Background

Project Title

Accelerator Lab Philippines (00118909 / 00115528)

Background and Description

UNDP is aiming to build the largest and fastest global learning network embedded in its organization through the setting up of almost 100 Accelerator Labs all over the world.  Joining this call, UNDP Philippines has set up its own Accelerator Lab and has taken on the task to pursue interdisciplinary approaches and non-linear solutions that crowd in the collective efforts of variety of partners and tap into local insights and the knowledge of people closest to the problem and the solutions. Through the Accelerator Labs, UNDP aims to introduce a range of new services—including sensemaking, collective intelligence, solutions mapping, and experimentation—to accelerate the testing and dissemination of solutions within and across countries. The Network surfaces and reinforces locally sourced solutions at scale while mobilizing a wide and dynamic partnership of actors contributing knowledge, resources and experience. In the Philippines, the Accelerator Lab Philippines (ALab PH) is involved in exploring, mapping solutions, and testing these in the frontier development challenges of sustainable cities, zero extreme poverty, marine litter, and inclusive, grassroots-based, and data-driven innovation.

ALab PH sits within the Impact and Advisory Team (IAT), which leads the policy research and advocacy, partnerships building, and innovation and pipeline development of the UNDP Country Office. A newly established unit, IAT seeks to standardize the commissioning of research, production of knowledge products, and their dissemination and advocacy. IAT and ALab aim to deepen the systems and innovations that it has so far introduced by codifying and systematizing—and to the point feasible, digitalizing and automating—the development, quality assurance, and knowledge management mechanisms that it has so far introduced for research and innovation. Rather than a static manual of operations, they plan to develop a UNDP PH Research and Innovation Portal that is built on an open-source cross-platform web service stack, such as, but not limited to, XAMPP, LAMPP, MariaDB, among others, and linked to the UNDP's corporate Office 365 and Sharepoint tools.

Governance and Accountability Including Duty Station

• The Consultant shall directly report to the ALab PH Head of Solutions Mapping but is expected to collaborate closely with the key members of the IAT and ALab for the respective sections of the portal, namely: Senior Policy Adviser, ALab Head of Exploration, and Head of Experimentation, Pintig Lab Project Manager, and IAT Associate and Assistant. UNDP Programme and Operations colleagues may be invited during the conceptualization and testing of sections of the solutions.

• UNDP Philippines shall be entitled to intellectual property and other proprietary rights over all materials that have direct relation to the project.

• Considering the COVID-19 pandemic and declaration of State of Public Health Emergency in the Philippines, all work of the Individual consultant shall be on a work from the home arrangement and should be within the guidelines and protocols set by the local and national government. This work shall be performed remotely. The Consultant is expected to have its own working premises, ICT equipment, internet connectivity, cloud hosting, among others; although software and cloud server services mentioned shall be provided by UNDP., Once the community quarantine restrictions are eased, UNDP and the Individual Consultant shall assess if it is safe and necessary to have in-person meetings and activities.

Expected Duration of the Contract

The Consultant shall perform the above works within 70 working days spread over a period of four (4) months.

Scope of Price Proposal 

• The Consultant should send the financial proposal based on a lump-sum amount for the delivery of the outputs identified below. The total amount quoted shall be “all-inclusive” all costs (professional fees, medical insurance, communications, etc.) that could possibly be incurred by the Consultant should be factored into the final amount submitted in the proposal. Travel, as deemed relevant by UNDP, will be arranged by UNDP, following UNDP Financial Rules and Regulations.

• Medical/health insurance must be purchased by the individual at his/her own expense, and upon award of contract, the consultant must be ready to submit proof of insurance valid during the contract duration.

• The contract price will be fixed output-based price. Any deviations from the output and timelines will be agreed upon between the Consultant and the ALab-PH Head of Solutions Mapping.

• Payments will be done upon satisfactory completion of the delivery by target due dates. Outputs will be certified by the Accelerator Lab-Philippines Project Manager, prior to the release of payments.

Schedule of Payment

First Tranche - 10% Upon submission and acceptance of inception report;

Second Tranche - 30% Upon submission and acceptance of the first draft of the portal with a progress report;

Duties and Responsibilities

UNDP requires the services of a Full Stack Web Development Consultant to develop the key Modules representing the features and functionalities of the Research and Innovation Portal, particularly:

• Research and knowledge management – A facility that allows for the submission, review, and status reporting of research for the consideration, implementation, or review. The facility shall have a progress tracking as well as a repository of completed research and their knowledge products.
• Stakeholder ecosystem mapping – A Customer Relationship Management (CRM)-like a repository of the UNDP’s partners in its various thematic, functional, and geographical engagements, beginning with the UNDP ALab’s partners in its frontier challenge areas. The ecosystem map shall enable UNDP analysis of the criticality of such partners and other stakeholders in particular policy advocacy or problem space. Borrowing functionalities from CRM, this module shall have, at the minimum, partner contact management, interaction tracking, email integration, and the like.
• Solutions mapping – A facility that allows for the submission, analysis, and updating of grassroots innovations and other solutions that were mapped by UNDP personnel or by its partners on the ground. This facility may feed from a variety of inputs, including a mobile-responsive online form to capture solutions on the ground, a microsite featuring solutions, and others. The repository shall also have a feature allowing for the rating of the maturity of the solutions which were mapped.
• Experimentation – A facility that allows for the submission, review, and status reporting for each experiment portfolio and individual experiment that is designed, implemented, and reported on by ALab and other UNDP PH units. The underlying experiments database or repository should be intelligently linked to the preceding repositories, e.g., an experiment may be linked to a mapped solution, ecosystem partner, or existing research.
• Project pipeline management – A facility that allows for the submission, review, and reporting of ideas for new programs and projects as they mature through the pipeline. This is separate from the Atlas-based platform for pipeline management as it will allow for the submission of very preliminary ideas that could be matured further into project concepts that can eventually be submitted to the corporate Atlas platform.
• Public- and internally-facing interfaces – The public-facing microsite shall be housed within the UNDP website with a dedicated frontpage, partners page, blog page, solutions mapping module, among others.  The internally facing microsite shall be embedded within the UNDP CO SharePoint site. These two interfaces shall also feature a PowerBI dashboard that summarizes the data collected in the different modules, such as, but not limited to, Stakeholder Ecosystem Mapping, Solutions Mapping, Experimentation, Project Pipeline management. Content publishing and ingestion between the internal and public faces shall be automated.
• Other features that may be discussed and feasible within the contract period and level of effort.

In collaboration with the IAT and ALab team, as well as other relevant UNDP CO personnel identified in part E below, the Consultant shall co-design, plan, develop, and test the portal. In developing a minimum viable product (MVP) of the portal within a short period of four months, the consultant shall make use of the available digital tools at the disposal of the country office and other free open source software available on the internet.

The Consultant is expected to implement Agile tools and methodologies in the conceptualization, planning, development, and testing of the features of the portal. The features and their technical and functional specifications shall be fleshed out during the overall road mapping session at the inception of the contract and sprint planning sessions every month.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

[10 person-days] Inception Report and Work Plan that shall include the details of the UI/UX research design, user journey & stories, the development of the prototype done in phases, and other details agreed upon during prep meetings with UNDP.

[20 person-days]  First iteration of the portal and progress report detailing the progress and key elements of the portal.

[20 person-days] Second iteration of the portal and progress report detailing the progress and key elements of the portal.

[20 person-days] Final iteration of the portal with the final report, including the user manual and recommendations for possible future iterations.

Competencies

Corporate competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN's values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Functional and technical competencies

• Ability to work in a diverse and multi-cultural environment;
• Self-motivated and ability to work under pressure and to meet strict and competing deadlines;
• Displays analytical judgment and demonstrated ability to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner;
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;

Required Skills and Experience

Offers will be evaluated based on the combined scoring method :

• Technical qualifications = 40%
• Interview = 30%
• Financial Proposal =    30%

For the evaluation of the Technical Proposal, the selection of the successful consultant must be based on the following qualifications (with the appropriate obtainable points): 

Applicants who will only receive 70 points from the assessment of the CV will be qualified for an interview and assessment of the Financial Proposal.

Recommended Presentation of Offer

Interested applicants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload maximum of one document. 

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability and including the financial proposal, using the template provided by UNDP;
2. UNDP Personal History Form (P11) or Curriculum Vitae (following the template attached) indicating all past experiences from similar projects or requirements, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
3. Financial proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract prices, supported by a breakdown of costs as per template provided and clearly stating payment percentage; and,
4. Work portfolio demonstrating at least one (1) example of the following: Sharepoint or website development

Interested applicants to note that personal Medical/health insurance (to be purchased by the individual at his/her own expense) is mandatory for the issuance of contracts. Upon award of the contract, the consultant must be ready to submit proof of insurance valid during the contract duration.

The following templates / Annexes and IC General Terms & Conditions can be downloaded from http://gofile.me/6xdJm/bE9TCw8fU:

• General Terms and Conditions for Individual Contract
• Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability
• P-11 form

In view of the volume of applications, UNDP receives, only shortlisted offerors will be notified.