Background

The Risk Committee, chaired by the Associate Administrator, oversees the overall implementation, effectiveness and use of the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Framework in UNDP. It is responsible to review, analyze and advise on strategic corporate risks identified through different corporate mechanisms, monitor and update the corporate risk register, review analysis from aggregated risk registers from across the organization and deliberate on risks escalated by Bureaus and units to the corporate level. The Risk Committee is also responsible to maintain the overall risk and resilience framework, including strategic aspects of business continuity management, incident and crisis management, and risk reserves. It reviews the knowledge management aspects of risk management and reviews and updates the risk appetite statement on a regular basis.

The Risk Committee is a sub-committee of the Executive Group and reports back to the EG on a bi-annual basis. Meetings are held at least on a bi-annual basis and through ad-hoc meetings as needed. The Risk Committee Secretariat assists the chair and members in effective and efficient management of the work of the Committee.

The 2022-2025 UNDP Strategic Plan sets out a bold vision for an organizational culture that embraces complexity, actively manages risk, continually adapts and seeks to learn alongside delivering results. This requires taking a more pro-active approach to risk management across all organizational structures and processes for managing risk. These are all inter-linked and the vision requires UNDP to further evolve its approach to risk. The Risk Committee is a critical part of this effort.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is reviewing the functioning and terms of reference of the Risk Committee in an effort to build on significant work done thus far to strengthen risk management in the organization, to meet the ambitions of the Strategic Plan. This is linked to the ExO’s commitment to maintain an overview of corporate management, performance bodies and related accountabilities to inform executive decision-making, and reviewing and, as necessary, updating UNDP’s Corporate Accountability Framework.

The objective of this work is to make concrete recommendations to optimize the role and work of the Risk Committee, such that UNDP’s leadership can be increasingly proactive in anticipating and acting on corporate risks that may impact UNDP’s performance, reputation and/or accountability to partners at the corporate level in order to be:

1. Strategic, in terms of what risks are reviewed and how they are identified,
2. Effective in its recommendations and risk treatment approach,
3. Dynamic, to learn from the past as well as scan for the future,
4. Systematic, looking at risks in a more integrated way,
5. Contributing to the sharing of knowledge and learning on risk across regions and countries, and
6. Enabling UNDP to take risk-informed decisions in line with its Risk Appetite Statement and the ambitions of the Strategic Plan, while safeguarding UNDP’s accountability and reputation.

Results of this review will contribute to further strengthening the Risk Committee, including what (and how) analysis is tabled for review and decision-making, how the forward agenda is developed, what analytics and intelligence are reviewed, what/how capacities on risk management from across the organization are marshalled to advise the Risk Committee, changes required to the ERM policy and/or processes and resources needed to enable the Risk Committee to function most effectively.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Risk Committee Review will:

1. Interview key colleagues involved in the Risk Committee, experts on risk management across the organization and key stakeholders to identify what is working, what are the pain points and what should be improved, reflecting on the ambitions of the Strategic Plan and senior managers.
2. Review and incorporate learning from audits and other reviews.
3. Document case studies of good practices across the organization in identifying and making decisions on risk, including in country offices that have a mature approach to risk management.
4. Document lessons learned from peer organizations.
5. Review the TOR and meeting minutes of the Risk Committee and follow up with a sampling of units that brought risks to the Risk Committee to discuss how decisions and treatment measures were implemented.
6. Review existing and proposed corporate process and mechanisms, which have a mandate to analyze, prioritize and proactively manage risks (i.e., Risk Reference Group, OPG, IWPs, PSDD, AML/CFT, vendor sanctions, etc.)
7. Review linkages between Risk Committee and corporate bodies mandated to identify and/or address risks, including the Private Sector Due Diligence Committee, Social and Environmental Compliance Unit, Ethics Office, Office of Audit and Investigations, etc.
8. Assess the linkages between the Risk Committee and the Risk Reference Group. Analyze the relevance of and role for the risk reference group, to facilitate the functioning of the Risk Committee.

Deliverables include:

a. Propose recommendations on what can be done to enhance the functioning of the Risk Committee to meet the objectives identified above, and draft an updated Risk Committee TOR (if needed)

b. Propose changes (if any) to the role and functioning of the Risk Committee Secretariat vis-a-vis other corporate mechanisms, analyze capacities of the Risk Committee Secretariat to execute the proposed role, and draft an updated Risk Committee Secretariat TOR (if needed)

c. Propose specific changes required to the ERM Policy to align with the recommendations arising from the review.

This work is part of UNDP’s continuous efforts to enhance corporate performance, and integrally connected to the work currently being done to update the ERM policy to include roles and responsibilities for risk management, the update of TORs of the senior management to include functions related to managing risk, and the update of the risk escalation criteria and processes.

Key background documents that will be provided to facilitate this work include:

• Risk Committee Terms of Reference (TOR) and Risk Committee Secretariat TOR
• Enterprise Risk Management policy and associated procedures
• Risk Appetite Statement
• Schedule and minutes of Risk Committee meetings
• Suggested interview list and contact information
• Draft ToR for the Risk Reference Group
• ERM Policy and proposed revisions
• AML/CFT proposal
• Documents on other relevant decision-making bodies, policies and processes, including the OPG, IWP, PSDD, SECU, etc.

 Expected Outputs

Competencies

• Demonstrated understanding of the assignment (methodology and workplan). 
• Demonstrated 7 years of experience designing and/or applying best practice-based risk management frameworks in international public organizations. 
• Experience in data collection and analysis 
• Demonstrated skills appropriate to the needs outlined in the TOR. 

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Masters’ degree in related field

Experience

• At least 7 years' experience providing risk management advisory services
• Demonstrated deep knowledge of risk management standards (e.g., ISO 31000, COSO ERM framework, etc.), as well as the application of Risk Management frameworks in international public organizations
• Relevant experience in data analysis (qualitative and quantitative).
• Demonstrated knowledge in effective functioning of corporate decision-making bodies

Language

• Fluent in written and spoken English

Application Procedure

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

• Brief (1-2 paragraph) description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment and how the Offerer will approach the required outputs within the assignment period and a link to an online portfolio showing samples of similar work;
• 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;
• The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around the specific and measurable deliverables of the TOR. One mission to NY should be included in the price. Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR, and deliverables accepted and certified by the technical manager. 

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

• 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; cost of travel from the home base to the duty station and vice versa, where required; 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 with one mission to NY for consultations.  
• 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.

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% (700 points):

• Demonstrated understanding of the assignment (methodology and workplan). Weight = 30%; Maximum Points:210;
• Demonstrated 7 years of experience designing and/or applying best practice-based risk management frameworks in international public organizations. Weight = 30%; Maximum Points: 210;
• Experience in data collection and analysis 10% Maximum Points:70;
• Demonstrated skills appropriate to the needs outlined in the TOR. Weight = 30%; Maximum Points: 210;

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (490 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (300 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

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 consultant will work under the guidance and direct supervision of Jessica Murray and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the deliverables as specified above.

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

Payment modality

• Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified above and deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager. 

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 Form for ICs

Annex 2 - IC Contract Template

Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions

Annex 4 – RLA Template

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.