Antecedentes

NATIONAL CONTEXT

In the context of Azerbaijan, social enterprise (SE) is a new concept and has not been well researched. The country has relevant legislation regulating entrepreneurial and not-for-profit activities, but the existing legislation doesn’t recognize social enterprises as a separate category. Hence, public policies and institutions tend to support business and social development taken separately and not together as in the spirit of social enterprise. The examples of the SEs in Azerbaijan are often commercial entities set-up by local CSOs or their leaders in response to the shrinking flow of the donor assistance as a way to strengthen financial sustainability.

Available research suggests that the number of SE initiatives in Azerbaijan is limited, but the efforts to explain and promote understanding of the SE concept have been increasing. A number of organizations have conducted awareness raising events to kick-off discussions on the ways to promote social entrepreneurship in Azerbaijan, which, in turn, have led to growing interest on the part of the CSOs to transform into SEs. While there is lack of consensus on the definition of the social enterprise, there is a general understanding that development of SEs should further be encouraged and set of measures recommended to promote SEs include introduction of legal changes, special tax regime, setting efficiency standards for SEs, inclusion of SEs development as an objective into national programmes and roadmaps, raising awareness on SEs, capacity building programmes, access to finance and support to networking.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly amplified the risks for vulnerable people and communities that are supported by CSOs and social enterprises.  With strict regulations put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people in Azerbaijan face social and economic challenges. While necessary for reducing the speed of transmission of the disease, these measures risk having negative impacts on all sectors of the economy. Against this background, it is important to find new ways for supporting the people, businesses and governments, and the social entrepreneurship culture and unique and innovative solutions of social enterprise are needed more than ever.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

The consultancy is part of the EU-funded ‘Developing innovation-driven and sustainable civil society in Azerbaijan’ Project implemented by UNDP.

Over the past years, CSOs in Azerbaijan have reportedly faced certain legal and political limitations that resulted in scarce opportunities for financial and technical support for the CSOs and reduced civic space.  Recent developments point that there are visible improvements in the CSOs operating environment that open up a possibility to revive donors’ efforts in support of the CSO sector and expand avenues for CSOs cooperation with the Government around social issues. Against this background, the project is designed as a multi-dimensional response to accelerate the development and growth of the civil society sector in Azerbaijan through, inter alia, promoting social entrepreneurship culture and innovative solutions.

The project’s overall development objective is to contribute to building conducive environment for a vibrant, sustainable and innovation-driven civil society in Azerbaijan. The project is built around two Components:

Component 1. Increasing CSOs capacities to engage in policy-making and foster local development;

Component 2: Building an enabling ecosystem and capacities for social entrepreneurship and social innovation.

Deberes y responsabilidades

OBJECTIVE AND SCOPE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The consultant is expected to provide support to the implementation of activities envisaged under Component 2. The Component seeks to create a common understanding of the role and function of the social enterprises in Azerbaijan, and develop a comprehensive national strategy for social enterprises to ensure comprehensive and coherent support by public institutions and donors. It is expected that the activities under Component 2 will help establish and promote key elements of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem such as policy framework, implementation plan, awareness, capacities and networking among key stakeholders in the social economy. The strategy will identify actions based on different models of the role, functions and context of social enterprises.

As a result of the interventions under Component 2, consensus will be built amongst the main stakeholders on the long-term vision, objective, outcome and impact of actions in the field of social enterprise development.

SPECIFIC DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The consultant’s scope of work will be around the following essential functions:

• Perform stakeholder mapping (main actors, accelerators and incubation programmes available)
• Perform SWOT analysis on the current state, development potential and barriers faced by social enterprises and their ecosystems in Azerbaijan
• Prepare a report on the role of social enterprise in the socio-economic development of the country and resilience to external shocks; the report is expected to provide an assessment of various models of social entrepreneurship that can be of use to build a model for Azerbaijan
• Lead 2 workshops to raise awareness and understanding of CSOs, socially-oriented SMEs, intermediaries in the ecosystem and public authorities to understand SE concept and various SE models
• Develop a policy paper for building a conducive ecosystem for boosting the start and development of social enterprises (including sustainable finance model), with a particular focus on social innovation
• Conduct a series (at least 2) of high-engagement events for key stakeholders to discuss draft policy paper
• Develop a roadmap to translate policy options into policy actions for implementation by various stakeholders
• Conduct a series (at least 2) of high-engagement events for key stakeholders to discuss draft roadmap

The approach to implementing the activities under this Component should emphasize importance of research, continuous learning, and dialogue to promote mutual understanding of SE concept and trust, and facilitate dialogue between the CSOs, the Government and private sector on social entrepreneurship, build trust, and encourage collaborative action by organizing consultative and high-profile events to promote social entrepreneurship with relevant stakeholders. It will also build a strong foundation for a networking platform for social entrepreneurs.

The main stakeholders to be involved this Component are: i) public authorities with mandate to support development of the social entrepreneurship (Ministry of Economy); 2) CSOs that have grants and donations as their main source of funding; ii) entrepreneurial CSOs that have started to earn income from private or public customers; iii) socially enterprises and socially oriented SMEs; iv) innovation agencies and organizations with potential to assist CSOs interested in SE transformation.

Competencias

Corporate Competencies:

- 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;

- Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional Competencies:

- Strong leadership, communication and interpersonal skills;

- Excellent organizational and time management skills;

- Strong oral and written communication skills - use of simple and clear language;

- Demonstrated ability to work in a team (strong task management and team leading competencies);

- Ability to work under pressure and in a politically sensitive environment;

- Demonstrated cultural sensitiveness and sound judgment;

- Sound knowledge and understanding of gender sensitivity and social inclusion in middle income countries.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

I. Academic Qualifications:

- At least a Master degree in social sciences, business and entrepreneurship, innovation, international development studies, public policy or relevant field;

II. Years of Experience:

- At least 10 years of experience in the formulation, design, implementation and evaluation of social development policies and programmes, with at least 5 assignments related to social economy, social entrepreneurship ecosystems, policies and frameworks;

 - A minimum of 7 years of experience in working closely with government entities and institutions, entrepreneurship and start-ups ecosystem, public-private-civil society dialogue, innovation agencies and labs;

- Good experience in socio-economic, geopolitical and economic country context analysis;

- Familiarity with the socio-economic context in the post-Soviet countries;

- Strong experience in data collection and analysis, mapping, SWOTs, drafting the content of various policy briefs, position papers, research papers on the social entrepreneurship topic;

III. Language requirements

- Excellent spoken and written English required.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

1. APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Step 1:

• Click on the "Apply now" button

• Input your information in the appropriate Sections: personal information, language proficiency, education, resume and motivation; You can type in, or paste your short Resume into the last box;

• Upon completion of the first page, please hit "submit application" tab at the end of the page. On the next page, you will be asked to upload other required documents listed in the step 2;

Step 2: 

The system will allow only one attachment. Therefore, please upload all documents listed below as one file.

• CV of the Consultant or United Nations Personnel History form (P-11) that reflects the experience needed for the assignment

• Approach to work, methodology and indicative implementation plan, which should clearly respond to the requirements from ToR

• Examples of writings from similar assignments on social entrepreneurship (policy briefs, position papers, research papers).

• Offeror’s Letter to UNDP confirming Interest and Availability for The Individual Contractor (Ic)

Offeror’s Letter to UNDP confirming Interest and Availability For The Individual Contractor (Ic) Assignment and its Annex 2 can be downloaded here (please follow link below and scroll down to Hiring Consultants / Individual contract application forms section): https://www.az.undp.org/content/azerbaijan/en/home/procurement.html

Failing to submit any of the above listed documents will result in disqualifying the application.

FINANCIAL PROPOSAL

Financial offer “all inclusive” – specifying a total lump sum in USD for the deliverables specified in the TOR. The financial offer shall include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (number of anticipated working days, professional fee, other expenses related to the assignment, cost of the round trip flight, and per diem for stay in Baku, Azerbaijan).

The financial proposal is only accepted in the form of Offeror’s letter and Annex 2 to it (please see the link in the list of documents to be included when submitting a proposal). Please include the professional fee under heading Personnel Costs/Professional Fees and travel (round trip flight fare, per diem for stay, etc.) under Travel Expenses to Join duty station heading in Annex 2 to Offeror’s letter.

Note: The total input is estimated at 90-100 working days within a span of 12 months. The candidates are free to propose the time input they consider feasible for implementation of the assignment; however, they should note that the total price is one of the factors of evaluation.

Travel:

The assignment is mainly home-based, however at least 2 missions to Baku, Azerbaijan are expected, 7 days each. Please note that the per diem rate quoted by consultant shall not exceed the UN rate for daily subsistence allowance for Baku, Azerbaijan, which is currently 157 USD per overnight stay.

EVALUATION

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Combined Scoring Method

Combined Scoring Method principle considers a combination of the applicants’ qualification and financial proposal (70% technical and 30% financial offer). When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

a) Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

b) Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Out of the maximum score of 100 points, the score for technical criteria equals 70% - maximum 70 points, and for financial criteria 30% - maximum 30 points.

Only the highest ranked candidates who would be found qualified for the job will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical evaluation:

Evaluation of technical criteria consists of two stages: desk review and interview.

Desk review stage:

I. Academic Qualifications:

- At least a Master degree in social sciences, business and entrepreneurship, innovation, international development studies, public policy, economics or relevant field; Maximum 5 points

II. Years of Experience:

- At least 10 years of experience in the formulation, design, implementation and evaluation of social development policies and programmes, with at least 5 assignments related to social economy, social entrepreneurship ecosystems, policies and frameworks; Maximum 10 points

- A minimum of 7 years of experience in working closely with government entities and institutions, entrepreneurship and start-ups ecosystem, public-private-civil society dialogue, innovation agencies and labs; Maximum 5 points

- Good experience in socio-economic, geopolitical and economic country context analysis; Maximum 3 points

- Familiarity with the socio-economic context in the post-Soviet countries and Eastern Europe; Maximum 5 points

- Strong experience in data collection and analysis, mapping, SWOTs, drafting the content of various policy briefs, position papers, research papers on the social entrepreneurship topic; Maximum 17 points

III. Language requirements

- Excellent spoken and written English required.; Maximum 5 points

IV. Approach to work, methodology and indicative implementation plan

- Adequacy of the approach to work, methodology and implementation plan to the assignment; Maximum 25 points

Interview stage:

- Specific experience of the Consultant relevant to the assignment – Maximum 25 points

The candidate should score at least 52 points to qualify for interview.

Only those who obtains at least 70 points at the technical stage will be allowed to financial evaluation stage.

Financial Criteria – (30% of total evaluation – maximum 30 points):

The offer with the lowest price will receive the maximum of 30 points.

Other offers with higher prices will receive their respective scores according the following formula:

                Lowest Bid

               ------------------- x 100 x 30%

                Proposed Bid

The contract will be awarded to the candidate that will obtain the highest aggregate score based on the technical and financial evaluation.

Individual Consultants are required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org

Note: Maximum possible score is 100 points. To be eligible, the candidate has to score at least 70 points (70% of maximum possible score)

TIMEFRAME FOR COMPLETION OF DELIVERABLES

KEY DELIVERABLES

The consultant is expected to produce the following deliverables:

PAYMENT SCHEDULE:

Payment will be done in four  installments upon completion of deliverables:

1st installment – 20% will be paid upon satisfactory completion of the deliverable 1 and acceptance of the Deliverables 1 by authorised UNDP personnel

2nd installment – 20% will be paid upon satisfactory completion of the deliverables 2 and 3 and acceptance of the Deliverables 2 and 3 by authorised UNDP personnel

3rd installment – 20% will be paid upon satisfactory completion of the deliverables 4 and acceptance of the Deliverables 4 by authorised UNDP personnel

 4th installment – 40% will be paid upon completion of the entire assignment and acceptance of the Deliverable 5 and 6 by authorised UNDP personnel

IMPLEMENTATION ARRANGEMENTS

Consultant will work in close collaboration with the Project Team and will get any assistance required to implement the functions under the contract. The Consultant will be supported by one local consultant and interpreter/translator.  UNDP will provide organizational support for organization of meetings and workshops in online and offline formats

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Project Manager is responsible for monitoring and evaluation of all deliverables.

LOCATION

The assignment is mainly home based, however at least 2 missions to Azerbaijan estimated at 7 days each are required, including field trips.

REPORTING

The consultant will provide the reports to Project Manager. The consultant will report at the end of the contractual period to Project Manager of the project as well as to UNDP Program Analyst.

Any request for clarification must be sent in writing, or by standard electronic communication to procurement.aze@undp.org. UNDP will respond in writing or by standard electronic mail and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all consultants.