Antecedentes

As the efforts to reform Sierra Leone’s investment climate and help generate foreign and local investment have borne fruit, the number and scope of incoming investment proposals have increased exponentially. These proposals often take the form of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), with the Government being asked to undertake long term obligations, contribute rights or assets owned by the state into the PPP structures to be controlled by the private sector who aims to provide public services or the build infrastructure such as power plants, roads, bridges or airports.

In this regard UNDP is providing private sector development assistance to the Government of Sierra Leone with the aim to increase infrastructure delivery, expand income opportunities for the local private sector, improve revenue mobilisation and promote market based public private partnership solutions to address development challenges of youth unemployment, sustainable management of natural resources and local economic development.

While private sector led growth is central to government’s poverty reduction strategy, diligence is required to manage the global investment community’s growing interest in Sierra Leone and to protect the country’s interests. Therefore, after the support received from UNDP and other donor partners the Government of Sierra Leone in the middle of 2013 has established the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Unit under the Office of the President and the Office of the Chief of Staff, which will serve as a combination of technical support and quality assurance arm for all major PPP investment agreements across the Government and will improve the capacity of the Ministries to engage private sector in a more efficient and professional way through the best international practices on planning, structuring and negotiating such transactions.

The work of the PPP Unit will also improve country's capacity to implement important service delivery and infrastructure projects earmarked in Sierra Leone's third generation Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper - "Agenda for Prosperity" (2013-2018). And finally, this unit will serve as the institutional memory centre for all the PPP capacity, methodologies, standard documentation, training and awareness raising initiatives.

The Government has made substantial commitments towards the operations of the PPP Unit already. It now hosts 6 local professional staff and 2 assistant-level staff in the financial, business analysis, project development as well as research and planning fields. PPP Unit however, lacks international-level PPP legal capacity to strengthen the expertise of the existing staff, provide strategic and technical advice to the Head of PPP Unit (PPP Unit Coordinator) and advise him on the ongoing PPP transactions pipeline.
 
Main objectives, responsibilities and description of the of the proposed analytical work
 
This particular UNDP intervention specifically aims at strengthening the capacity of the PPP Unit in strategic PPP planning, legal quality assurance and PPP transaction negotiation, as well as enhancing PPP Unit staff knowledge of the best international PPP practices and methods in relation to tendering and structuring PPPs that will be equitable, beneficial for the local economy and provide substantial impact on poverty reduction and new employment opportunities across the range of sectors.
 
Successful implementation of these objectives requires establishment of a position of an International PPP Legal Adviser at the PPP Unit to provide strategic technical assistance in building PPP Unit's capacity to engage Ministries and private investors using the best international practices and structuring quality PPP transactions as well as contributing to the development of the overall PPP strategy with particular emphasis on the institutional capacity building.
 
The PPP Advisor will report primarily to the PPP Unit Coordinator, with a secondary reporting line to UNDP. The PPP Advisor will work closely with the other technical advisers assigned by the international donors and the members of the PPP Unit team. The PPP Advisor will be required to work in Sierra Leone at least 85% of the time.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Scope of Work, Responsibilities and Description of the Proposed Analytical Key  Responsibilities and Deliverables:
  • Provide strategic and legal advice to the PPP Unit Coordinator on issues related to all stages of PPP project development from the inception of PPP projects to active contract negotiations;
  • Support the beneficiary to undertake its quality assurance, technical assessment and transaction structuring roles as relates to PPP transactions;
  • Provide on-the-job training and support PPP Unit's Coordinator and PPP Unit staff in delivering assistance to the Ministries during PPP project planning, assessment and structuring;
  • Assist in coordinating between the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies on PPP regulatory and PPP project initiation issues and will support in integration of PPP modalities into sector and county-wide policies;
  • Contribute to other capacity building activities by advising PPP Unit Coordinator on the best strategies for trainings, study visits, organisation of the workshop and attendance of seminars by the PPP Unit staff;
  • Provide on-site trainings and workshops to PPP Unit staff after agreeing the training programme with the PPP Coordinator.  
  • The above responsibilities will be carried out through development of strategy documents, policy papers, advisory notes and other relevant documentation as well as provision of on-the-job training and technical advice to PPP Unit.

Deliverables, activities, and milestones shall follow this tentative schedule: Deliverable/milestone

  • Familiarisation with Sierra Leone PPP sector and regulations, detailed scoping of the assignment through meetings with stakeholders, drafting and submission of the capacity building and individual action plan for approval;
  • Daily advisory support to the PPP Unit Coordinator and PPP Unit staff to undertake their quality assurance, technical assessment and transaction structuring roles in relation to PPP transactions provided;
  • On-the-job training schedule and full PPP workshop programme on structuring PPP transactions developed and delivered;
  • Presentation of the first quarterly Activity Report;
  • Contributions to policy and secondary legislation papers related to PPP and methodologies in Sierra Leone delivered.
  • Coordination between the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies on PPP regulatory and PPP project initiation issues provided;
  • Presentation of the second quarterly Activity Report;
  • On the job training on legal PPP issues during the ongoing transaction structuring, proposal assessment and negotiations delivered;
  • Presentation of the third quarterly Activity Report;
  • Presentation of the final Activity Report.

Competencias

Corporate Responsibility & Direction:
  • Serves and promotes the vision, mission, values, and strategic goals of UNDP.
People Skills:
  • Promotes a learning environment;
  • Facilitates the development of individual and multi-cultural/team competencies
Managing for Results:
  • Plans and prioritizes work activities to meet Organizational goals;
  • Strategic approach to problem solving.
Partnering & Networking:
  • Builds and sustains relationships with key constituents (internal/external/ bilateral/ multilateral/public/private; civil society);
  • Seeks and applies knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside of UNDP;
  • Demonstrates ability to handle working relationships with senior officials, academics and technical experts.

Innovation & Judgment:

  • Conceptualizes and analyzes problems to identify key issues, underlying problems, and how they relate;
  • Generates creative, practical approaches to overcome challenging situations;
  • Devises new systems and processes, and modifies existing ones, to support innovative behaviors.

Communication:

  • Demonstrates outstanding communication skills, verbal and written, in English.

Technical:

  • Job Knowledge & Expertise;
  • Applies the required depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise to meet job demands;
  • Possesses extensive knowledge of economic development issues and familiarity with major macro-economic policy issues and models and the MDGs;
  • Capable of applying economic theory to the specific country context;
  • Demonstrates strong quantitative skills and the ability to carry out high quality economic research, including statistical analysis;
  • Possesses proven ability to analyze from a global perspective, with the ability to offer practical policy advice on economic issues based on local realities;
  • Uses Information Technology effectively as a tool and resource;
  • Ability to review, draft and edit required legal project documentation.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:
  • Masters degree in Law; higher degree or a second degree in another related field (engineering, finance, etc.) is an advantage.
Experience:
  • At least 10 years of professional experience in the field of legal advice to corporate, investment banks and other financial institutions on real estate, public and private mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings, initial public offerings, equity issues, projects and tax;
  • At least 5 years experience with legal structuring and advising on public private partnerships internationally;
  • Proven experience in capacity building projects;
  • Experience working with at least 1 LDC Government;
  • Profound knowledge of public private partnership structuring procedures and methodologies;
  • Good understanding of Sierra Leone current development challenges and sound work plan methodology.
Language:
  • Full proficiency in English both written and verbal.
Application procedure:

Interested individual consultants must submit the proposal, consisting of the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:
  • Technical proposal addressing the proposed methodology, understanding of the assignment the explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
  • Personal CV including past experience in similar projects, the duly filled Personal History Form (P11).
 Financial proposal;
  • The Financial Proposal shall specify a daily lump-sum fee and travel expenses quoted in separate line items. Payments are made monthly to the Individual Consultant based on the submission and approval of the time sheets (monthly) and activity reports (quarterly).
Evaluation

Only shortlisted candidates will be considered for the Technical Evaluation. The short listing will be based on respective educational background and minimal requirements for work experience;
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:
 
Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, 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 weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation;
  • Technical Criteria weight: 70% - 70;
  • Financial Criteria weight: 30% - 30.
Technical Criteria
  • Masters degree in Law; higher degree or a second degree in another related field (engineering, finance, etc.) is an advantage: 5%;
  • At least 10 years of professional experience in the field of legal advice to corporate, investment banks and other financial institutions on real estate, public and private mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings, initial public offerings, equity issues, projects and tax:10%;
  • At least 5 years experience with legal structuring and advising on public private partnerships internationally:10%;
  • Proven experience in capacity building projects: 5%;
  • Experience working with at least 1 LDC Government: 5%;
  • Profound knowledge of public private partnership structuring procedures and methodologies: 15%;
  • Good understanding of Sierra Leone current development challenges, sound work plan methodology and understanding of the assignment: 20%.