needed.

Indicative deliverables:

• Research reports
• Briefing summaries
• Event concept notes

2. Support the integration of research and knowledge into global and in-country work: In collaboration with global and country teams, support the integration of the learnings from research into the teams’ work, through both internal and external knowledge sharing.

• Work with the global and country teams to ensure research and advisory work are in sync and able to distill and aggregate lessons for global audience, including for events and conferences.
• Work with the internal and external stakeholders to design and implement a peer-learning agenda. In addition, work with the Knowledge Management consultant, to build knowledge generation into all aspects of UNCDF relationships with public and private sector stakeholders and ensure that pieces are easily accessible in terms of language, style, and medium.
• Support the Communications consultant and Knowledge Management consultant in the writing, development, design, production and dissemination of diverse publications.

Indicative deliverables:

• Insights reports
• Articles and blogs
• Edited publications

The table below outlines the list of key deliverables and estimated number of days:

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Demonstrates ethics and integrity;
• Team player;
• Demonstrates political acumen and calculated risk taking;
• Builds own and staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation;
• Builds and promotes effective teams and partnerships;
• Creates and promotes open communication;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Conducts fair and transparent decision making;
• Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability;
• Shows strong corporate commitment.

Functional Competencies:

• Proven ability to manage and effectively lead a global research agenda and research team;
• Distill and articulate ideas clearly and coherently and ability to translate technical terms for non-technical audiences. i.e. policy makers
• Quick learner with the ability to act quickly to develop new research and initiatives;
• Conceptualizes more effective approaches to research and knowledge, development and implementation;
• Anticipates constraints in the delivery of services and identifies solutions or alternatives;
• Makes effective use of UNCDF resources and comparative advantage to strengthen knowledge partnerships;
• Creates an environment that fosters innovation and innovative thinking;
• Creates networks and promotes knowledge exchange initiatives between member organizations;
• Promotes knowledge and research as critical to the success of moving towards digital remittance channels and migrant-centric product development;
• Proactively identifies, develops and discusses solutions for internal and external clients, and persuades management to undertake new projects or services.

Technical:

• Understanding of key issues and international good practice relating to migration, digital payments, and digital financial inclusion;
• Excellent presentation and representation skills in multicultural contexts;
• Ability to translate complex technical ideas to a non-technical audience in both verbally and in writing.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in economics, finance, public/business administration, social sciences, international relations or related fields is mandatory.

Experience:

• Minimum of 2 years of professional experience in research, digital payments, financial services, financial inclusion, fintech or a related field is mandatory;
• Experience in donor projects, developing proposals, corresponding budgets, and monitoring and evaluation plans is preferred;
• Work experience on migration and/or remittances related projects is preferred;
• Work experience in the programme countries/regions across Africa, Asia and the Pacific is preferred;
• Working knowledge of current developments in including innovative payment methods (e.g., mobile financial services, pre-paid cards, fintech, blockchain, etc.) is preferred;
• Working knowledge of international donor organizations is preferred

 Language:

• Fluency in English is required;
• Knowledge of another UN language is considered highly desired.

Total number of working days, duty station and travel:

Total Number of Working Days for Assignment: 440 working days spread over a period of 24 months.

Duty station: home-based, except when called by UNCDF to attend meetings or conduct missions. 

Travel:

• Travel to the field and other relevant locations may be required and will be compensated on reimbursable basis and following the UNDP/UNCDF rules and regulations which states that consultants shall only be paid the most direct and most economical ticket, as will be quoted by the official UN travel agency.  Any amount in excess of the said quotation, such as class and airline preference of the consultant, shall be borne by the consultant and the daily living allowance will be paid in amounts not exceeding the UN established rate.
• Please note that UNCDF cannot guarantee residence permits or visas for consultants. Consultants are responsible for securing their work documentation. In the case of national consultants, applicants that are not nationals of the duty station requested will have to prove their residence status.

Application:

Interested individuals must submit the documents mentioned below as proposals in order to demonstrate their qualifications (Note: the system does not allow multiple uploads of documents. Applicants must make sure to upload all documents in one PDF file).

The following documents are requested:

• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability;
• Personal CV 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 references;
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, if applicable, on how they will approach the assignment.
• Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive Daily Fee price. If an 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 UNCDF under 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 UNCDF. 

Incomplete applications may not be considered.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

• Preliminary Evaluation - Step I: Screening
• Technical Evaluation Weight - 70% x (Step II: 40 Points + Step III: 60 Points = 100 Points);
• Financial Evaluation Weight - 30% = Step IV.

Step I: Screening

Applications will be screened and only applicants meeting the mandatory criteria (listed under education and experience) will progress to the pool for shortlisting.

Step II: Shortlisting by Desk Review – 40 points

UNCDF will conduct a desk review to produce a shortlist of candidates and technically evaluate the candidates. Only candidates that obtained 80% of the points at this stage shall be invited for the next step.

Shortlisting scoring:

20%- Education/Qualification (20 points):

• Bachelor degree in economics, finance, public/business administration, social sciences, international relations or related fields;

50%- Mandatory Experience (50 points):

• Minimum of 2 years of professional experience in research, digital payments, fintech, financial inclusion or a related field;

30%- Preferred Experience (30 points)

• Experience in donor projects, developing proposals, corresponding budgets, and monitoring and evaluation plans (10 points);
• Work experience on migration and/or remittances related projects (5 points);
• Work experience in the programme countries/regions across Africa, Asia and the Pacific (5 points);
• Working knowledge of current developments in including innovative payment methods (e.g., mobile financial services, pre-paid cards, fintech, blockchain, etc.) (5 points);
• Working knowledge of international donor organizations (5 points).

Step IV: Interview – 60 points

A competency-based interview shall be conducted for all the candidates who obtained 80% of the points at the desk review.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% on the total of Steps II (40 points) + III (60 points) will be considered as technically qualified and will be reviewed further for financial evaluation.

Step V: Financial Evaluation

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

Lowest priced proposal/price of the proposal being evaluated x 30.

Both individual consultants and individual employed by a company or institution are welcome to apply. 

Any individual employed by a company or institution who would like to submit an offer in response to a Procurement Notice for IC must do so in their individual capacity (providing a CV so that their qualifications may be judged accordingly). Women candidates or women-owned businesses are strongly encouraged to apply.

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