Antecedentes

Objective:

Business as usual will not lead us to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – this requires more innovative and integrated ways of thinking at all levels. The nature of Agenda 2030, and more recently the COVID-19 crisis, brings us back to the need for accountable, effective and inclusive governance, as the backbone sustainable development and poverty eradication. Local governance remains for the vast majority of people, in any country regardless of its political context, the most accessible level of engagement with public authority and state institutions. This means it has great potential as a peacebuilding tool. With increasing inequality in many countries, the public sector needs to be reinforced as the guarantors of the common good. There can be no sustainable development without a social contract deeply rooted in local communities. In this context, UNDP as the UN lead agency for post-COVID 19 socio-economic recovery has a an important role to work with governments, people and non-state actors to shape a new social contract, particularly at the local level, where the interactions between people, Government and the private sector are the most important.

Governance is never a simple question as it includes dealing with individuals, communities, institutions, processes, powers, political, social and economic engagement but also private and business interests. It is at the local level where people’s engagement as well as inclusion of marginalized parts of the society has the most potential for change. It is where meaningful multi-stakeholder partnerships can be established and effective linkages to development cooperation partners be put in place.

UNDP has supported local governance and active decentralization processes for the best part of 30 years, and more intensively since 2000. UNDP’s average annual programming on local governance is 500 million in 84 countries. Taking the lessons learnt from these experiences, UNDP will draft a NextGen local governance (LG), as an integral part of its overall NextGen Governance approach.

Considering the above elements UNDP is going to embark on a forward-thinking process aimed at analyzing our current narrative and offer on LG to adjust it line with the new challenges and opportunities arising from the SDGs as well as the COVID-19 crisis, while integrating the opportunity and risks of using digital and social innovation. This process will be fully integrated and mutually reinforce UNDP’s work on the ‘future of governance’ more broadly, which is also under way.

Background:

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the SDGs. UNDP’s policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan.

Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices, advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.  BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Bureau (CB) to support emergency and crisis response.  BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. The bureau also assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working.  BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

In this sense a new reflection on the LG mechanisms to implement such a cross-cutting and complex agenda is needed and will mutually reinforce and inform the process of revising UNDP’s overall Governance offer. Many of the challenges and opportunities of promoting LG are not the same as ten years ago. This represents huge challenges as well as opportunities for Local and Regional Governments (LRGs) and local governance stakeholders. For UNDP it represents an opportunity to revise its narrative and approach in order to support LG processes as a connector and facilitator, making sure that LG worldwide will be able to turn today’s complex development challenges into inclusive and sustainable processes and solutions.

The achievement of the 2030 Agenda and ‘building back better’ learning from the COVID-19 pandemic depends on full ownership of sustainable and inclusive development by communities (incl. most vulnerable groups), cities of all sizes, regions, national governments  as well as national and international associations of LRGs and the private sector. Most importantly, the implementation of appropriate local policies require a close partnership between all spheres of governance within a country, but also across countries and continents. Another key element is the increasing recognition that resilient social contracts need to be built from the bottom up. It is the local level where trust between citizens and the state can be strengthened or equally lost.  The SDGs also highlighted the ever-stronger need to effectively foster vertical as well as horizontal cross-government coordination and integration. UNDP’s new LG approach will have to propose ways how best to set up and strengthen functioning multilevel governance mechanisms from the bottom up; this could become a critical enabler for the overall implementation of the SDGs at country level as well as for more effective provision of services to the population. xxx

The current COVID-19 crises is another reason as well as stimulus to critically rethink UNDP’s LG narrative and approach. COVID-19 has governments at all levels operating in a context of radical uncertainty, and faced with difficult trade-offs given the health, economic and social challenges it raises. The regional and local impact of the COVID-19 crisis is highly heterogeneous, with a strong territorial dimension and significant implications for crisis management and policy responses. A new UNDP LG strategy will need to suggest pathways for UNDP to be agile and reactive to support countries and populations recover from future crisis and shocks while at the same time offer solid solutions to continue to support LRGs to enhance service delivery and innovate

Deberes y responsabilidades

Through this contract, the consultant will provide support to the UNDP BPPS Governance Team and UNDP CB Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions Team working closely with teams across the Regional Bureaus and Regional Hubs and the overall GPN.  She/he will organize and moderate the rethinking process and the reframing of an innovative new LG narrative and approach. This process will not only include in-house discussions to create and design opportunities for collaboration between teams and bureaus, but also include external stakeholders such as LRGs, associations, and selected representatives of civil society and academia and other non-state actors. She/he will furthermore stay abreast with UNDP’s overall Governance discussion to ensure full integration between the processes. This process will be closely aligned and contribute to the larger UNDP NextGen Governance process. It will focus on:

1. Design, support and moderate a collaborative process of co-developing UNDP’s corporate local governance narrative and offer. This narrative and offer should be strategic, co-designed with multiple actors (different UNDP teams, UN Agencies, Governments, People (incl. minorities), Private sector, Academia, etc) and provide an integrated storyline (and specific UNDP ‘solutions/service lines’) on opportunities and challenges of NextGen LG approaches to support inclusive, effective and accountable local governance and societal transformation, in line with the aspirations of Localization of the SDGs, and in line with UNDP’s COVID 19 2.0 offer.
2. Develop and lead focus groups and internal and external consultations working closely with other teams identifying new ways in which the country office ability to deliver on LG can be supported practically.
3. Consolidating results of the process and draft UNDP’s NextGen LG narrative and offer including recommendations for specific solutions and service lines (as an integral part of the overall Governance offer).

Specific deliverables over the consultancy period:

1. An inception report outlining the approach, timeline and methodology proposed including possible partners in all steps of the process. UNDP would welcome the use of a global online consultative and sense-making process.
2. UNDP’s NextGen narrative and offer on LG formulated.

Competencias

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

Functional Competencies:

• Strong understanding of development thematic areas related to local governance, including institutional approaches and current knowledge products
• Experience developing and leading research, particularly using social innovation, digital tools, sense-making and other tools and approaches to co-design solutions.
• Good knowledge of results-based management and performance indicators;
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English, with an excellent understanding of structure and form of official UN documentation;
• Excellent organizational skills and proven ability to deliver projects within assigned deadlines;
• Excellent interpersonal skills and objectivity;
• Experience working collaboratively in a team structure in a multicultural environment.

Leadership and Self-Management:

• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities.

Knowledge Management and Learning:

• Shares knowledge and experience

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Education:

• Post-graduate University Degree in public administration, international development, business management, economics, social sciences or other relevant experience discipline.

Experience:

• 10 years of policy and programmatic experience on governance in a development context
• Proven experience leading sense-making and/or co-designing portfolios/strategies for development outcomes
• Experience of advising Governments on issues related to governance
• In depth experience of working with international organizations on issues relating to local governance
• Experience of facilitating workshops and/or consultations
• Deep knowledge of the 2030 Agenda, and SDG16 in particular, and the principles of inclusive, accountable and effective governance.
• Broad knowledge of the UN system and UNDP desired.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English, required;
• Knowledge of another UNDP official language, desired.

Application Procedures (Instructions to Applicants)

Submission of Proposals:

UNDP procurement team will invite technical proposals from selected experts. The technical proposal will include the following documents:

Technical Proposal:

• CV or Personal History Form (P11), indicating all relevant experience, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the candidate and at least three (3) professional references. The P11 template can be downloaded from this link: http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc
• A short methodological proposal (max 3 pages) illustrating the approach as well as relevant methodological aspects and sequence with regards to the collaborative process and the elaboration of the final product.

Financial Proposal

• Applicants must submit their financial proposals in US Dollars for this consultancy to cpu.bids@undp.org.  The financial proposal should be "all-inclusive" and include a detailed breakdown.  The “all inclusive” costs imply that all costs such as professional fees, communications, utilities, consumables, insurance, etc that could possibly be incurred by the Consultants are already factored into the financial proposal, except for expenses related to international travels to/from duty stations.
• In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
• If the Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

Criteria for the Selection of the Best Offer:

Only those applicants who meet the minimum level of education, relevant years of experience requirements and provide sound methodology for the assignment will be considered for the technical evaluation. The technical evaluation will include a desk review and may also include interviews with shortlisted applicants.

Candidates will be compared using a combined scoring method with the qualifications weighted at 70% and the price offer weighted at 30%. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 (70%) points on the technical qualifications part will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria for evaluation of qualifications (70 points maximum)

• Soundness of the methodological proposal (20 points);
• Experience with providing advice on governance. (20 points);
• Experience creating methodologies to capture development results from country offices and internal reports. Experience with UNDP an asset; (20 points)
• Good knowledge of results-based management and performance indicators. (10 points

Criteria for financial evaluation (30 points maximum):

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

Contract Award

Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into contract with UNDP.

Institutional arrangement

The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;

The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop.

Payments will be made upon satisfactory delivery of outputs, certification of payment form, and acceptance and confirmation by the Task Manager on outputs satisfactorily delivered.

Payment modality

• Payment to the Individual Contractor will be made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager.
• Payments will be made upon satisfactory achieved deliverables and submission of time sheet in accordance with number of days worked and certification of payment. All payments are subject to the clearance and approval of the direct supervisor. The contract price is fixed regardless of changes in the cost of components.

The workweek will be based on 35 hours, i.e. on a 7-hour working day, with core hours being between 9h00 and 18h00 daily.

References:

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 Form for ICs

Annex 2 - IC Contract Template

Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions

Annex 4 – RLA Template