Background

As one of UNDP’s flagship programmes, the NDC Support Programme (NDC SP) is helping countries advance integrated climate and development solutions through the implementation of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The programme was launched in 2017 at the UN Climate Summit (COP23), by UNDP, together with the European Union and the Governments of Germany and Spain. The programme is implemented in contribution to the NDC Partnership.

The UNDP NDC SP is currently supporting 40 countries to achieve transformational development progress by scaling up action on climate change. Specifically, countries will use their NDCs as a tool for transitioning to a climate-resilient, zero-carbon pathway which will help them lock in adequate sustainable infrastructures to meet the complex economic, societal and planetary needs of the 21st century.

In the lead up to the UN Climate Action Summit in September, the Administrator launched his Climate Promise, which will support 100 countries to submit enhanced NDCs by 2020. UNDP has committed $25M in core resources to achieve the Climate Promise. Working in close collaboration with partners to ensure complementarity, these Promise funds must now be swiftly programmed and deployed to priority countries to deliver desired results.

UNDP’s flagship NDC initiative, the NDC Support Programme, has been tasked with a critical, central role in these efforts -- providing an immediate “surge” of technical capacity to regional hubs to guide and support Country Offices to define services that respond to government needs and priorities. The NDC SP will continue to provide dedicated technical and advisory services to COs and share good practices and lessons learned.  In parallel, the NDC SP team must continue to deliver and report on the Programme workplan and results framework. 

The UNDP NDC SP is seeking for a consultant to provide administrative, logistics and travel assistance for the team.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

  • Provide logistical support to the NDC SP team – filing, assist with procurement processes, and coordinating with other units;
  • Review and clearance of documentation submitted for approval by the UNDP Country Offices or Regional Offices related to: flight ticket purchases, Purchase Orders/payment approvals, and F10 (reimbursement form) claims for the participants of workshops;
  • Provide advice and orientation to the Country Office workshop focal points regarding travel related expenses/procedures;
  • Support to organization of meetings and workshops on scheduling flights for participants; procurement of venue and any material needed for the even; support the preparation of logistics/info notes, agenda, badges;
  • Keeps track record (simple/excel form) of the payments processed for the event;
  • Keeps track record of travel schedules and flight information for all participants to support the Hotel-Airport transfers organized for workshops (simple/excel form);
  • Provide travel support to the NDC SP team on processing travel claims, and assure that all travels are completed in T&E module in Atlas;
  • Support NDC SP on finance/administrative matters related to DIM and NIM projects;
  • Review documentation and obtain approval from authorized personnel to process consultant payments;
  • Process GLJEs and ASL requests to transfer funds for national projects;
  • Assure that all operations documents are proper filed in the team’s shared One Drive;
  • Any other related tasks.

Duration of work / contractual arrangements:

  • The consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment.
  • UNDP does not warrant that any quantity of services will be purchased during the term of the Framework Agreement as this will depend on forthcoming needs;
  • This ICFA shall come into effect for a period of one (1) year from the date of signing the agreement by UNDP and will be extendable up to two (2) additional years based on performance and availability of funds.
  • The Framework Agreements to be signed will be for a fixed all-inclusive daily fee;
  • Number of working days: up to 250 days/year per consultant.
  • No guarantee of minimum assignments will be given in advance.
  • The consultant shall be available and flexible to take on short-term assignments on an as-needed basis.
  • The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own working station (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, etc.) and must have access to a reliable internet connection;

The consultant will report to and seek approval/acceptance of outputs from NDC Support Programme Analyst.

Competencies

Corporate

  • Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s vision, mission and values;
  • 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;
  • Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional

Development and Operational Effectiveness

  • Results-driven and initiative-taking;
  • Ability to work under pressure and to meet deadlines;
  • Ability to plan and organize work and establish priorities;
  • Remains calm and in control even under pressure, and consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
  • Informed, sound, and transparent decision-making;
  • Thoroughly and methodically collects, verifies and records data, demonstrating attention to detail and identifying and correcting errors on own initiative.

Client Orientation and Communication

  • Effective written and oral communication skills;
  • Good interpersonal and networking skills;
  • Ability to establish and maintain effective working relations;
  • Supports and encourages open communication in the team and facilitates teamwork;
  • Ability to work under minimum supervision;
  • Ability to work with multiple stakeholders from a wide range of disciplines and fields, from both developed and developing countries, and having diverse and competing worldviews and interests.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

  • Secondary education is required;
  • Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in finance, administration, social sciences and/or another relevant field is highly desirable.

Experience:

  • At least 5 years of work experience related to administrative work, including procurement, travel and organization of events;
  • Work experience on relevant administrative work and travel in UNDP or other UN Agencies would be an asset;
  • Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) required;
  • Excellent knowledge of UNDP policies, procedures and practices, including knowledge of Atlas and UNDP Procurement processes.

Language:

  • Fluency in written and spoken is required;
  • Working knowledge of another UN language would be an asset

Application Procedure

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

  • 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;
  • Confirm availability and flexibility to take on short-term assignments on an as-needed basis.

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 must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; (excluding mission travel); 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.

  • This consultancy is a home-based assignment, therefore, there is no envisaged travel cost to join duty station/repatriation travel.

    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.

     

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

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% (70 points):

Desk Review Weight = 40 %; Maximum Points: 40.

  • Criteria 1. Work experience on relevant administrative work in UNDP or other UN Agencies; Maximum points: 6;
  • Criteria 2. Relevant administrative work experience with travel, and organization of events; Maximum points: 8;
  • Criteria 3. Knowledge of UNDP policies, procedures and practices; Maximum points: 8;
  • Criteria 4. Level of experience in the usage of Atlas; Maximum points: 10;
  • Criteria 5. Level of understanding of Excel functionalities; Maximum points: 8.

 Having reviewed applications received, UNDP will invite the top 6  shortlisted candidates for interview. Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Interview: Weight = 30 %; Maximum Points: 30.

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

Framework Agreement

UNDP plans to enter into the Long-Term Agreement (LTA) with the TOP ranked successful Individual Contractors to assure resources availability at the required time fame and/or increased demand for services requested. The service of who will be used on an intermittent and repetitive basis when needed and based on the fixed unit price.  Other prospective applicants that are not contracted, at the UNDP’s discretion, may be placed in the roster of consultants to be used based on an on-call basis for similar services.

Please note that the LTA does not form a financial obligation or commitment from UNDP at the time the LTA contract is signed, and that such an agreement is non-exclusive. When a specific need arises, the successful Individual Contractor/s will be approached and be provided with a specific TOR and deliverables (and time frame) but still within the scope of the responsibilities stated in the LTA. The successful Individual Contractor(s) is expected to provide Confirmation of Interest on the specific services required at the agreed LTA Daily Rate Consultancy Fee. Financial commitments will only be established each time a Purchase Order for the specific services/TOR for Individual Contractor is committed.

This LTA has 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.

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 Framework Agreement and the potential secondary engagements will be managed by the ICFAs Manager and supervised directly by the relevant team for each assignment.  Prior to initiation of work, each assignment will be outlined in a Statement of Work signed by the consultant, contract manager, and relevant supervisor. Payments will be made upon satisfactory achieved deliverables under each assignment and submission of time sheet in accordance with number of days worked. All payments are subject to the clearance and approval of the direct supervisor. Direct supervisors shall share with contract managers signed performance evaluation of the assigned consultant. Final payment shall require a signed performance evaluation of the assigned consultant.

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

Payment modality

  • Payment to the Individual Contractor will be made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager.
  • 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):

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.