Background

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is present in more than 170 countries and territories and contributes to the eradication of poverty, the reduction of inequalities and the increase of sustainability. In this challenging scenario, the development of partnerships is a crucial aspect for the achievement of UNDP's goals and the engagement of different institutions from the private and public sectors. In the area of environment and sustainable development, the mandate of UNDP is to support countries in integrating environment, energy and climate change into national policies, strategies and programmes, adapting to climate change and ensuring access to environmental and energy services for the poorest. Climate change is now the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, threatening the water and food security, health, livelihoods and security of billions of people. The global response to this challenge must be fair, inclusive, and leave no one behind, while seeking the most effective climate solutions that advance multiple sustainable development goals at once. 

Under the new Strategic Plan (2022-2025), energy is one of UNDP’s six signature solutions – alongside poverty and inequality, governance, resilience, environment, and gender equality - to support countries towards three directions of change: structural transformation, leaving no one behind and resilience. Scaled-up programming efforts on energy access and the energy transition will be coordinated under the newly established Sustainable Energy Hub (SEH), which represents parts of the organization’s systematic and programmatic approach to respond to the energy and climate change agendas. As per UNDP’s new Strategic Plan 2022-2025, the main objective of UNDP is increasing energy access for those furthest behind. By speeding up investment in distributed renewable energy solutions, especially for those hardest to reach and in crisis contexts, it aims to increase access to clean and affordable energy for 500 million people by the year 2025. 

Through the Sustainable Energy Hub, UNDP will harness networks, experience and innovation to scale-up energy programming efforts and shape policy, building on the existing portfolio of energy projects, covering over 100 countries to harness clean energy and support the energy access and transition as well as on UNDP’s Climate Promise, UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub and UNDP’s Digital offer. UNDP will also work with Governments in programme countries as they recover and build forward better from COVID-19 and with investors to unlock and harness public and private finance to power progress towards multiple SDGs. Finally, recognizing that change will be disruptive, UNDP will strive to ensure that such transitions are just, and that their impact on vulnerable people is understood and duly mitigated.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to approximately 600 million people without access to clean, affordable energy, making the region a key focus of UNDP’s new Strategic Plan energy objective and scaled up energy offer, which seeks to provide access to clean and affordable energy to 500 million people through strategic partnerships and targeted stakeholder engagement.

The UNDP’s Renewed Strategic Offer in Africa, or “Africa Promise”, aims to “strengthen UNDP’s position as Africa’s premier partner on the 2030 and the 2063 Agendas”. Affordable and sustainable energy constitutes one of the six Strategic Impact Areas of UNDP’s Africa Promise, focusing on energy interventions to play their role as enablers of development. The Africa Promise pledged to provide at least 100 million people with access to Energy by the end of the current Strategic Plan.

The Regional Programme for Africa (2022-2025) constitutes the vehicle for realizing UNDP’s Renewed Strategic Offer in Africa. The new Regional Programme will explicitly situate itself as a regional catalyst and incubator for people, prosperity, planet and peace.

In Angola, UNDP is currently implementing its Country Programme (CPD) for the period of 2020 – 2022, which is based on the premise of ‘leaving no one behind’ and ‘reaching those furthest behind first’. The programme includes integrated solutions to complex, interconnected development challenges. These challenges are currently being addressed through three complementary priorities:

fostering poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth;
increasing resilience to shocks and crises and enhancing management of natural resources for conservation and economic development; and
strengthening inclusive democracy, human rights, justice and rule of law.

In partnership with the Government of Angola, the Country Office (CO) under programme priority 2 (increasing resilience to shocks and crises and enhancing management of natural resources for conservation and economic development) has been mobilizing efforts and resources to address development challenges in the areas of biodiversity and ecosystems, renewable energy, environmental policy and planning, natural resources management and governance, climate change, disaster risk reduction, resilience building, recovery and livelihoods. Efforts are always made to scale up gender responsive support, identifying entry points to fully mainstreamed gender considerations into all relevant components. Hence, in order to enhance Energy Access in Angola, which currently stands at 42.7%, leaving an estimated 18,909,000 persons without access to clean and affordable energy, seedling funding were sourced from the organization core resources as catalytic to further expand the CO energy portfolio. This is strongly aligned with the Government´s National Development Plan (PND) 2018-2022 of bringing electricity coverage at 50% by end of 2022, and with the Angola Energy Plan´s target of 200 MW of renewable energy by 2025.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

Responsibilities:

  • Provision of sound technical advice on policy energy issues and inputs to strategic documents and processes.
  • Support to planning and programming on energy issues;
  • Provision of technical support to project activities related to energy;
  • Coordination on strategic partnership and institutional capacity pertaining energy issues.

           Deliverables                                                                                         

  • Country background briefs will be prepared including key indicators and data set regarding energy access and transition, e.g., drawing from national reports, literature, and other materials available online or through stakeholder engagements at the country level. An annex of the country briefs will also include the main development projects and interventions taking place at the country level (e.g., projects being implemented by UN-Energy Members, Multilateral Development Banks, civil society organizations, the private sector, and others);

                             Estimated Duration:                        Final Draft: 15 days  Final draft 5 days             Review and Approvals: UNDP RR/DRR                                                                                                                                                                                                            or Unit head

  • Implement pre-feasibility assessment to identify Country-level Action Opportunities

                           Estimated Duration:                         First draft 50 days; Final Draft: 10 days             Review and Approvals: UNDP RR/DRR                                                                                                                                                                                                              or Unit head

  • Country Office Energy Support Plan based on the above two tasks

                          Estimated Duration: First Draft: 25 days;   Final Draft: 5 days                                    Review and Approvals:  UNDP RR/DRR                                                                                                                                                                                                              or Unit head

  • Political Economy Intelligence report: develop a Political Economy report (for each country) gathering intelligence on some existing political, commercial and market risks and barriers that may hinder the scaling up of actions to close the energy access gap and accelerate the energy transition. The report will include information such as potential corruption risks, economic interests that may hinder progress and benefit of status quo, etc. that may be revealed in the stakeholder engagement process. This report will not be made public and as such will not be included in the final report but will be submitted as a standalone separated annex.

                      Estimated Duration:  First Draft 10 days Final Draft: 3 days                                         Review and Approvals;  UNDP RR/DRR or                                                                                                                                                                                                          Unit head

  • Support day to day project implementation under supervision of the Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction head of unit

                     Estimated Duration:  77 days

 

Competencies

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.

Technical Competencies:

  • Excellent oral and written communication skills, with analytic capacity and demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information in high quality papers/reports and in effective presentations to different audiences Skills in facilitating meetings effectively and efficiently;
  • Ability to develop and maintain partnerships/relationships, including with clients, focusing on results for the client/partner and responding positively to feedback.

Professionalism:

  • Excellent analytical and organizational skills;
  • Exercise the highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner.

Communication:

  • Active listening and dialogue (acknowledges and responds constructively to the points of view of others);
  • Excellent writing and verbal communication skills;
  • Communicate effectively in writing and verbally to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner.

Teamwork:

  • Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
  • Focuses on results for the client;
    • Welcomes constructive feedback;  Good interpersonal and networking skills, ability to establish and maintain effective working relations, supports and encourages open communication in the team, and facilitates teamwork.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Master’s in Business Administration, Development Studies, Economics, Environmental or Agricultural Economics, Natural Sciences, or a related area is required.
  • Advanced higher degree (Master’s or equivalent) in Energy, Engineering, Environment, Economics, Energy Finance or related field required;

Experience:

  • At least 7 years of professional work experience providing policy advice and programme support in the general areas of energy access and renewable energy in different development contexts, preferably for off-grid electrification;
  • Proven experience with the design and/or implementation of development projects to promote energy investment;
  • Excellent oral and written skills; excellent drafting, formulation, reporting skills;
  • Accuracy and professionalism in document production and editing;
  • Solid overall computer literacy, including proficiency in various MS Office applications (Excel, Word, etc.) and email/internet; familiarity with database management; and office technology equipment;
  • Have strong interest in innovations in the energy sector to enable the broader SDGs, volunteerism as a mechanism for durable development, and the UN System.
  • Demonstrated high level of professionalism and an ability to work independently and in high pressure situations under tight deadlines;
  • Superior abilities to conduct qualitative and quantitative research
  • Experience working with UN agencies or other international organizations would be an asset.

Language Requirements:

  • Good working knowledge of English, both written and verbal
  • Fluency in Portuguese, both written and verbal

 How to Apply: 

Qualified and interested candidates are hereby requested to apply. The application should contain the following:

  • Cover letter
  • Personal CV, indicating education background/professional qualifications, all experience from similar Assignment, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.
  • Financial proposal that indicates all-inclusive fixed total contract price supported by a breakdown of costs (including professional fee, and specified other costs if applicable, but excluding travel costs and DSA

Note:

  • The information in the breakdown of the offered lump sum amount provided by the offer or will be used as the basis for determining best value for money, and as reference for any amendments of the contract;
  • The agreed contract amount will remain fixed regardless of any factors causing an increase in the cost of any of the components in the breakdown that are not directly attributable to UNDP;
  • Approved local travel related to this assignment will be arranged and paid by UNDP Angola.

Technical Criteria weight 70%

Financial Criteria weight 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% of the total technical points (49 points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation which attributes maximum of 30%.

Technical Capacity and Related Qualifications

Points Obtainable

Payment to the Consultant will be made upon completion of each draft along with the corresponding number of days.

Advanced higher degree (Master’s or equivalent) in Energy, Engineering, Environment, Economics, Energy Finance or related field required; 10

2. At least 7 years of professional work experience providing policy advice and programme support in the general areas of energy access and renewable energy in different development contexts, preferably for off-grid electrification; 25

3. Proven experience in programme and project formulation and evaluation,  20

4. Advanced skills in conducting research,  15

 Total Possible Points:  70