UNDP Jobs - 74438- Re-Advertizement SLE/IC/2017/038 International Co

Re-Advertizement SLE/IC/2017/038 International Consultant Boundary Delimitation Evaluation

Location :

Freetown, SIERRA LEONE

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

02-Oct-2017

Application Deadline :

18-Sep-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 working Days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has, as part of its Constitutional mandate, the responsibility to carry out delimitation of wards and constituencies for conducting elections and referenda in Sierra Leone in line with necessary legal frameworks. The 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone (Act No 6 of 1991) and the Ward Boundary Regulation, 2008, requires Constituencies and Wards to be “as nearly equal to the population quota as is reasonably practicable”. Furthermore, the Constitution & Ward Regulations require the NEC-SL to review Constituency & Ward Boundaries at intervals of not less than 5 and not more than 7 years. The current 112 Constituencies were delimited in November 2006 for the 2007 Parliamentary Elections and the current 394 Wards were delimited in 2008 for the 2008 Local Council Elections.

The justification for drawing electoral boundaries of Constituencies and Wards for the 2018 elections was based on the following: a) the Constitutional obligation to redraw electoral districts in a timely manner; b) large population variations across the current constituencies and wards; and outdated population and other data. The current Constituency boundaries were drawn almost eleven years ago and the ward boundaries were drawn nine years ago. As a result, the constituencies and the wards vary dramatically in population. Constituency Boundaries and Ward Boundaries have neither been drawn nor reviewed for ten years (in the case of constituencies) and, eight years (in the case of wards). This is contrary to Section 38 (4) of the constitution, which requires NEC to review boundaries at intervals of between five to seven years. In 2015, Statistics Sierra Leone (SSL) conducted a national population and housing census. Sierra Leone, like many countries, delimits electoral boundaries after a national census, using the census data. This is because census population data provides reliable source of data for creating constituencies and wards that are relatively equal in population. Census data is also useful for planning voter registration exercises and locating polling centres. According to the provisional census data released by SSL in April 2016, the population of the current constituencies and wards vary dramatically. And finally, administering an election effectively requires that the delimitation of electoral boundaries precede all other election-related tasks as it facilitates, among other things, the preparation of an accurate voters’ register and the correct placement of polling stations.

In September 2016, UNDP and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Ireland as represented by Irish Aid signed a Third-Party Cost Sharing Agreement to fund NEC to conduct delimitation under the “Support to Boundary Delimitation Project”. The funds covered the following objectives: i) Institutional capacity of the NEC for effective boundary delimitation strengthened; ii) Stakeholders’ participation in the boundary delimitation process promoted; iii) Public sensitizations on Boundary Delimitation promoted; and iv) Capacity of National and District Boundary Delimitation Monitoring Committees strengthened. Although the Project was expected to end in January 2017, due to unforeseen circumstances the Project end date has been extended to 31 December 2017. The passing into law of the Provinces Act (CAP 60) 2017 on 13 March 2017 resulted in creation of additional districts, provinces and localities. Subsequently, NEC had to incorporate the new districts, provinces and localities as defined in the Provinces Act (CAP 60) of 2017. Re-districting had a significant impact on the already tight electoral timeline and further delayed legislation of the delimitation report by Parliament. It is anticipated that Parliamentary will soon pass the delimitation report and this will result into creation of additional seats from 475 to 511. The passing of the delimitation statutory instrument will be followed by public sensitisation on the new electoral boundaries (Wards and Constituencies), which is scheduled to start in August 2017. Public sensitisation on the new electoral boundaries is the last activity to be implemented by the Project and this will immediately be followed by the conduct of the Project evaluation scheduled for September 2017.

UNDP is looking for an international consultant to evaluate the “Support to Boundary Delimitation Project”. In addition to his/her practical experience in conducting external evaluations, the expert should have an extensive understanding of boundary delimitation and the social and political complexities associated with delimitation, and in post conflict countries.

Duties and Responsibilities

The objectives of the consultancy are:

to review the performance of the Project in achieving the outputs as per the Project Document and their contributions to outcome level goals; and ii) identify factors that facilitated or hindered or delayed the achievement of results, both in terms of the external and internal, and document lessons learned.

Specifically, the evaluation aims at accomplishing the following: assessing the delimitation process in terms of cost effectiveness; realistic timelines; nature of technology (GIS) and whether there was capacity to use the technology; location of the data base and if it can be accessed/updated on a regular basis; was there capacity building to ensure NEC would draw the boundaries themselves in the future other than contracting Statistics Sierra Leone; level of public participation and representation; independence and impartiality of the NEC in conducting delimitation; capacity of the NEC in conducting delimitation; impartiality of the legislative process; transparency of the delimitation process; the role of Government in the decision making process on matters concerning delimitation; re-districting and its impact on delimitation; the role of civil society in delimitation; the role of UNDP in delimitation; UNDP support to NEC to ensure timely delivery of results; UNDP support to NEC to mitigate impact of redistricting on deliver of project results; and assessing the impact of delimitation on the overall electoral cycle.

In assessing the impact of the Project, the evaluation will take into consideration the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the Project.

Scope of Work

Under the direct supervision of the UNDP Team Leader Governance, the IC will undertake the following:

Organize multi stakeholder consultations, bilateral meetings with individual stakeholders, and field trips to generate evidence that will be analyzed and used for writing the draft report;
Disseminate draft evaluation report and organize a validation workshop with Project stakeholders, and thereafter incorporate stakeholders’ comments in the final evaluation report;
Organize a wrap up meeting with UNDP, NEC and Development Partners (DPs) to present final evaluation report;

Submit to UNDP final and approved evaluation report, including a 2-3 page executive summary, and with evidence based conclusions, lessons learned and key recommendations for future reference. Annexes including among others the Terms of Reference for the evaluation as well as methodology and list of questions used during the interviews and list of key informants.

Competencies

Professionalism and Integrity
Promotes knowledge sharing and learning
Display cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Build strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
Demonstrate good oral and written skills;
Demonstrate openness to change and ability to manage complexities
Ability to work with national counterparts in building individual and institutional capacity.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Masters’ Degree in the relevant area;
Proven qualification, knowledge or equivalent professional qualifications in Boundary Delimitation.

Experience:

At least 10 years of experience in conducting complex evaluations;
Proven expertise at international level in boundary delimitation.

English Language:

Fluency in written and spoken English.

Note:

Though this position is advertised in the jobs – Admin site, this is a procurement process and will be evaluated as such. Any proposals with Financial and Technical proposals will not be considered. Because of the possible bulkiness, you are advised to submit your proposals in the procure.sle@undp.org given in the complete advert at the UNDP procurement notices via http://procurement-notices.undp.org/ 40616.