Background

The UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) for Global Development Partnerships started operating in 2011, a year after UNDP closed its Country Programme in Korea and the UNDP Country Office formally ceased its operations. USPC represents UNDP in Korea, works with Korean partners and UNDP’s global network to share Korea’s development experience in support of the global development agenda, and undertakes policy analysis and research on international issues.

The key functions of the Centre are:

• To serve as the immediate interface with the Government on all aspects relating to the evolving Republic of Korea-UNDP partnership;
• To serve as a knowledge center for comparative experiences and approaches of new development partners in reducing poverty and achieving sustainable human development;
• To facilitate and promote learning, networking, policy dialogue and consultation among new development partners and to contribute to capacity development in developing countries.

Since 2017, the work of USPC is organized under three main pillars: Global Development Agenda; Development Solutions Partnerships; Policy Research, with two cross-cutting pillars:  Communications and Gender. One of the main reasons for establishment of the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) was to facilitate access to knowledge and expertise on Korean development and link it with UNDP’s wider network.

In this context, Development Solutions Partnerships (DSPs) is USPC’s flagship country implementation support programme since 2015.

In line with this target, USPC has been brokering policy innovation through knowledge-sharing between Korea and developing countries since 2014. Noting one-off country exchanges often fail to produce concrete results at the country level, since 2015 USPC has engineered its own implementation modality for systematic, cost-effective, and impactful development cooperation for knowledge-sharing and policy innovation, under the Development Solutions Partnership (DSP) programme. To date, the Centre under the DSP programme has implemented 24 collaborative projects with 21 countries in the areas of governance, gender, and environment. The programme supports developing countries (selected on a competitive basis through the Call for Proposals) to benchmark, localize, and institutionalize Korea’s tested-and-proven policy tools in country-specific ways that help the country’s SDG implementation in several areas, such as governance, public infrastructure, gender and gender-based violence, and environment (i.e. SDG 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, and 16).

In the governance portfolio, there are 6 active projects in the area of gender-based violence; 4 active projects in the area of anti-corruption, and 2 active projects in the area of open data & public construction transparency. 

Through DSP programme, USPC seeks to serve within our Global Policy Network as a node for innovating policy solutions through systematic knowledge sharing between Korea and developing countries, as well as among developing countries. This is in line with UNDP corporate strategies and signature solutions – by bringing together partners to seek concrete and practical solutions through provision of top-notch policy advisory services and rapid deployment of relevant experts.

In DSP programme, USPC staff actively work with UNDP country offices and their national partners on a daily basis, providing policy advisory and project implementation support services to partner countries. USPC also supports the Korean experts in documenting, packaging, and sharing their policy tools and lessons learned.

This consultancy will provide support to DSP project implementation and related policy work in the governance portfolio for 6 months.  

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

Through this consultancy, support will be provided to the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre for 6 months, between 22 July and 31 December 2019, in the following ways:

• Development of the meeting agenda, preparation of background papers, securing of speakers and overseas participants, and logistical organization for the 2019 Seoul Debates scheduled in the Q3/Q4 of 2019.
• Support to maintenance and nurturing of substantive partnerships with key Korean institutions in the area of gender, including, but not limited to, the Korean National Police University, Sunflower Centres, and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
• Support to implementation of various DSP activities both in Korea and in partner countries in the area of gender-based violence, anti-corruption, and public construction transparency in partnership with key Korean partners such as the Korean National Police University, the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea and the Seoul Metropolitan Government.  
• Preparation of various policy, programme and communication documents in Korean as well as in English, ensuring accurate “conceptual” as well as language translation.  
• Support to creation of various knowledge products for the DSP programme, based on the compilation of best practices from Korea     
• Support to preparation of background documents for USPC programme evaluation and high-level meetings during the period.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

Based on the aforementioned criterion of the tasks associated with this Terms of Reference (expected deliverables following UNDP guidelines on communications), the consultant will be responsible for:

Institutional Arrangement

The Consultant will report to the Policy Specialist for Governance Portfolio, while under the overall supervision of the Director of the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre. 

Duration of the Work

22 July 2019 – 31 December 2019 (up to 103 days)

Duty Station

Seoul, ROK with no Travel.

Competencies

Functional Competencies: 

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience and contributes to UNDP Practice Areas and actively works towards continuing personal learning and development;
• Ability to provide quality policy advice services;
• In-depth practical knowledge of inter-disciplinary development issues.

Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Ability to go beyond established procedures and models, propose new approaches which expand the range of programmes;
• Ability to apply theory to specific country contexts, carry out high-quality research.

Management and Leadership

• Focuses on impact and result and responds positively to critical feedback;
• Assesses risk and applies common sense;
• Pursues creativity and innovation;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;

• Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills;
• Builds strong relationships with peers and external actors;
• Works as part of a team with required flexibility, mutual support and feed-back.

Corporate Competencies: 

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling 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 favoritism.

Required Skills and Experience

Educational Qualifications

• Master degree in development studies, public administration, Gender/Women’s Studies, Human Rights, or other relevant subject is required.

Experience

• 3 years of professional experience in the relevant field at the national and/or international level is required;
• Experience in project development & implementation, conference organization and/or partnership development is required;
• Experience with development cooperation work in a Korean context is required;
• Experience with working in the area of governance and gender in particular would be an advantage;
• Experience working in an international organization, such as the funds, programmes and agencies of the United Nations, would be an advantage;
• Experience with translation of Korean-English texts, and vice versa, particularly in the relevant work areas would be an advantage;

• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages is required.

Language:

• Fluency in both English and Korean is required, with excellent writing skills in both languages.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

The contract will be based on Lump Sum Amount

The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, travel costs, living allowance (if any work is to be done outside the IC´s duty station) and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:

In general, UNDP shall 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

In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Travel costs shall be reimbursed at actual but not exceeding the quotation from UNDP approved travel agent.  The provided living allowance will not be exceeding UNDP DSA rates. Repatriation travel cost from home to duty station in Bangkok and return shall not be covered by UNDP.

Evaluation Method and Criteria

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology;

Cumulative analysis

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%) *and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced qualified proposal received by UNDP for the assignment.             

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 100 points)

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70 points (70% of the total desk review of 100 points, exclude interview) would be considered for interview and Financial Evaluation respectively.

Documentation required

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:

• Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided in Annex II.

• Personal CV 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.

• Financial proposal, as per template provided in Annex II. Note: National consultant must quote price in U.S. Dollar that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided. If an 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 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.

Incomplete proposals may not be considered. The shortlisted candidates may be contacted and the successful candidate will be notified.

To download related documents and templates, please click the link below:

http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=56916