Background

UNCDF works with local and central government institutions to improve the capacity of local governance institutions in planning, budgeting, public expenditure management, procurement and delivery management and other areas related to the application of development capital and other resources.

UNCDF is supporting an expanding portfolio of programmes in all regions that provide capital resources to local governance processes to enable them to meet the challenges of poverty reduction, the Millennium Development Goals and climate change. These programmes promote local level public financial management and decentralized governance responses to these challenges.

The goal of the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) is to promote climate change resilient communities and local economies by increasing investments in Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) at the local level in target countries, thereby contributing to the achievement of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the specific goals of poverty eradication (SDG1) and climate action (SDG13). The objectives are to increase local government access to climate finance to implement climate change adaptation investments in participating countries and to establish a standard and internationally recognized country-based mechanism to channel climate finance and increase local resilience through PBCRGs

LoCAL focuses on the delivery of four outputs that will directly contribute to increasing local governments’ access to climate finance and building resilience to climate change:

Output 1 – Awareness and capacities to respond to climate change adaptation at the local level are increased

Output 2 - CCA is mainstreamed into government’s planning and budgeting systems and investments are implemented in line with the PBCRG mechanism

Output 3 - The PBCRG system is effectively and sustainably established in participating countries and leads to an increased amount of CCA finance available to local government and local economy

Output 4: The role of local authorities and of the PBCRGS in addressing climate change are increasingly recognized at international level, through outreach, learning and quality assurance

The LoCAL approach entails into capacity building of local governments and operates through Performance Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRG).

LoCAL works in three phases.

Phase I: Following scoping, the first phase entails testing in a small number (2-4) of local governments. Phase I has a budget of USD 300,000 per year. It can include co-financing from government or other partners. Phase I introduces the Performance-Based Climate Resilient Grant (PBCRG) over one or two fiscal cycles; it tests the minimum conditions and performance measures of the PBCRG and the relevance of the menu of investments (eligible adaptation measures). It provides the necessary experience and lessons for the refinement of the approach and the design of phase II in conjunction with the appropriate national authorities and partners.

Phase II: Phase II takes place in around 5 to 10 of local governments (of the appropriate tier) in a country. Phase II is usually financed by UNCDF together with financing partners and has generally a budget of USD 3,5 to USD 10 million. Funding can come directly through the LoCAL project or through parallel financing if government or other development partners make resources available to the LoCAL methodology, with TA and QA by UNCDF. The purpose of this phase is to demonstrate the effectiveness of LoCAL and create the conditions for a full national rollout of the approach.

Phase III: Phase III consist of a full national rollout of the PBCRG in the country based on the results and lessons of the previous phases. It is gradually extended to all local governments (of the appropriate tier). Phase III is expected to be financed by central government through a re-adjustment of the architecture of existing resources to enable financing of local adaptation, as well as through financing from international organizations, financing institutions and funds such as the Green Climate Fund.

The LoCAL initiative is currently on-going in 13 countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Benin, Cambodia, Ghana, Lesotho, Mali , Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Tuvalu, Tanzania and The Gambia). Programmes are under preparation in Uganda and Ivory coast with more countries expected to join the initiative in 2019-2022.

Duties and Responsibilities

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (“RFP”) is to solicit bids from individuals interested in serving as “Knowledge Management Consultant (content management)” to demonstrate the effectiveness of the LoCAL approach in addressing the impact of climate change on local communities.?

Working under the direct supervision of the UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i) or designate(s) from UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i) and in close collaboration with the governments and UNCDF, the Knowledge Management Consultant will be primarily responsible for developing a well-maintained knowledge management system that gathers, extracts, packages, maintains, distributes and continually updates evidence, data and knowledge for internal and external audiences, with the goal of establishing and positioning LOCAL as standard global mechanism to provide Climate Change Adaptation finance and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the LoCAL approach in addressing the impact of climate change on local communities.?

This assignment includes to provide expertise in Knowledge Management (KM) tools, deploy information management, content management strategies, and content management of LoCAL website. The Knowledge Management Consultant will also design and produce a number of case studies and profiles LoCAL country Programme.

Scope of the Work

As the programme spreads across regions and expands, it is important to collect and document experiences, lessons learned, good practices, outputs, outcomes and impact of the projects in the pilot countries. It’s also important to communicate and disseminate the findings in high-quality accessible communication and knowledge materials suitable for as background information on the project as well as to raise awareness, build understanding of the approach and share experiences with existing and new participating countries, development partners and the international community at large. The deliverables of this consultancy will be used to support of LoCAL national capacity in monitoring and evaluation of the portfolio and use the collected data to measure effectiveness and efficiency of local climate resilient investments.

The Knowledge Management Consultant will be responsible for providing support on the following areas:

• Provide professional knowledge management and communication support for LoCAL, in line with UNCDF communication strategy using a broad range of media, including video, web pages, and social media;
• Providing research support on a broad range of climate change adaptation and climate finance and other related development issues,
• Supporting the development of policy papers, studies, reports, briefing notes, and speeches, as requested by the UNCDF;
• Recommendations on the design, and planning and the on-going development of UNCDF Communication Materials for the dissemination of programme information, best practices, lessons learned for sharing with target audiences
• Design and develop the story line for country fact sheets and stories from the field and case studies as assigned;
• Develop video story lines, conduct video interviews and provide video interview segments with English and French sub-titles;
• Develop contents for publication of country fact sheets and case studies in form of ready-for-printing materials, web-page, and?
• Produce content for LoCAL website, including news and updates, events, story writing, video segment preparation, etc.;
• Revise communication materials of LoCAL, in particular brochure, with insertion of the latest programme developments and knowledge;
• Prepare new publication materials in close consultation with LoCAL Secretariat for review;
• Supports social media initiatives;

Duration of Assignment, Duty Station and Expected Places 0f Travel

The consulting engagement with UNCDF is expected to start as of August 1st, 2019, or such other date as is mutually agreed upon by the parties.

Duration:  The assignment, under this Framework Agreement (On Call basis), is expected to have a maximum duration of 3 years. The initial contract would be for one year with an option for renewal in subsequent years upon project needs, availability of funds and satisfactory performance of the consultants.   The duration of each call-off shall be clearly indicated in the TOR that supports the PO that signals the call-off.

Duty station:  Home-based with possible travel to countries where UNCDF operates. The schedule/duration of travel will be negotiated with the consultant according to the requirements of each programme country.

Travel costs associated to the assignment will be advanced by the consultants, and paid by UNCDF on a reimbursement basis, and following the UNDP/UNCDF rules and regulations which states that consultants shall only be paid the most direct and most economical ticket, as will be quoted by the official UN travel agency.  Any amount in excess of the said quotation, such as class and airline preference of the consultant, shall be borne by the consultant. The daily living allowance will be paid as per UN Rate prevailing on the city/ies of destination, and may be paid before or after the travel, and only upon submission of appropriate supporting documents.   All other expenses outside of these items shall be on the account of the consultant

Information of the Contract Modality:

The successful individuals under this RFP will enter into a non-exclusive Framework Agreement, also known as Long-Term Agreement (LTA) to perform the services as described in the TORs on a need basis.

LTA is a framework agreement by and between UNCDF and a company or individual where the latter may, at any time within the duration of the LTA, be required to render the agreed services at the agreed and fixed unit prices. An LTA can be valid for a minimum period of 12 months, with potential extension for up to 2 additional years, depending on satisfactory performance of the individual or the company.  An LTA specifies the unit price, scope of work, allowing for a framework agreement to be used when the services are needed. 

An LTA does not imply a financial commitment from UNCDF. LTA does not form a financial obligation nor commitment from UNCDF at the time the LTA contract is signed.  The LTA shall have a cumulative ceiling amount that may accrue to the individual contractor during the life of the LTA, but said amount shall remain as an upper limit, and must not and cannot be interpreted nor understood as neither a financial commitment nor guarantee of business volume.  It is important to note that, under an LTA, UNCDF does not guarantee that any specific quantity of services shall be made during the term of this agreement. 

When a request for service arises, and within the scope of the LTA, UNCDF can engage the individual holding an LTA through a “call-off” of the LTA.   Every call-off shall have specific TORs which includes tasks, scope of services and outputs to be delivered within a specific period of time. For this particular process, the call-off shall be formalized through the issuance of a Purchase Order, attaching thereto the TOR, and any other document relevant to the call-off.  Financial commitments will only be established each time a Purchase Order for the specific services/TOR for Individual Contractor is issued.

As a result, the consultant under this position will be engaged on as needed based consulting basis, as and when called upon to do so by UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i) or designate(s) from UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i), at an agreed upon “daily rate” and “number of days” per an agreed TORs for each call-off.

Final Products

The deliverables of the assignment will be high standard of knowledge and communication services and products including:

1. Draft and edit documents requested by UNCDF including concept notes, policy briefings, background papers, proposals, programme documents, reports, letters and correspondence, speeches and publications to provide relevant content to UNCDF LOCAL Programme;
2. Conduct research and provide summary reports in areas related climate resilience and adaptation,
3. Prepare and update Country fact sheets and stories from the field and case studies materials edited in format suitable for web-page publication and other dissemination means;
4. Provide content management for video or communication materials, and events in both UN officials languages (English and French);
5. Up-to-date LoCAL brochure and new knowledge and communication materials, with latest developments and findings;
6. Support partnership building and resource mobilization;
7. Support LoCAL to provide content to LOCAL webpage and ensure that it is updated and well maintained (aligned with UNCDF website), illustrated, with pictures, videos, news, events and stories, and provide content which can feed into a e-newsletter, in English and French;
8. Provide short factual report documenting the activities carried out by the consultants and any lessons learned which may be of use to UNCDF/ LoCAL in undertaking similar initiatives in the future.

Copyright

All products and reports related to the assignment and mission will be provided to UNCDF and be subject to associated copyrights. The contractor will not use, without prior permission of UNCDF, any the materials or data produced during the assignment for any other purpose than furnishing UNCDF with a project delivery. Any use or reference to the information contained within the presented mission documents must be prior clarified and approved by UNCDF and clearly reference UNCDF as the source.

Provision Of Monitoring And Progress Controls

The Knowledge Management and Communication consultant(s) will perform tasks in collaboration with UNCDF country teams, and report to the LoCAL Project Manager and under guidance of Partnership and Communications Specialist (UNCDF/HQ).

Deliverables shall be submitted to the LoCAL Project Manager.

The payments will be made to the Consultant within each mission will be phased and payment will be made against key deliverables based on the completion of the deliverables indicated in the TOR.

Payments will be authorized by the LoCAL Project Manager.

Competencies

• Owns a comprehensive knowledge and experience working with programme support to development projects, particularly at an international organization;
• A strong understanding of climate change issues and best practice adaptation actions that can be implemented at subnational level;

• A proven ability to work in a collaborative manner with a diverse group of stakeholders in the design and development of proposals and delivery of high quality products/outputs in the field of local adaptation/resilience.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Postgraduate degree in Environmental Science or Management, Climate Change, International, Sustainable, Urban or Local development, Public Management, Economics or other related fields

Experience:.

• At least 5 years of professional experience in the fields of aid management, local or urban/rural development and decentralization and/or environment and climate change adaptation with a specific emphasis on either local or climate governance, adaptation and development planning, public financial management/budgeting, climate finance, and/or climate change mainstreaming
• Previous experience in the fields of international development, NGOs, UN Agencies environment. Familiar with policies and procedures of UN Agency funds and Programs.
• Previous experience and understanding of development and climate change issues;
• Proven ability to manage complex large-scale projects under significant constraints.
• Experience working with different stakeholders.
• Strong analytical and writing skills and track record in producing relevant reports and other communications and knowledge material.
• Excellent communication skills both written and oral.

Language:

• Spoken and written fluency in English and French is required.

Recommended Presentation of Offer

The following documents are requested:

• 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;
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, if applicable, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.
• Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive Daily Fee price using the Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability.. 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 UNCDF 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 UNCDF. 

• Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

  Consultants will be evaluated based on UNDP’s cumulative analysis method. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract shall be made to the consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable vis-à-vis the requirements of the TOR and the project operating environment; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical (70%) and financial (30%) criteria.