Background

Nature, Climate and Energy (NCE) is largest portfolio in UNDP multi-country office in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam ranges from biodiversity and ecosystems, climate change, energy, environmental management, ozone protection, green commodities, natural resource management and waste management. Currently, the programme implementation is funded from various resources including the Global Environment Facility. The portfolio remains one of the important programme areas in the Country Programme Document period from 2022 – 2025 with a shift towards diversification of funding and efforts to operationalize new financial instruments.

Communication, outreach and knowledge production forms a fundamental part of a successful implementation and achievement of NCE programme / projects to inform policy and/or institutional changes based on evidence-based results. It also supports the Country Office's effort to diversify partnership and mobilize resources for country programmes in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.

UNDP multi-country office in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam seeks for a suitably qualified Communications, Outreach and Knowledge Product Specialist to provide professional services in strategic communications, advocacy and development of knowledge products in the area of nature, climate and energy.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

 The Specialist will be responsible to provide communications and outreach advisory & oversight services for quality assurance and timely preparation & submission of communications strategy, action plan & materials, and knowledge products in the Nature, Climate and Energy portfolio. The Specialist will liaise/collaborate/coordinate/meet with NCE unit, other Programme units in the Country Office and project teams in UNDP Country Office and/or Implementing Partners for project level communications matters to deliver the outputs under this assignment.

Key responsibilities and outputs of this assignment are listed as follows:

1. Develop NCE Communications Strategy and Action Plan 2023 – 2025

2. Develop and publish communication and outreach materials including

• Up to 12 photo essays
• Up to 6 short project stories
• Up to 4 blogs

3. Develop and publish up to 3 knowledge products in the form of report / book (picture / coffee table) / brochure

Institutional Arrangement

The Communications, Outreach and Knowledge Production Specialist will report to and seek approval and/or acceptance of the outputs/deliverables from the Head, Nature, Climate and Energy and/or Programme Analyst, Biodiversity & Natural Resource Management, UNDP Multi-country Office in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam.

• Estimated level of effort: 100 days;
• The Specialist will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• The Specialist 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 Specialist will report to the UNDP Country Office;
• Payments will be made upon submission of a detailed time sheet and certification of payment form, and acceptance and confirmation by the Supervisor on days worked and outputs delivered.

Duration of the work

The assignment will require up to 100 working days starting from 16 October 2022 until 31 December 2023 and one field mission to Putrajaya, Malaysia (up to 15 days).

DUTY STATION

Home-based with field mission to Putrajaya, MALAYSIA

Schedule of Payment

Payment to be made based on completed deliverables against the TOR, which will be assessed and verified by UNDP Malaysia CO and UNDP-Global Environmental Finance RTA.

Competencies

Functional competencies:

• Extensive knowledge in environmental sustainability, biodiversity and ecosystems, climate change, chemicals, waste, etc.;
• Proven ability to be flexible in a team-oriented approach with diverse groups of people;
• Excellent communication and writing skills;
• Ability to tell a compelling story;
• Excellent planning, organizational, multi-task and time management skills;
• Proven computer skills.

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:

Master’s degree in communications, journalism or other relevant fields.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of professional experience working on communications in the development sector, preferably working with donor-funded projects and project teams;
• Demonstrable communication products from past assignment that showcase enhanced communications from development projects (please attach or provide links to at least 2 samples of previous work in your applications. Previous samples of photo-essays are highly encouraged);
• Previous experience working on development issues;
• Previous work experience with UNDP or a related organization is an advantage;
• Demonstrated experience in handling of web-based management systems and IT tools;
• Demonstrated experience with information architecture and information management tasks in a Web 2.0 environment;
• Technical knowledge in Drupal and other relevant content management systems.

Language Requirement:

Language required for this assignment is 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 the payment breakdown above.  If an Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution and expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under the 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 consultant should also indicate any travel and related costs, e.g., meetings, etc.
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 Documents 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 above at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=96037
• Read and agree to the General Terms & Conditions.
• 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/2022/029" as the subject matter.

EVALUATION METHOD AND AWARD OF CONTRACT

• Only those applications which are responsive and compliant will be evaluated;
• 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 (education, experience, languages will be based on a maximum 70 points and technical proposal review on maximum 30 points. Only the top candidates scoring 60 points or higher from the review of the education, experience, languages and technical proposal review 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 a lump sum fee, including breakdown per deliverable as outlined above.  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.