Historique

National Context

With one-fifth of the world's proven oil reserves, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is likely to remain the world's leading oil producer and exporter for the foreseeable future. Oil revenues making up around 76-79% of total Saudi export earnings (and around 35-40% of the country's gross domestic product, or GDP), Saudi Arabia's economy remains, despite attempts at diversification, heavily dependent on oil. The proven reserve amounts to 298 billion barrels of oil reserves and up to 1 trillion barrels of ultimately recoverable oil. The implied longevity of oil reserves, at current rates of depletion, is therefore in the range of 30 years or greater.

Saudi Arabia also has considerable gas resources, consisting mainly of associated gas.  Gas use in Saudi Arabia is expected to continue to grow to fuel increasing domestic gas demand, for use as a feedstock for a growing petrochemical industry, and for use in water desalinization, among other uses. The wider use of gas, including its use for electricity generation, is a priority.  Using gas in place of oil for electricity generation will allow more crude oil and oil products to be reserved for export.

Saudi Arabia's proven gas reserves are estimated at 325.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), ranking fifth in the world.

Saudi Arabia has other resources, notably solar energy, and to some extent wind energy, that may figure in future supplies of electricity.

The primary energy demand comes from transportation sectors, power generation and natural gas for industrial consumption and household cooking. Most of the Saudi industries can be considered as energy intensive industries such as petrochemicals, fertilizers, plastics, steel rolling mills…etc.

NEEP  – Phase I (2003 - 2011)

The aim of the National Energy Efficiency Programme (NEEP) was to assist the energy sector in Saudi Arabia to meet the rapidly growing power and energy demand through efficient and rational consumption patterns, thereby protecting the local environment while at the same time providing a sustainable alternative to increased energy supply and generation capacity expansion. NEEP involves supporting energy auditing in the industrial and commercial sectors, utility load management, setting policies and regulations for residential buildings and energy-consuming appliances efficiency, improving energy efficiency information exchange, promoting energy services and private sector investments and utilization of efficient technologies. It contributed to enhance and encourage outreach and awareness building initiatives on energy efficiency through campaigns, workshops and capacity building.

NEEP – Phase II (2012 - 2019)

The second phase of the UNDP support started in 2012 to assist NEEP to effectively deal with

The capacity development programme for the King Abdul-Aziz City for Science and Technology aimed at supporting the recently established Saudi Energy Efficiency Centre (SEEC) to achieve the Kingdom’s increasingly important goals for energy conservation. As Saudi Arabia continues to diversify its economy beyond oil exports, energy intensity of the economy has grown in key sectors like housing and buildings, consumer appliances, heavy industry, water and transport. With electricity in Saudi Arabia predominantly from oil-burning power facilities, and in order to conserve oil resources for the future generation, a key focus of the Government and industry leaders is to reduce the energy intensity growth through policy, management and technology measures. This project focuses on four major outcomes with the overall goal of capacity development for the new Saudi Energy Efficiency Centre: (i) Energy Efficiency Policy and Regulations: design of the first Energy Conservation Law and related actions plans and regulations at national and local levels to achieve targets; (ii) Energy Information System: design and establishment of a new national energy information system as a base of data on energy supply and demand, forecasting and monitoring/evaluation of targets. (iii) Capacity Development for Energy Efficiency Managers and Leaders: design and implementation of extensive training programmes for energy manager and leaders from public and private sectors focused on challenges and opportunities in key sectors like buildings, consumer appliances, heavy industry, transport, power supply and water; (iv) Awareness Raising on Energy Conservation: design and implementation of nation-wide campaign on energy conservation aimed at enhancing energy consumption patterns and behaviour for the public .To achieve all of its objectives as originally intended, this Project will most likely be extended and funds added to ensure all outcomes are reached.

Devoirs et responsabilités

UNDP has initiated the evaluation as a mandatory exercise at the terminal of the project implementation to provide all stakeholders with impartially derived firsthand information on the status of the project and its relevance and performance towards achieving the objectives as listed in the Project Documents.  The purpose of the evaluation is to perform an in-depth assessment from technical and managerial viewpoints to see whether the project has successfully accomplished its objectives and to evaluate the impact and sustainability of the project outcome and to assess how the outputs of the above-mentioned project have contributed to “assist the energy sector in Saudi Arabia to meet the rapidly growing power and energy demand through efficient and rational consumption patterns”.  The findings of the mission will be useful for understanding the management and technical issues of the project and the progress achieved to date.  Furthermore, all stakeholders will help in re-orientation and re-prioritizing of project activities as needed and facilitate in addressing specific issues by the project management.

The assessment of this project was strategically placed at this particular time in order to promote needed adjustments, identify lessons learned and draw up a sustainability plan for the project prior to end 2019, date of project completion. Efficiency and effectiveness, are of prime importance but also transparency and accountability.  The review will illustrate intended and unintended results. 

The evaluator will be tasked to provide recommendations aiming to improve various aspects of the project towards achievement and quality delivery of the project.

1. Evaluation criteria and key guiding questions

Relevance:

• To what extent was the project in line with the national development priorities, the country programme’s outputs and outcomes, the UNDP Strategic Plan and the SDGs?
• To what extent does the project contribute to the theory of change for the relevant country programme outcome especially in addressing the energy intensity of growth in Saudi Arabia?
• To what extent were lessons learned from other relevant projects considered in the project’s design?
• To what extent were perspectives of those who could affect the outcomes, and those who could contribute information or other resources to the attainment of stated results, taken into account during the project design processes?
• To what extent has the project enhanced knowledge on energy conservation and behaviour change, particularly on energy conservation in residential sector and in high growth energy-intensive industries
• To what extent does the project contribute to gender equality, the empowerment of women and the human rights-based approach?
• To what extent has the project been appropriately responsive to political, legal, economic, environmental, institutional, etc., changes in the country?

Effectiveness

• To what extent did the project contribute to the country programme outcomes and outputs, the SDGs, the UNDP Strategic Plan and national development priorities?
• To what extent were the project outputs achieved especially in reducing the energy intensity of growth?
• What factors have contributed to achieving or not achieving intended country programme outputs and outcomes?
• To what extent has the UNDP partnership strategy been appropriate and effective?
• What factors contributed to effectiveness or ineffectiveness?
• In which areas does the project have the greatest achievements? Why and what have been the supporting factors? How can the project build on or expand these achievements?
• In which areas does the project have the fewest achievements? What have been the constraining factors and why? How can or could they be overcome?
• What, if any, alternative strategies would have been more effective in achieving the project’s objectives?
• Were the projects objectives and outputs clear, practical and feasible within its frame?
• To what extent have stakeholders been involved in project implementation? Or to what extent do they feel they own the actions they are taking.
• To what extent are project management and implementation participatory and is this participation contributing towards achievement of the project objectives?
• To what extent has the project been appropriately responsive to the needs of the national constituents and changing partner priorities?
• To what extent has the project contributed to gender equality, the empowerment of women and the realization of human rights? To what extent women were involved in the implementation of the actions indirectly or directly.

Efficiency

• To what extent was the project management structure as outlined in the project document efficient in generating the expected results?
• To what extent have the UNDP project implementation strategy and execution been efficient and cost-effective?
• To what extent has there been an economical use of financial and human resources? Have resources (funds, human resources, time, expertise, etc.) been allocated strategically to achieve outcomes?
• To what extent have resources been used efficiently? Have activities supporting the strategy been cost-effective?
• To what extent have project funds and activities been delivered in a timely manner?
• To what extent do the M&E systems utilized by UNDP ensure effective and efficient project management?

Sustainability

• Are there any financial risks that may jeopardize the sustainability of project outputs?
• To what extent will financial and economic resources be available to sustain the benefits achieved by the project?
• Are there any social, economic, environmental or political risks that may jeopardize sustainability of project outputs and the project’s contributions to country programme outputs and outcomes?
• Do the institutional and legal frameworks, policies and governance structures and processes within which the project operates pose risks that may jeopardize sustainability of project benefits?
• To what extent are institutional and human resource capacities strengthened to provide effective technical support to national partners and stakeholders for energy efficiency actions
• What is the risk that the level of stakeholders’ ownership will be sufficient to allow for the project benefits to be sustained? To what extent the project was effective to enhance integration of sustainable energy efficiency actions in public and private sector actions
• To what extent do mechanisms, procedures and policies exist to allow primary stakeholders to carry forward the results attained on gender equality, empowerment of women, human rights and human development?
• To what extent do stakeholders support the project’s long-term objectives?
• To what extent are lessons learned being documented by the project team on a continual basis and shared with appropriate parties who could learn from the project?
• To what extent do UNDP interventions have well-designed and well-planned exit strategies?
• What could be done to strengthen exit strategies and sustainability?

Evaluation cross-cutting issues sample questions

Human rights

• To what extent have poor, indigenous and physically challenged, women and other disadvantaged and marginalized groups benefited from the work of UNDP in the country? To what extent does the project ensure that no one is left behind in regards to project benefits?

Gender equality

• To what extent have gender equality and the empowerment of women been addressed in the design, implementation and monitoring of the project?
• Is the gender marker data assigned to this project representative of reality?
• To what extent has the project promoted positive changes in gender equality and the empowerment of women? Were there any positive or negative unintended effects?

1. Methodology

The methodology of work will consist of desk review of relevant project documentation and direct consultations with the project management, staff and other key local stakeholders during two weeks site visit to Riyadh in September/October 2019.

The overall duration of the assignment is expected to consist of a site visit of 15 days plus a corresponding amount of desk work to pre-review the required project documentation and to finalize the reporting. This makes the total working days to be 21 working days

In carrying out the evaluation task, the consultant will pay particular attention to the following:

• Evaluation should employ a combination of both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods and instruments.
• Document review of all relevant documentation. This would include a review of inter alia

• Project document (contribution agreement).
• Theory of change and results framework.
• Programme and project quality assurance reports.
• Annual workplans.
• Activity designs.
• Consolidated quarterly and annual reports.
• Results-oriented monitoring report.
• Highlights of project board meetings. 
• Technical/financial monitoring reports.
• Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders including key government counterparts, donor community members, representatives of key civil society organizations, UNCT members and implementing partners:
• Development of evaluation questions around relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability and designed for different stakeholders to be interviewed.
• Key informant and focus group discussions with men and women, beneficiaries and stakeholders.
• All interviews should be undertaken in full confidence and anonymity. The final evaluation report should not assign specific comments to individuals.
• Surveys and questionnaires including participants in development programmes, UNCT members and/or surveys and questionnaires involving other stakeholders at strategic and programmatic levels.
• Field visits and on-site validation of key tangible outputs and interventions.
• The evaluator is expected to follow a participatory and consultative approach that ensures close engagement with the evaluation managers, implementing partners and direct beneficiaries including industry partners and general public on awareness.
• Other methods such as outcome mapping, observational visits, group discussions, etc.
• Data review and analysis of monitoring and other data sources and methods.
• Ensure maximum validity, reliability of data (quality) and promote use; the evaluation team will ensure triangulation of the various data sources.

The final methodological approach including interview schedule, field visits and data to be used in the evaluation should be clearly outlined in the inception report and be fully discussed and agreed between UNDP, stakeholders and the evaluators.

Compétences

Corporate

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness, by modeling the UN/UNDP’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.

Functional

• Proven technical and intellectual skills in understanding and interpreting regional, national and local green financing issues;
• Ability to understand and analyze and political dynamics in the region;
• Demonstrated ability for facilitation and coordination skills;
• Background knowledge about the SDGs, United Nations and UNDP;
• Good teamwork and interpersonal skills;
• Flexibility and ability to handle multiple tasks and work under pressure;
• Excellent drafting and formulation skills;
• Excellent computer skills especially Word, Excel and PowerPoint;

Leadership

• Demonstrated intellectual leadership and ability to integrate green finance with broader strategic overview and corporate vision;
• Demonstrated flexibility in leadership by performing and/or overseeing the analysis/resolution of complex issues;
• Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development experience.

Managing Relationships

• Excellent negotiating and networking skills with strong partnerships in academia, technical organizations and as a recognized expert in the practice area.

Managing Complexity

• Ability to address global development issues;

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Ability to strongly promote and build knowledge products;
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information and best practices from within and outside of UNDP;
• Demonstrates a strong capacity for innovation and creativity in providing strategic policy advice and direction.

Judgment/Decision-Making

• Proven ability to provide strategic direction to the project implementation process;
• Independent judgment and discretion in advising on handling major policy issues and challenges, uses diplomacy and tact to achieve result.

Qualifications et expériences requises

Academic Qualifications

• Masters university degree in physics/electrical engineering or equivalent

Years of experience & knowledge

• 15 years of relevant experience working on electrical energy efficiency
• knowledge of supply and demand side energy efficiency aspects and technical issues related to its savings in developing countries,
• knowledge of demand and supply side energy efficiency aspects in Saudi Arabia is a strong asset.
• Previous involvement and understanding of UN’s procedures is an advantage and extensive international experience in the fields of project formulation, execution, and evaluation is required. 
• The consultant should also possess strong writing skills coupled with relevant experience in results-based monitoring and evaluation technique.

Language Requirements

1. English: fluent
2. Arabic: an asset

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT

• The consultant will conduct the evaluation exercise, shall attend all relevant meetings and is responsible for the preparation of the report.  The international consultant is responsible for the timely submission of the deliverables.
• The consultant will be appointed in consultation with SEEC and UNDP country office.  The Project Management at SEEC shall arrange for the consultant all necessary site visits and meetings in Saudi Arabia according to the ToR.  UNDP country office in coordination with the project management unit shall arrange logistics for the mission including hotel reservation and transportation during the mission.  The mission will maintain close liaison with UNDP Programme Coordinator, concerned agencies of the government, any members of the international or national team of experts as well as the Project Management Unit.

DURATION OF THE WORK

The duration of the work is expected to be 26 working days in September – November 2019

• Preparation for evaluation, review of documents (2 days)
• Field missions including desk reviews, field visits, interviews (10 days)
• Submission of outline on main findings and briefing, W/S session (1 day)
• Preparation of draft, final report and audit trail (7 Days)
• Preparation of Project Document (6 Days)

DUTY STATION

13 days in Saudi Arabia and 13 days Homebased

TRAVEL PLAN

All travel costs should be included in the financial offer.

1. DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Candidates that fail to submit the required information will not be considered.

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
2. 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;
3. One page technical proposal on contract methodology and implementation

Interested candidates can find Procurement notice, P11, letter of confirmation of interest and availability on http://procurement-notices.undp.org/

Interested candidates shall submit above documents to the Job Advertisement Website: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm  as one document not later than 29th August 2019.

Please do not submit financial proposal in this stage.  Financial proposal shall be requested from Candidates who are considered technically responsive

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

Step I: Screening and desk review:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Applications will be first screened and only candidates meeting the following minimum requirements will progress to the pool for shortlisting:

• Masters university degree in physics/electrical engineering or equivalent
• 15 years of relevant experience with electric energy efficiency
• Fluency in English (written and spoken), is required;

Shortlisted Candidates will be then assessed and scored against the following evaluation criteria.

Technical evaluation Criteria max 100 points (Weighted 70):

• 15 years of relevant experience with electric energy efficiency 15%
• knowledge of supply and demand side energy efficiency aspects and technical issues related to its savings in developing countries, 20%
• knowledge of demand and supply side energy efficiency aspects in Saudi Arabia is a strong asset.10%
• Previous involvement and understanding of UN’s procedures is an advantage and extensive international experience in the fields of project formulation, execution, and evaluation is required. 10%
• Have Good Arabic Language Arabic skills 5%
• Technical proposal 40%

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation

For those offers considered in the financial evaluation, the lowest price offer will receive 30 points.                 
The other offers will receive points in relation to the lowest offer, based on the following formula: (PI/Pn)*30 where Pn is the financial offer being evaluated and Pl is the lowest financial offer received.

Step II: Final evaluation

The final evaluation will combine the scores of the desk review and the financial proposal with the following weights assigned to each:

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 49 points (70%) on the Technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.