UNDP’s parliamentary development portfolio comprises activities rooted at the global, regional and national levels.  Strategic support to national parliaments, promoting inclusive and participative political institutions and engaging parliaments on the SDGs and the climate change agenda are at the core of UNDP’s activities, with a dedicated focus on women and youth. At the regional level, UNDP supports parliamentary working groups to develop new avenues for dialogue on sensitive topics and agree on regional benchmarks. Globally, web-based social networks invite the exchange of information and ideas.

The AGORA Portal for Parliamentary Development (www.agora-parl.org) was created to take up the crucial task of facilitating cooperation, increasing access to knowledge and providing a platform for the exchange of practices and experiences in parliamentary development. The AGORA Portal aims to centralize knowledge and unite parliamentary development actors and stakeholders in an interactive community of practice to reinforce the sharing of expertise and experience, and with a view to providing comprehensive and tailored knowledge management services. 

First launched in 2010, AGORA has established a strong presence and continues to experience a steady growth in content creation, visitor numbers and interactions.  To meet the growing needs for knowledge management support, and to facilitate the maintenance of the Portal and the partnership, AGORA is recruiting a Parliamentary Development Officer.   He/She will support the Knowledge Manager in maintaining the AGORA Portal and its sub-Portals, liaising with partners, and responding to knowledge management requests as required.  He/She will also be responsible for research and policy analysis, in particular on energy and environment, and for the further strengthening and enlargement of the AGORA network.    

The Parliamentary Development Officer will be responsible for AGORA’s overall knowledge management.  This includes management of the network, and content creation and coordination for the Portal and its sub-portals.

Objectives

The Parliamentary Development Officer will   

• Ensure the AGORA Portal and its sub-Portals – including the Portuguese Corner – are fully functional and provide regular and high-quality information relevant to AGORA’s network;
• Support the Project Manager in maintaining and enlarging AGORA’s global network;
• Liaise with IT to ensure a secure, bug-free Portal for optimal user experience, and to develop new features and functionalities when requested;
• Provide technical backstopping and substantive support to the Pro PALOP-TL SAI project by conducting research on relevant issues, in particular the budget cycle, civic engagement, and energy and environment.

Key Functions

Under the supervision of the AGORA Project Manager, the Consultant will:

Deliverables

• Maintain a fully functional AGORA Portal in all available languages, across all existing features;
• Support the development and implementation of a knowledge management strategy for the AGORA Portal and its Portuguese tools/products;
• Ensure AGORA’s E-learning Portal is fully functional in all available languages;
• Manage AGORA’s Climate Portal and Extractive Industries Portal, with a view to supporting parliamentary action on sustainable development;
• Test and launch the Portuguese version of the Extractive Industries Portal, duplicating all functionalities that currently exist for the EN/FR/AR versions;
• Draft newsletter and briefs on emerging trends in parliamentary development, including (but not limited to) civic engagement, open budgets and implementation of the Paris Agreement;
• Additional support as required by the Project Manager. 

Expected Outputs:

• Fully functional AGORA Portal in English, French, Arabic and Portuguese;
• Fully functional Portuguese Corner, with additional features and functionalities as required;
• Fully functional E-learning corner, with day-to-day support for users; 
• Extractive Industries Portal launched in Portuguese;
• Updated Climate Portal and Extractive Industries Portal, providing relevant information and analyses for parliamentary action on energy and environment;
• High quality research and analysis (blogs, policy briefs and briefing notes) on parliamentary development as it relates to topics such as energy and environment, civic engagement, and open budgets.

The expected outputs should be delivered by the foreseen end date of this contract: December 31st 2016. 

Intellectual Property:

All information pertaining to this project as well as outputs produced under this contract shall remain the property of the UNDP who shall have exclusive rights over their use. Except for purposes of this assignment, the products shall not be disclosed to the public nor used in whatever format without written permission of UNDP in line with the national and International Copyright Laws applicable.

Corporate competencies

• Commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values;
• Sensitivity to cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age differences.
• 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.

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent understanding of governance issues, in particular parliamentary development, both from a theoretical and practical perspective;
• Extensive experience in knowledge management, preferably including web portal management;
• Strong understanding of energy and environment issues.

Excellent written and spoken communication skills in English. Working knowledge of French or Portuguese an advantage.

Education:

A Master’s degree or higher in law, political science or a related discipline is mandatory.  

Experience: 

• At least 2 years of experience in governance and parliamentary development is mandatory;
• Demonstrated experience in knowledge management, preferably web portal management; 
• Strong understanding of energy and environment issues, in particular climate change, sustainable energy and extractive industries; 
• Proven research and drafting skills, with legal analysis considered an asset;
• Experience/familiarity with the UN system is an asset.

Language: Fluency in English required; knowledge of French and/or Portuguese considered an asset. 

Location: Brussels, Belgium.

Application Submission Process:

The application submission is a two-step process. Failing to comply with the submission process may result in disqualifying the applications:

Step 1: Interested individual consultants must include the following documents when submitting the applications in UNDP job shop (Please note that only 1 (one) file can be uploaded therefore please include all docs in one file):

• Personal History Form (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 (the template can be downloaded from this link: http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc.
• A letter of intent, describing the candidate’s background in parliamentary work and outlining his/her skills and relevant experiences.

Step 2: Submission of Financial Proposal

Applicants are instructed to submit their financial proposals in US Dollars for this consultancy to procurement.be@undp.org  using the financial proposal template available here: http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_file.cfm?doc_id=45780. The proposals should be sent via email with the following subject heading: “Financial Proposal for Parliamentary Development Officer, latest by June 8th, 2016. Proposals to be received after the deadline will be rejected. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal should be all-inclusive and include a breakdown. The term ‘all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, travel related expenses, communications, utilities, consumables, insurance, etc.) that could possibly be incurred by the Contractor are already factored into the financial proposal. 

Application Evaluation Process

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis methodology (weighted scoring method), where the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Technical Criteria weight: [70%]

Financial Criteria weight:  [30%]

Only Individual Consultants obtaining a minimum of 70% on the Technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical Criteria - 70% of total evaluation – max. 100 points:

Technical Criteria (Weight in %)

• Candidate holds a Master’s degree or higher in law, political science or a related discipline: 10%
• Candidate has a minimum of 2 years of relevant experience in governance and parliamentary development is mandatory: 25%
• Proven research and drafting skills, with legal analysis considered an asset: 10%
• Demonstrated experience in knowledge management, preferably including web portal management: 15% 
• Strong understanding of energy and environment issues, in particular climate change, sustainable energy and extractive industries: 10%
• Interview to further assess the candidate’s theoretical and practical understanding of governance issues, including parliamentary development: 20%
• Fluency in English required; knowledge of French and/or Portuguese considered an asset  10%.

Total: 100.

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

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

UNDP is applying fair and transparent selection process that would take into account both the technical qualification of Individual Consultants as well as their price proposals. The contract will be awarded to the candidate obtaining the highest combined technical and financial scores. Please go the following link for the General Conditions of Individual Contracts: http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf 

UNDP retains the right to contact references directly.

Payments will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.

Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org

Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.