Background

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the State Government of Sarawak have initiated a partnership in Sarawak’s development planning under the current and new Country Programme between Government of Malaysia and UNDP. One of the projects in partnership with the Ministry of Urban Development and Natural Resources (MUDeNR), Sarawak is to formulate the Sarawak Biodiversity Master Plan. The project titled “Sarawak Biodiversity Master Plan – Support to Policy Formulation, Institutional Framework and Institutional Capacity Building” (SBMP) will contribute to mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem considerations into Sarawak’s development planning to advance effective conservation and safeguard natural resources. The formulation of Sarawak Biodiversity Master Plan and its implementation is aligned with Sarawak’s development objectives as well as the international call for stronger sub-national commitment on addressing threats to biodiversity and ecosystems, and full integration of conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity into development planning to ensure sustainable economic growth and social wellbeing in Sarawak.

There are three outcomes to this project namely:

1. Development and sectoral policies are harmonized and strengthened through formulation of SARAWAK BIODIVERSITY MASTER PLAN to enable effective conservation, management & sustainable use of biodiversity 
2. INSTITUTIONAL MANDATES for biodiversity & ecosystems are clarified to strengthen intra-governmental coordination and multiple stakeholder participation in biodiversity planning & decision-making process
3. CAPACITY to implement the Sarawak Biodiversity Master Plan enhanced among the government ministries and agencies

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK

Role

The Capacity Development Expert will be part of the policy and technical expert team led by UNDP Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam to provide technical expertise and inputs to the formulation of the Sarawak Biodiversity Master Plan.

The Expert will provide support to project team in reviewing and developing appropriate capacity development scorecard indicators on mainstreaming of biodiversity, independent assessment of target institutions and organizations in Sarawak, recommendations of suitable areas for capacity building and delivery of training. Its results will help in the formulation and/or implementation of the SBMP.

Responsibilities

• Review the questionnaire and indicators of UNDP capacity development scorecard assessment for biodiversity mainstreaming capacity of institutions in Sarawak;
• Prepare and design a customized capacity development scorecard with new or amended questionnaire and indicators that will be used and conduct the independent capacity assessment on target institutions and organizations with mandate and/or function to mainstream biodiversity in Sarawak;
• Conduct baseline assessment of biodiversity mainstreaming capacity of target institutions and organizations using the customized capacity assessment scorecard;
• Support development of capacity building programme for the target institutions upon completion of baseline assessment. The consultant will support the development of technical requirements of the capacity building programme for Sarawak institutions. Prepare a summary report that builds on the baseline assessment.
• Conduct assessment of biodiversity mainstreaming capacity of target institutions and organizations using the customized capacity assessment scorecard at the end of project;
• Produce a draft and final report detailing capacity scores of assessed institutions, key findings, lessons learned and provide further actionable recommendations.

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

The Expert will report to the Project Manager, Sarawak Region and seek approval and/or acceptance of outputs/deliverables from the Head of Sustainable and Resilient Development of UNDP Country Office in Malaysia. The Expert is also expected to liaise/collaborate/meet with the project team for project management and other relevant matters.

• Estimated level of effort: up to 30 days;
• The Expert will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• The Expert will be responsible for providing her/his own working station (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, photo camera, etc.) and must have access to a reliable internet connection;
• For specific tasks in this assignment relating to the country-level projects the Consultant will report to the UNDP Country Office;
• The Expert is expected to be reasonably flexible with his/her availability during the assignment;
• Payments will be made upon submission of a detailed time sheet and Certification of Payment (COP) form, and acceptance and confirmation by the Supervisor on days worked and outputs delivered.

DURATION OF THE WORK

The assignment will require up to 30 working days including 10 travel days starting from 1 June to 31 December 2022.

DUTY STATION

Kuching, Sarawak

SCHEDULE OF PAYMENT

Competencies

Functional competencies:

• Proven ability to be flexible in a team-oriented approach with diverse groups of people;
• Capable of working in a high- pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
• Exercises the highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner;
• Welcomes constructive feedback;
• Capable to deliver high quality capacity building training;
• Excellent communication and writing skills; and
• Excellent planning, organizational, multi-task and time management skills.
• Familiarity with UNDP and government strongly desired.
• Excellent collaborative work style, with an openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback and a track record with ways to promote diversity and inclusion in dialogue;
• Excellent ability to plan/project manage, organize, implement, report on work and work under pressure and tight deadlines;

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling 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 favouritism;
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment;
• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Law, Public Administration, Management, Biodiversity, or any other related discipline (5 points).

Experience

• At least 10 years of experience in capacity development and governance in the field of biodiversity (10 points);
• Technical knowledge of biodiversity and ecosystems in Malaysia and/or Sarawak (20 points);        
• Experience in conducting UNDP capacity development scorecard (20 points);
• Demonstrated social skills of coordinating with different stakeholders and facilitating discussions (10 points);                
• Experience working with Sarawak Government and/or UNDP an advantage (5 points).

Language:

• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

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

1. Document 1: Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability 
2. Document 2: Technical Proposal: on how your qualifications, experience, and list of track records can lead to successful deliverables of this assignment within the required timeframe, and provide a methodology and approach on how you will approach and conduct the assignments;
3. Document 3: Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided.  If an applicant 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 Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the applicant must indicate at this point and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.  
4. Document 4: 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 references  
5. Please submit this information in one file as Document 1, 2, 3,  and 4. The system will only accept ONE (1) attachment, please merge all documents and submit them as one file.
6. Applicants must reply to the mandatory questions asked by the system when submitting the application.
7. Candidates who fail to submit all the information requested above will be disqualified.

How to Apply:

• Kindly download the Letter of Confirmation of interest and availability, Financial Proposal Template, and General Terms & Conditions mentioned below;
• Read and agree to the General Terms & Conditions (refer to below link);
• Click the ‘apply’ icon and complete what is required;
• Scan all documents into 1 (One) pdf folder and then upload;
• For clarification questions, please email procurement.my@undp.org. The clarification question deadline is three (3) days before the closing. When emailing for clarification questions, please put "MyIC/2022/007" as the subject matter.

General terms & conditions to be downloaded:

• The General Terms & Conditions for Individual contract 

Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA): A legal instrument between UNDP and a Company/institution, according to which, the latter makes available the services of an individual delivering time-bound and quantifiable outputs that are directly linked to payments

• The General Terms & Conditions for Reimbursement Loan Agreement  

Incomplete proposals may not be considered. Only short-listed candidates may be contacted, and successful candidates will be notified.

EVALUATION AND AWARD OF CONTRACT

• Only those applications which are responsive and compliant will be shortlisted for technical evaluation;
• Offers will be evaluated according to the Combined Scoring method – where the technical criteria will be weighted at 70% and the financial offer will be weighted at 30%;
• The technical criteria including education, experience and written test will be based on a maximum 70 points. Only the top 3 candidates scoring 50 points or higher from the review of the education and experience will be considered for financial evaluation;
• Financial score (max 30 points) shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal of those technically qualified;
• The financial proposal shall specify an all-inclusive fee and including breakdown per deliverable and all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, in-country travel costs, living allowance and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the Specialist in completing the assignment.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal must additionally include a breakdown of this daily fee (including number of anticipated working days and all foreseeable expenses to carry out the assignment);
• Applicant receiving the Highest Combined Score and has accepted UNDP’s General Terms and Conditions will be awarded the contract.