UNDP Global Mission Statement:

UNDP is the UN’s global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in 166 countries, working with national counterparts on their own solutions to global and national development challenges.

Organizational context:

In implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Government of Malaysia (GoM) is fully committed to developing country-specific goals and implementation plans, promoting participation of all stakeholders, including the private sector, civil society, Parliamentarians and others, promoting information disclosure, and advancing innovative financing mechanisms to support the achievement of the goals. To date, Malaysia has achieved a number of key milestones of SDG-focused actions, including the completion of its first Voluntary National Review (VNR) in 2017, the SDG Roadmap (Phase 1: 2015 – 2020), and the development of the National SDG Progress Monitoring System. In recent years, a number of fiscal and non-fiscal challenges have emerged, including the adverse impacts on GDP and income from COVID-19. Hence, it is more apparent than ever before that for Malaysia to meet its SDG targets in this Decade of Action, the country must adopt new and innovative methods to mobilize greater scale and mix of financing.

Organizational context:

As a UN Joint Programme, UNDP collaborates with other UN agencies as part of the UN Country Team in spearheading the initiative of Integrated National Financing Framework: Developing Financing Partnerships to Accelerate SDG achievements in Malaysia (INFF project). The project aims to strengthen the national planning, monitoring and evaluation and financing architectures as an enablers for achieving the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. The project also seeks to link the private sector’s resources and intentions for SDGs, with the government’s drive and pledge to achieve the Goals by leveraging the innovation and other resources as necessary, which entails, calling for a ‘whole-of-nation’ approach.  

Outputs of the overall assignment:

In essence there are a number of different working groups contributing to different outputs and functions.

1. SDG Roadmap, the country’s blueprint describing projects/programs that contribute towards Malaysia’s SDG realization. The Roadmap will advance the country’s SDG agenda by identifying linkages across ‘priority areas’ and ‘critical enablers’ that can create synergistic benefits and provide savings to GoM from executing multiple stand-alone interventions for each SDGs; and more importantly, setting specific targets to be achieved.
2. Development Finance Assessment (DFA) which is a tool to help diagnose the challenges and opportunities for financing the investments needed to achieve the SDGs. The DFA articulates a vision of desired trends in each area of financing and compares these with current trends.
3. SDG Budgeting & Costing - relates to planning, tagging and costing for future interventions. Budget tagging has important transparency and accountability benefits, as it enables public scrutiny on government and donor spending toward addressing specific development challenge. Costing of SDG related interventions involves estimating the financing gap and from there, identify different sources of financing for SDGs/NDP-aligned with SDGs and inform discussions with partners and the private sector to mobilize resources for scaling up implementation.
4. SDG Financing Strategy. It establishes a platform for engagement between public and private sector parties and identifies and addresses the trade-offs and synergies that exist between different types of public and private financing. The work paves the way for clear and directed public and private sector investment partnerships through both the national and international capital market, banking system and private equity platforms, particularly in the context of the growing focus on leveraging Islamic and green finance.
5. Policy Extraction and Economic Analysis, - provide analysis for formulation strategies and briefings to UNDP Management Team to identify policy options and to enhance the policy impact of UNDP projects and programmes.  Other tasks include to prepare literature review or landscape report of case studies, ‘accelerator’ innovations and best practices and policies regarding impact financing, poverty and inequality. This assignment is essentially to support all knowledge management, generation and publication activities carried out under UNDP CO’s Learning and Insights Hub (LIGHTS). 

Scope of work

To provide effective research and analytical support to the INFF project and LIGHTS within the UNDP Country Office

The Research Assistant will work as part of a team under the supervision of the UNDP Deputy Resident Representative and led by the Senior Development Economist . The team is responsible for delivering high quality, comprehensive data and background analysis. Substantive inputs to the work of the technical team, as well as quality assurance in support of the UNDP country office will be provided by INFF external consultants, Regional Economist Network and UNDP’s Finance Sector Hub through the regional bureau.

Duration of work

The consultancy is a full-time engagement which will take place from 1 January to 31 December 2021, with possible extension.

Duty Station

S/he will be expected to be based in UNDP Malaysia and to report for work daily (5 days a week) in Putrajaya.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

Satisfactory outputs based on submission of Timesheet and activities performed under the scope of work, with monthly reporting of work tasks.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

The financial proposal shall specify a daily rate and the financial proposal should include a breakdown of this amount (including all related costs such as travel costs within Klang Valley, per diem, etc.).

The total professional fee shall be converted into a lump-sum contract and payments under the contract shall be made on submission of timesheet and satisfactory outputs and activities performed under the scope of work assigned. Payments are subject to approval by the Deputy Resident Representative with advice from Senior Development Economist. UNDP reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs is incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

The national consultant may be required to travel outside Klang Valley for project activities or attend the events relevant to the project within Malaysia. All travels (envisaged or unforeseeable) need to be planned with and authorized by UNDP Deputy Resident Representative. Travel expenses (flight tickets, daily subsistence allowance (DSA) and terminal expenses) shall be arranged and paid according to UNDP travel policy.  

Competencies:

• Demonstrates strong analytical skills and ability to extract and process economic data.
• Ability to work in a team as well as independently to produce results with consistent quality.
• Consistently approaches work with enthusiasm and a positive, constructive attitude.
• High degree of organization and initiative
• Ability to work under pressure and time constraint and produce quality deliverables.
• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback.
• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards (human rights, peace, understanding between peoples and nations, tolerance, integrity, respect, results orientation (UNDP core ethics) impartiality;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

Academic Qualifications

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Investment, Public Finance, Islamic Finance, Development, Public Policy, Statistics, Sustainability Studies, Social or Gender studies or other related Social Science fields;
• Advanced degree (Masters or postgraduate certificates) is an added advantage.

Experience:

• At least 3 years of working experience with a Bachelor Degree and 1 year with a Masters Degree, in research and analytics relating to sustainable development, economics, public finance or policy.
• Experienced and able to demonstrate strong grasp of Malaysian development issues, SDG targets and financing
• Excellent organizational skill, service-mind, punctual, self-motivated, and proactive
• Experience in computer and MS Office package, and 
• Additional skills in statistical software packages such as STATA, SPSS, R etc., and/or publishing software (layout and design) are added advantages.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Interested individual applicants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Document 1 : Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability at  http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/Letter%20of%20Interest%20_Annex%201.docx?download;
2. Document 2: Technical Proposal: A cover page (maximum 2 pages) how candidate’s qualification and experience in rapid evaluation makes them suitable for the work and can lead towards the successful deliverable of this consultancy within the required timeframe; and 
3. Document 3: Sample Research/Writing - minimum 3 pieces of report/research done in the past 5 years
4. Document 4: Financial Proposal at https://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/Financial Proposal Template (Daily Fee) - MYR.doc .All inclusive and takes into account various expenses the candidate expects to incur during the contract, including:
   • The daily professional fee;
   • The cost of travel from the home base to the duty station (UNDP Office, Putrajaya) and vice versa;
   • Communications, utilities and consumables; and
   • Life, health and any other insurance.
5. Document 5: Personal CV or P11 including areas of expertise and past experiences in similar projects and at least three (3) references at http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/P11%20for%20SC%20&%20IC.doc?download
6. Please submit this information in one file as Document 1, 2, 3, 4  and 5.The system will only accept one attachment, please merge all documents and submit as one file.
7. Applicants must reply to the mandatory questions asked by the system when submitting the application.
8. Candidates who fail to submit all the information requested above will be disqualified.

How to Apply:

• Kindly download the Letter of Confirmation of interest and availability, Financial Proposal Template?and General Terms & Conditions mentioned below;
• Read and agree to the General Terms & Conditions (refer to below link);
• Click the ‘apply’ icon and complete what is required;
• Scan all documents into 1 pdf file and then upload;
• For clarification question, please email to procurement.my@undp.org. The clarification question deadline is three (3) days before the closing. When emailing for clarification questions, please put "MyIC/2020/056"as the subject matter.

General terms & conditions to be downloaded:

• The General Terms & Conditions?for Individual contract is available at: http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/General%20Conditions%20of%20Contract%20for%20IC.pdf?download

Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA): A legal instrument between UNDP and a Company/institution, according to which, the latter makes available the services of an individual delivering time-bound and quantifiable outputs that are directly linked to payments

• The General Terms & Conditions for Reimbursement Loan Agreement is available at:http://www.my.undp.org/content/dam/malaysia/docs/Procurement/Reimbursable%20Loan%20Agreement%20_%20Terms%20&%20Conditions.pdf?download? 

Incomplete proposals may not be considered. Only short-listed candidates may be contacted, and successful candidates will be notified.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

Evaluation Method and Criteria

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

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

* Technical Criteria weight 50%

* Interview 20%

* Financial Criteria weight 30%

Technical Evaluation (50%)

Qualification, Experience and Technical Proposal (50 marks):

1. General Qualification (15 marks);
2. Relevance of qualification and experience make him/her suitable for the work;  (35 marks);

Interview (20%):

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to attend an interview (physical/virtual) to ascertain suitability and and competency.

Financial Evaluation (30%):

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

The application receiving the Highest Combined Score will be awarded the contract.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, aboriginal groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.