UNDP Jobs - 93129- National Consultant(s)-Grant Specialist(s)

National Consultant(s)-Grant Specialist(s)

Location :

Yerevan, ARMENIA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

01-Sep-2020

Application Deadline :

20-Aug-20 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

one year (up to 150 working days for each Specialist)

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

UNDP Armenia, in partnership with the RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, continuously implements projects on women empowerment, gender equality and youth leadership in Armenia. There are four ongoing projects within the UNDP Armenia Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Programme (the Programme). Two of the projects - “Women in Politics” and “Women and Youth in Innovative Local Development” include components aimed at advancement of youth leadership, nudging their voice and action at community level, as well as supporting youth participation in policy making.

“Women in Politics” project funded by UK Good Governance Fund aims at advancement of youth leadership and women political empowerment. The project works in the following directions: (i) exploring policy gaps for women political participation from grassroots to national level; (ii) advancing leadership potential and skills of women in communities of Armenia vis-a-vis community development processes and ongoing reforms; (iii) advancing the role and capacities of political parties for advancing women in politics; (iv) policy dialogue on gender equality and participatory democracy in the context of local development and ongoing reforms from local to subnational and national levels; (v) advancing discourse on issues of gender equality and women participation at all levels through advocacy and public campaigns; (vi) empower youth in the communities as enablers of local democracy and women support groups through empathy-building leadership models.

“Women and Youth in Innovative Local Development” project (WYILD Project), funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, dwells on women political empowerment in enlarged communities, youth local leadership and citizen-driven public services. WUILD Project has a goal to improve the accountability, effectiveness and inclusiveness of local self-government in Armenia in regionally and socially balanced manner. The Project is implemented in partnership with RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure and is the continuation of earlier “Women in Local Democracy 2” project. It supports 52 enlarged municipalities with coherent and interrelated programmatic intervention, which contributes to the further democratization and development of communities. WYILD Project will: (i) pilot three innovative municipal services which will be co-designed and monitored by citizens, including vulnerable/marginalized groups; (ii) further advance youth leadership; and (iii) continue to empower women at the local level through building on and upscaling the results achieved during the past years.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic situation both projects envisage implementation of a number of activities on local level with engagement of project beneficiaries to address the economic, social, political consequences. The projects will use different channels such as mini grants, social innovation labs, hackathons and cost sharing grants to disburse funds to the local teams for targeted response actions.

Currently UNDP Armenia seeks a Grant Specialists (up to six) to support the Programme in coaching the small grant recipient teams and ensure effective implementation of the projects funded by UNDP. The Specialist(s) will work under overall supervision of the Programme Manager and direct supervision of the Project Task Leaders in close cooperation with the Project teams and the counterpart institutions/organizations.

The overall objective of the assignment is ensuring of:

effective grant management process at local level throughout the grant implementation process, including support with preparation of final grant packages, coach the winning teams and provide technical support to them in needed areas and monitor the implementation of the pilot projects
the results achieved are sustainable
all community initiative models are codified and
the tested pilots are replicated in other communities.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Specialist(s) will be responsible for:

Preparation Phase

Review submitted Project Documents, Budgets, Gantt Charts and propose amendments, as needed
Prepare required documentation as per the templates provided by the UNDP team
Provision of needed support in channeling information and documentation between the project and the grantees, ensure the outreach actions.

Implementation

Ensuring regular communication, guidance, and monthly monitoring of the project implementation
Preparing reports based on monitoring phone calls, visits, etc.
Identifying the needs of the grant recipients and suggest capacity building topics to ensure effective projects implementation
Development of the grant evaluation and tracking systems
Receiving, checking, and providing comments to the interim and final narrative and financial reports from the Innovators

Follow up

Closure, filing of completed projects and provision of the analytical report on the full cycle
Based on the success of the pilot codify the community initiative models for possible further replication in other communities

Expected deliverables:

Respective project documentation for selected grant proposals is prepared and submitted for recipient signature
Need assessment for capacity building among winning teams is conducted and respective recommendation are made
Weekly coaching to the teams is delivered
Monthly monitoring and evaluation are conducted and reported to respective project teams
Successful implementation of the pilot project according to the contract is ensured
In case of successful pilot, community initiative models are codified for possible replication

Payment Terms

Payments will be conducted on monthly bases, according to the actual number of days worked per month and submission of a respective report on completed works/outputs at the end of each month.

Competencies

Knowledge and experience in grant management of civil society organizations, especially at grass-root level;
Knowledge of policy and development trends in regard to women and youth participation, direct democracy, local self-government and community development and in Armenia;
Demonstrated initiative, tact and high sense of responsibility and discretion;
Follow grant process specific ethical norms and confidentiality; conflict of interest essentials
Excellent communication skills, ability to express ideas clearly and consistently both orally and in writing;
Strong teamwork skills;
Ability to work under the pressure;
High level of self-mobilization;
Excellent networking skills;
Strong computer literacy and proficiency in MS Office (MS Word, Excel, etc.), contemporary presentation software, ability to design and maintain spreadsheets, as well as to handle web-based management systems

Required Skills and Experience

Education

University Degree in public administration, non-profit management, social or political sciences, communications, or other relevant fields

Experience:

Minimum 5 years of extensive experience in grant management, capacity development on project management, project design, monitoring and evaluation.
Experience and solid track record in project design, monitoring and evaluation; capacity development of civil society organizations

Languages:

Proficiency in written and spoken Armenian and English

INDIVIDUAL CANDIDATES WILL BE EVALUATED BASED ON THE FOLLOWING METHODOLOGY:

Candidates will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of the applicants' technical qualifications, experience and financial proposal.The contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as technically responsive/compliant/acceptable to the requirements of the ToR and received the highest cumulative (technical and financial) score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.

Technical Criteria - 70% of total evaluation - max. 70 points

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation - max. 30 points.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE APPLICATION.

Financial Proposal and Availability form: OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP ( all-inclusive daily fee option is applicable for this assignment)
CV shall include Education/Qualification, Processional Certification, Employment Records /Experience

General Conditions of Contract is available here: GENERAL CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT

Note: Please note you can upload only one document to this application (scan all documents in one single PDF file to attach).