Antecedentes

The UN Capital Development Fund makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries (LDCs). UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. It focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia and the Middle East, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict or crisis. Within its economic development mandate UNCDF specializes in public and private financing mechanisms that catalyze economic growth and make it more inclusive and sustainable.

UNCDF’s Local Development Finance team aims to be a ‘centre of excellence for local government finance and local economic development finance’. In this context it works with cities and local governments to support the financing of their capital investment plans and to design and test financing solutions. This work often involves policy and regulatory reform in conjunction with the appropriate agencies including ministries of finance and central banks. As part of this work UNCDF and its partners sponsored a third party managed fund - the International Municipal Investment Fund (IMIF) to support cities and local governments (notably municipalities in developing countries including the least developed countries) in accessing national and international capital markets. IMIF will provide cities and local governments with reimbursable funds to finance investment projects and programmes of general interest.

In order to support local governments to prepare projects to bankability, UNCDF has constituted a Technical Assistance Facility for the IMIF, which is managed by the Local Development Finance team. Known as the IMIF TAF this facility is comprised of technical advisors, investment officers and municipal finance experts. The IMIF TAF utilizes UNCDF’s proven Local Finance Initiative Dual Key investment process to support the local governments in developing countries prepare projects based on the technical capacity required.

In this context, UNCDF is launching a procurement process for IC framework agreement in order to retain experts in municipal credit assessment, rating, advisory and training. The basic support will include to train municipal officials on the credit enhancing activities, support the assessment of the unofficial credit rating, and also support the UNCDF staff of IMIF TAF activities. The set of skills in demand for this consultancy include experience in municipal public finance and its effect on the credit worthiness of the municipality. The consultants should also have experience on municipal investment financial instruments: debt, equity, PPP and bond instruments. The consultants will complement the work of the diverse IMIF TAF Investment Officer team to undertake technical and financial due diligence, confirm bankability and development of an investment ready packages of municipal infrastructure investments.

Selected Municipal Credit Academy Consultants will be reporting to the Municipal Investment Finance Manager, based in New York.

After a competitive selection process, IMIF-TAF will rank applicants under the qualification and specifics of this Terms of Reference and will call upon the Consultants to engage with IMIF-TAF based on their ranking, regional and country presence and availability.

Selected roster applicants are expected to work remotely, with travels to the project sites, most of which are in the Developing Countries. Selected consultants must be fully reachable via Internet, email and telephone. The consultants must possess the necessary communication facilities at their own premises. The consultants will be expected to provide updates to the LD management if requested.

Deberes y responsabilidades

The scope of work will include:

1. Design, conduct, and support creditworthiness training academies to municipal officials through the IMIF TAF. The academies will result in the assessment of creditworthiness of municipalities.
2. Review the current operational strategy that IMIF TAF is using to select cities that can receive technical assistance. The review should focus on strengthening of the IMIF TAF diagnostic city scoring tools. Furthermore, the consultant will produce an engagement toolkit for Investment Officers to use in the credit analysis process.
3. Provide specialized project or general obligation based advisory services that will lead to improvement of the credit worthiness of the specific municipal investment projects.
4. Capacity building and knowledge transfer of UNCDF Investment Officers on the areas of municipal creditworthiness.
5. Any other related duties as may be required.

Note: By “academies”, these terms of reference mean highly specialized, structured, customized, and intensive training activities. The expression is intentionally drawn from the training activities rolled out by the World Bank on the same topic (“City Creditworthiness Academy”).

Under the direction of Municipal Finance Advisor in HQ, the Consultant will perform the following responsibilities.

Key Functions:

Design, conduct, and support Creditworthiness training academies to municipal officials through the IMIF TAF. The academies will result in the assessment of creditworthiness of municipalities. (50%)

• Design a specialized creditworthiness training program to fit UNCDF’s technical assistance support provisions to municipalities in developing countries.
• Together with UNCDF team, conduct assessments to support the municipal creditworthiness program. The assessment is meant as a preliminary evaluation of cities’ preparedness for non-concessional financing. It should provide both UNCDF and
• participating cities with a relatively accurate indication of the cities’ strengths/weaknesses as to the cities’ ability to leverage financing. The assessment is meant also as a flexible and efficient solution to engage with cities, obtain key information, and provide the foundation to design follow-up technical assistance programs and interventions by UNCDF.”
• Issue a report after the assessment on each municipal creditworthiness of individual cities which should include recommendation and action plan.

Review the current operational strategy that IMIF TAF is using to select cities that can receive technical assistance (20%)

• As a key element of project support, the consultant should be able to impart knowledge to various stakeholder groupings, including but not limited to the developers, the municipal counterparts, the and UNCDF staff members. The review should focus on strengthening of the IMIF TAF diagnostic city scoring tools. Furthermore, the consultant will produce an “engagement toolkit for Investment Officers.” This credit tool will be used by UNCDF investment Officers to use in the credit analysis process.

Provide specialized project or general obligation based advisory services that will lead to improvement of the credit worthiness of the specific municipal investment projects (10%).

• On specific assignments, the consultant will be required to develop specialized advisory services to municipal project and deliver together with the UNCDF team. The advisory services will be delivered as part of the Technical Assistance that UNCDF IMIF TAF will provide to the municipality as part of the investment intervention.
• Support the municipality in the implementation of the credit assessment recommendations in order to improve their creditworthiness.

Capacity building and knowledge transfer of UNCDF Investment Officers on the areas of municipal creditworthiness (20%).

• Support UNCDF staff engagement in municipal credit assessment project deliberations and provide knowledge transfer through on the job consultation sessions and informal training as needed. Deliver at least one consultation session/training in developing municipal credit academy to fit UNCDF investment process.

Key Deliverables

• Inception Report: The Consultant shall present to UNCDF an Inception Report presenting initial findings following the review of project proposal by the municipality and financial and technical data available.
• Detailed Work Plans: For each of the scoped areas mentioned above, the consultant produce a detail work plan at the beginning of the engagement as a project inception report which will include at a minimum the objectives, projected activities and strategies needed to achieve them and an estimated timeline.
• Interim Reports: Municipal credit improvement projects are long term projects. The consultant will work under the UNCDF supervisors mentioned above and will produce the interim reports as the engagement agreement of each municipal project assigned The interim reports shall include: (i) current obstacles to be overcome, (ii) an assessment of the situation and progress; (iii) an outline of a long term strategy toward the implementation of projects the consultant is working on; (iv) proposals for components to be included with cost estimates; (vi) the scope of work for the project implementation team; (viii) the Value For Money analysis. The Consultant shall distribute interim Reports to UNCDF for comments and shall organise a joint meeting, if requested to, to present the project status (“Presentation”) with all parties within two weeks after distribution of the Report.
• Other reports that deemed necessary or suggested by the consultant

Output Documents – per selected project

• Inception report and interim reports
• Detailed Work Plan
• Due Diligence Report as needed
• Project Management Plan
• Project Budget
• Training Materials for municipal project finance technical workshops and training UNCDF staff and UNCDF partners.

Duration of the assignment

• Successful Roster Applicants will be placed on the Roster for a duration of three (3) years. Within the said period, the Consultants may be called upon to render the above listed services.
• The Duration of each assignment will vary based on multiple factors, ranging from the size, complexity. However, it is estimated that a selected roster applicant may spend from 10 business days up to 100 business days on preparing specific projects.
• Precise time duration for each assignment will be provided and discussed with the selected Roster applicants for each project. It is also possible to engage the same roster applicant in multiple projects (portfolio) for which the time may range from 50-120 business days of commitment.
• At the end of the 3rd year, UNCDF shall re-open the tendering for the roster, and all consultants on the roster may participate anew, except for those removed by UNCDF from the roster for whatever cause. Performance from previous engagements shall be considered during the re-tendering of the roster.

Contract Modality

• The successful offerors shall be engaged as long term agreement (LTA) holder under what is referred to as IC Framework Agreement for a duration of three (3) years. The LTA holders are to be classified based on their qualifications and regional presence. Consultants shall be ranked based on overall rating achieved during the selection process – the highest rated will be ranked first, and so on.
• UNCDF will sign framework agreements also referred to as long term agreement (LTA) (1-year renewable) with the highest-ranking applicants (10-15) covering the regions IMIF-TAF will operate in, i.e.g West Africa, East Africa, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, Latin America. The roster expects to identify at least 2 consultants for each region. Under IC Framework Agreements, there will be no financial obligations, until the expert is called off to render the services, which shall be triggered by a written request accompanied by TOR and a Purchase Order indicating the full cost of the services
• Priority and availability to assign an investment project will be given to the highest-ranking Consultants in each region. Second-ranking Consultants (or third, depending on the outcome of the selection process) shall be called off in the event that the highest-ranking expert is not available during the UNCDF-requested period of engagement.
• Consultants will be compensated based on submitted monthly Certification of Payment forms (COPs) indicating the number of days and investment committee performed. COPs are certified and authorized for disbursement by the direct managers.
• At the end of every call-off, payment shall require a signed performance evaluation of the consultant for record and reference purposes, specially at the time of the new tender.

Competencias

• Serves and promotes the vision, mission, values, and strategic goals of UNCDF.
• Plans, prioritizes, and delivers tasks on time.
• Conceptualizes and analyses problems to identify key issues, underlying problems and how they relate to each other.
• Demonstrates effective written and oral communication skills.
• Plans and produces quality results to meet established goals.
• Generates innovative, practical solutions to challenging situations.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Required Skills and Experience

• Previous experience in development and execution of municipal credit assessments, training and advisory transactions. 
• Demonstrated track record in conducting credit improvement advisory services to projects in developing countries.
• Demonstrated track record of innovating in the above credit improvement advisory services during project development. In order to improve, acquiring financing as needed to secure private sector investment.
• Demonstrated the ability to successfully interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds which include willingness to try and understand and be tolerant of differing opinions and views.
• Track record of providing capacity building and technical support to project teams or their advisors on largescale infrastructure projects – development, structuring, risk mitigation and financing.

Education

• A Master’s Degree or equivalent in international development, finance, business administration, Law or equivalent.

Language Requirements

This assignment needs a bilingual candidate. Fluency in English is necessary and one of the following languages: French, Spanish, Arabic, and Portuguese.

Location

Home Based with physical presence in East and West Africa, ASEAN countries and other MIF project’s countries.

Travel

If travel is required in a specific call-off, UNCDF will pay separately travel expenses (economy airfare, terminal expenses and per diems which include hotel and food expenses) in accordance with UNCDF rules, and which may be equal or lower but not higher than UN rates, based on evidence of approved and actual travel.

Evaluation Process

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on a “Lowest-priced among technically qualified candidates”.
The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose CV has been evaluated and determined as (a) technically responsive/ compliant/ acceptable, and (b) lowest daily fee. CVs will be evaluated based on, among others, relevant experience working in international development, project finance, and helping large scale infrastructure projects reach finance close in developing countries - please see application procedures below.

Application procedure

Interested consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Proposers who shall not submit below mentioned documents will not be considered for further evaluation.

• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability.
• Personal CV or UN P11 form, - indicating all past experience, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate AND names of at least three (3) professional references (e-mail addresses, telephone numbers);
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, outlining track record and direct relevance for the present assignment; Please paste the letter into the "Resume and Motivation" section of the electronic application.
• Signed Financial proposal, for the assignment outlining: All-inclusive daily fee in USD (including professional fees and other professional expenses, such as housing, insurance, taxes, etc.

Applications will be rated on both technical and financial submissions. The following method will be used: Highest rated proposal using the combined scoring method, which assigns the weight distribution between the technical and financial proposals. The overall combined score will be 100 points, where weight distribution shall be 70% technical (Desk Review) and 30% financial.

Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability and Financial Proposal (do not upload your financial proposal online.)  The financial proposal should be emailed separately to financial.proposal@uncdf.org with the subject line: 98793 – Municipal Credit Academy Consultants (IC Framework Agreement).

Step I: Screening:

Applications will be screened and only applicants meeting the following minimum criteria (listed under education and experience) will progress to the pool for shortlisting:

• Education requirements as indicated in this Terms of Reference.

• Development and execution of viable limited recourse project finance transactions

• Demonstrated track record of at least three( 3) years in structuring infrastructure projects in developing countries, using risk mitigation structures, including specific elements such as EPC, O&M and PPA contracts.

• Proficiency in English is required and any of the following languages, French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese.

Step II: Shortlisting by Desk Review (100 points X 70%)

UNCDF will conduct a desk review process to shortlist and technically evaluate candidates as per the following criteria:

1.  Previous experience in development and execution of municipal credit assessments, training and advisory transactions. (25 points)

2. Experiences in conducting credit improvement advisory services to projects in developing countries. (25 points)

3. Track record of providing capacity building and technical support to project teams or their advisors on infrastructure projects – development, structuring, risk mitigation and financing. (20 points)

4. Demonstrated track record of innovating in the above credit improvement advisory services during project development. In order to improve, acquiring financing as needed to secure private sector investment. (20 points)

5. Demonstrated the ability to successfully interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds which include willingness to try and understand and be tolerant of differing opinions and views. (5 points)

6. Fluency in English and one Additional language. (5 points)

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% on the total of Step II: Desk Review will be considered as technically qualified and will be reviewed further for financial evaluation.

Step III: Financial Evaluation:

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

Lowest priced proposal/price of the proposal being evaluated x 30%.

The Price proposal must be submitted as an inclusive daily fee in USD.

Step IV: Short interview

• Candidates passing step III will be invited for a short interview to discuss their availability, language preferences, expertise and geographical interest. This will enable a more effective utilization of the LTAs and a balanced capacity to meet demand.? The findings from the interview shall not, in any way, alter the outcome of the combined scoring arising from Steps I to III.? However, the outcome of the interview may impact the ranking of the consultants.

Step V: Placement on Roster and Issuance of Individual Contract

LTA awards shall be made to candidates whose offers have been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable vis-à-vis the requirements of the TOR and the project operating environment; and
• Having received the highest scores out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical criteria (70%) and financial criteria (30%) specific to the solicitation.

Both individual consultants and individuals employed by a company or institution are welcome to apply.

Any individual employed by a company or institution who would like to submit an offer must do so in their individual capacity (providing a CV so that their qualifications may be judged accordingly).

Women candidates or women-owned businesses are strongly encouraged to apply.

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

Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when traveling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org.

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