Background

Project Title:

Climate Finance Network/ Strengthening Governance of Climate Change Finance to Enhance Gender Equality (GCCF).

[1] See brief on GCCF  and CFN resources here https://climatefinancenetwork.org/

Project Description:

UNDP Regional bureau for Asia Pacific’s SIDA-funded Governance of Climate Change Finance (GCCF) project housed in the Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH) currently covers Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Indonesia, Thailand, Tonga and Vanuatu. As domestically mobilized resources remain central to climate action, the key focus of the project is to help these countries with effective and equity-driven allocation and utilization of public finance for climate action as well as the mobilization of innovative finance.

Over the past five years there has been an increase in the interest and capacity of Ministries of Finance to respond to climate change as well as take more integrated approaches to the social, environmental and economic objectives of the 2030 Agenda. UNDP GCCF project has responded to this demand by supporting integration of climate change into public financial management systems, at both national and sub-national levels in the Asia Pacific region.

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Paris Agreement, developed country Parties are to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds, through a variety of actions to developing countries. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has served as an operating entity of the financial mechanism since the Convention’s entry into force in 1994. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established at COP 16 in 2010, and designated as an operating entity of the financial mechanism in 2011.

UNDP partners with the principal environmental vertical funds managed by the GEF, including the GEF Trust Fund (GEF TF), Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund (NPIF), Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), and Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF). ?In addition, UNDP is an accredited entity for the Adaptation Fund (AF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). UNDP Nature, Climate and Energy (NCE) team assumes main responsibility in this regard.

International climate finance, such as the GEF and GCF attach significant importance to the country institutions and systems that have the capacity to generate objective and transparent information on climate investments. A number of countries in Asia Pacific have been working on integrating climate change into their public financial management system which has led to improved climate expenditure reporting and transparency. This calls for an assessment and recommendations for using the climate integrated domestic budgets to leverage international finance that will help countries in achievement of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The assessment can inform the discussions in the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow.

The GCCF project is also developing a Climate Finance Handbook in consultation with the UNFCCC. The handbook will target the ASEAN member states providing them with the basics of different forms of climate finance ranging from private climate finance, international climate finance and public climate finance.

The GCCF project has already helped Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Pacific and Thailand in bringing about changes for enabling climate sensitive planning and development. However, this now needs to be connected more with the NDCs. The NCE team through the Climate Promise is also helping countries to achieve the NDCs. The climate finance reforms will help the governments in achievement of the NDCs in the following ways.

• The climate budget tagging system provides a useful basis to track the investments that the governments are making towards the NDCs.
• The climate aligned planning and budgeting processes provides an opportunity to consider the NDCs while doing the sector plans.

Strengthening the accountability and transparency mechanism and institutions such as Parliaments, SAIs and CSOs is considered to be an integral part of the project strategy to mainstream climate change into the governance and public financial management systems.  This entails supporting parliament for budget scrutiny with climate change lens, working with PASAI for working on different options for expenditure audits, supporting countries to strengthen their NDCs by using climate budget tagging, etc.

The project has also a strong knowledge management component and regional angle. It develops knowledge products to provide guidance on climate finance reforms and supports south- south and peer to peer learning for replication of reforms across the region. This provides an opportunity of taking reforms from Pacific to South and East Asian countries and vice versa.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work:

The objective of the assignment is to support strengthening the domestic climate finance reforms to accelerate the NDC attainment, as part of the GCCF project. To meet the objective of the assignment, the consultant is required to work with SDG Finance Team at UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub and deliver expected outputs taking into consideration the scope of work as following:

• Develop methodology for in climate change compliant reporting and ensuring NDC consistent sector plans and budgets

• Develop concept note for the next phase of the project and when agreed with the donor assist in development of ToC and results framework.
• Identify appropriate climate finance tracking processes and tools and develop methodology to provide recommendations on  how to achieve NDCs in selected countries
• Conduct an analysis assessing the status of the flow of international public climate finance particularly GEF and GCF to Asia Pacific region particularly focusing on at least 3 countries in the region and assess the mechanisms in place in the selected 3 countries on tracking international climate finance utilization.
• Review the adoption and effectiveness of domestic climate informed planning and budgeting instruments at national or subnational levels in the three countries, and analyze the contributions of these domestic climate informed instruments to the international public climate finance flows including GEF and GCF.
• Develop policy briefs to provide recommendations to policy makers and development partners on how countries can capitalize on climate informed planning and budgeting instruments for leveraging international climate finance which helps achieve the NDCs.
• Organize south-south exchange and peer to peer learning and provided technical inputs for the project’s positioning at the  upcoming COP26.
• Provide technical inputs to ensure that the project Climate Budget Tagging data is well reflected in their UNFCCC Biennial assessment reports.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

Institutional Arrangement

The consultant will work in in close coordination with the Public Finance Specialist and Climate and Innovative Finance Specialist. He/ she will report to the Project Manager of Governance of Climate Change Finance project.

Duration of the Work

The duration of the assignment is from 12 July 2021 to 31 January 2022, for the maximum of 105 working days.

Duty Station

This is an office assignment (Bangkok Regional Hub) with no travel required

Competencies

• Ability to work under minimum supervision;
• Good interpersonal and networking skills, supports and encourages open communication;
• Results-driven, initiative-taking, ability to work under pressure and to meet deadlines;
• Displays integrity and fairness - embodies UN values and promotes the well-being of all individuals regardless of gender, religion, race, nationality, or age;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Highly motivated with a positive attitude and problem-solving approach.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications of the Successful Individual Contractor and Evaluation Criteria

The consultant should possess the following qualification:

• Master’s degree or above in climate change, environment, finance, international development or any other relevant field;
• Demonstrated substantive experience in climate change finance, adaptation and mitigation at national or international level, with proven experience in overseeing and ensuring technical soundness of research and analysis products;
• Minimum 3 years of proven experience working on project concept and proposal development on climate relevant issues;
• Proven experience in mainstreaming climate change in governance and country systems Previous experience with the UNDP and/or UN agencies is an advantage;
• Previous experience with Asia-Pacific region is an advantage; working with high-level officials in Asia Pacific is an asset;
• Excellent written and spoken skills in English.

Scope of Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Consultant must send a financial proposal 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:

The method of payment is output-based lump-sum scheme. The payments shall be released upon submitting the required deliverables as per below percentages with satisfactory by or before the due dates agreed with the Governance of Climate Change Finance team.

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.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer:

Cumulative analysis

Only those candidates that meet the minimum level of education and relevant years of experience requirements will be considered for the Technical Evaluation. The Technical Evaluation will include a document review to select the shortlisted candidates. The selection of the offer, from the shortlisted candidates, will be based on a Combined Scoring method where the technical evaluation (document review and interview where applicable) will be weighted a maximum of 70 points and combined with the price offer which will be weighted a maximum of 30 points. The 70-point rating shall be based on how well the Offer meets the minimum qualifications/competencies described above.

Stages of Selection process:

Preliminary Shortlisting on pass/fail basis

• Minimum required qualification
• Minimum number of relevant experience

Technical Evaluation: total 70 points

1. CV review (50 points)

• Criteria 1 - Education - Master’s degree or above in climate change, environment, finance, development or any other relevant field - (5 points);
• Criteria 2 - Demonstrated substantive experience in climate change finance, adaptation and mitigation at national or international level, with proven experience in overseeing and ensuring technical soundness of research and analysis products – (15 points);
• Criteria 3 - Minimum 3 years of proven experience working on project concept and proposal development on climate relevant issues - (10 points)
• Criteria 4 – Proven experience in mainstreaming climate change in governance and country systems - (10 points)
• Criteria 5 - Previous experience with the UNDP and/or UN agencies is an advantage – (5 points)
• Criteria 6 – Previous experience with Asia-Pacific region is an advantage; working with high-level officials in Asia Pacific is an asset - (5 points)

 Please note only those candidates who score minimum 70% of out above 70 marks (49 points) will be called for interview.

2. Interview (20 points)

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Financial Evaluation: 30 Points

formula provided below. The maximum marks (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal.

All other proposals will receive points according to the following formula:

• p = y (µ/z).

Where:

• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;
• y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

Applicant receiving the Highest Combined Score and has accepted UNDP's General Terms and Conditions will be awarded the contract.

Recommended Presentation of Offer:

Interested individuals 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 and financial proposal using the template provided in Annex II. Consultant shall quote an all-inclusive Fee for the contract period. The term “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, communications, consumables, etc.) that could be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment are already factored into the proposed fee submitted in the proposal. Payments shall be done on lumpsum basis, upon verification of completion of deliverables and approval by the IC’s supervisor
  • 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.

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 short-listed candidates may be contacted, and the successful candidate will be notified.

Annexes:

Annex I - ToR_Climate Change Finance Consultant-20210430 Procurement Final
Annex II - General_Terms_and_Conditions_for_Contracts_Individual_Consultants.pdf
Annex III - Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability and financial proposal
Annex IV - P11 Form_for_ICs_optional
Annex V - Procurement Notice

***All documents can be downloaded at: https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=79775

For any clarification regarding this assignment please write to procurement.th@undp.org under Subject: JobAds 99907 Project Climate Change Finance Consultant - International Consultant