Background

On 1 January 2021, UNDP launched its new Digital, Inclusive, Accessible: Support to Digitalisation of State Services in Ukraine (DIA Support) Project. The project is made possible due to support of the Government of Sweden and is carried out in close collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine (MDT) and other government stakeholders.

The project builds on extensive UNDP experience in two areas: administrative service reform and reengineering and digitalising public administration processes with broad citizen and expert engagement. As part of the project, UNDP will help the government partners – primarily MDT – select several service clusters in use by citizens representing vulnerable groups. Services will be packaged to accommodate everyday needs and transposed into a fully digital format. Alternatively, sections of the service business-process will be digitally transformed.

The Government will partner with UNDP to ensure that authorities (civil servants) and the Parliament gain a deeper understanding of the ‘Human Rights Based Approach’ in the context of e-services, in particular by working more closely with the Secretariat of the Human Rights Commissioner and national human rights institutions of other countries. The project will also actively engage the population (citizen-clients) to build digital literacy, cyber hygiene, and nurture confidence in new solutions.

At the global level, the digitalisation of customer-oriented services and the development of mobile technologies that involve citizens in creating new solutions while leaving no one behind meet several Sustainable Development Goals at once. The creation of digital services – particularly mobile-based – contributes to an improvement in the quality of public administration and a reduction in corruption.

This, in turn, promotes the development of effective, accountable and inclusive public institutions capable of responding to the needs of women and men belonging to different groups, in line with Goal 16 to ‘Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.’ For example, when applied in the access to justice sector, such services contribute to supporting the rule of law, so that no citizen is left behind.

Goal 9 to ‘Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation’ aims to improve access to information and communication technologies. In the Ukrainian context, this means expanding access to digital/mobile-based services outside large cities and in localities that have not yet benefitted from the latest generation of telecommunications technologies (at least 3G Internet).

Another aspect related to creating more accessible and inclusive electronic or mobile services is in line with Goal 4 to ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.’

The implementation of digital solutions will also contribute to Goal 5 to “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.” Gender mainstreaming can positively impact equal opportunities of women and men, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ‘Your State in Your Smartphone’ initiative launched in Ukraine, will only succeed if appealing and accessible civic digital education is developed and widely implemented to help close digital gaps in knowledge and skills, and bridge the digital divide between generations and groups of Ukrainians with different social backgrounds.

No less important for proper project implementation is the increased awareness and capacity of the civil servants at large to understand the concepts of human-centred policy design and services provision. As such, amongst its many objectives, the project envisages that employees of the centres for administrative services provision (hereinafter – Centres), will learn more about how to monitor and assess the quality of services delivery based on the self-assessment tools and feedback mechanisms for citizens.

One of the key strategic goals of MDT proclaimed in the CMU Action Programme is 100% digitalization of public administrative services. To reach the goal, MDT works on both – reengineering of the services and improving access to them.

On 24 March 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted Resolution #249, which identifies the procedure of the state subventions to centres for administrative services provision. The resolution envisages a clear mechanism for providing funds from the state budget to deploy the innovative Centres’ network.  As at March 2021, Ukrainians can receive administrative services in 687 Centres.

In 2021, MDT launches the Diia Centres initiative aimed to transform traditional Centres based on the one-stop shop concept with a range of all necessary services for citizens. That will help citizens to receive administrative services in a faster and more convenient way, and to avoid unnecessary and repeated visits to a Centre.

In average, 105 administrative services are available at all the Centres in Ukraine. However, the level of clients’ satisfaction with services is not measured in all of them. MDT has intention to increase the number of available administrative services to 400-800 and increase the level of satisfaction to 90% and above[1].

MDT in cooperation with UNDP will develop an online course for the Centres’ employees responsible for monitoring the quality of the services provision. For that purpose, MDT has developed a comprehensive methodology including self-assessment indicators and feedback loops to monitor and evaluate the quality of administrative services provision.

[1] https://www.kmu.gov.ua/news/u-2021-roci-mincifri-planuye-zapustiti-cnap-novoyi-formaciyi-centri-diya-nov

Duties and Responsibilities

2. Objectives of the assignment

The main objective of the assignment is to develop an online course aimed to teach administrators of the Centres and other relevant staff members to monitor and assess the quality of administrative services provision based on the methodology developed by MDT. The training course will be filmed and uploaded to the Diia Centre educational platform, or any other resource indicated by UNDP and MDT.

3. Scope of services

It is expected that the Expert will engage in the following types of activities:

1. Participate in working meetings of MDT, UNDP or other stakeholders to finalize the number of themes to be covered in the course, their sequence and depth of coverage;
2. Based on the result of those meetings, draft detailed course outline (curriculum) for approval by all stakeholders of the course production process;
3. Study materials already developed by MDT, UNDP or U-LEAD project to ensure that overall messages are compatible;
4. Develop course modules, course teaser and other relevant materials for production phase;
5. Design a testing system to validate that the users have obtained the required knowledge, and that UNDP is able to collect the metrics it needs for its monitoring and evaluation system;
6. Act as one of the lecturers to deliver the course. Video capturing and editing is not a part of this ToR.
7. Assist MDT with integration of the resulting video, text and interactive materials to the Diia Centre educational platform or any other resource indicated by UNDP.

While the ultimate configuration of the course is to be discussed and agreed upon by all relevant stakeholders, the approximate contents and thematic blocks should include a promotional brief video (teaser), the course itself and tests. The course will be created and administered in Ukrainian. It should consist of approximately 10 modules (episodes) and be designed in the edutainment format, including infographics and samples where appropriate. These modules include, but aren’t limited with, the following themes:

• The essence of monitoring of administrative services provision: legislative approach and the best foreign practices;
• Methodology of assessment of the services provision (key indicators and outcomes);
• IT solutions enabling to monitor the services provision. The monitoring system provided by MDT: how to work with it.

4. Measurable outputs of the work assignment/deliverables:

5. Management arrangements

The Expert will be primarily responsible for achieving the objectives of the assignment. The Expert will report to the Digital Policy Specialist and will work closely with the Project Manager, representatives of the Democratic Governance Portfolio of UNDP in Ukraine and representatives from the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.

The Expert will be responsible for all personal administrative expenses associated with the assignment, which include printing costs, stationery, telephone, and electronic communication. In case any public events are planned jointly by the Expert and UNDP as part of the present assignment, the Expert will not be responsible for logistics of events. UNDP will cover the conference costs (including possible printing, food, accommodation and etc.) on its own.

6. Monitoring requirements / Terms of payment

The Expert will work under the overall supervision of the Digital Policy Specialist. The Expert will interact with UNDP to receive any clarifications and guidance that may be needed. The Expert will duly inform UNDP of any problems, issues or delays arising in the course of implementation of assignment and take necessary steps to address them.

UNDP will be the final authority to control the quality and evaluate the work. The satisfactory completion of each of the deliverables shall be subject to the endorsement of the Project Manager. Each deliverable will be delivered in a draft for comments and feedback before finalisation. No reports or documents should be published or distributed to third parties without the approval of UNDP.

All reports and results are to be submitted to the UNDP in electronic form (*.docx, *.xlsx, *.pptx, and *.pdf or other formats accepted by UNDP). The language of the materials and reports is Ukrainian.

UNDP will provide payment upon provision of each deliverable duly certified by UNDP in accordance with the schedule below:

Deliverable 1.  40%

Deliverable 2.  40%

Deliverable 3.  20 %

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling 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 favouritism;
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment

Required Skills and Experience

8. Required experience and qualifications

• Advanced university degree (Specialist) or equivalent in Public Policy, Public Administration, social sciences (political science, philosophy, sociology) or related field;
• At least 3 (three) years of experience related to analytical or training activities on public services delivery;
• At least 2 (two) proven examples of training civil servants on issues related to administrative services, policy making, digital transformation;
• Experience in working with the government or international organisations is an asset;
• Native / fluent Ukrainian. At least working-level knowledge of English.

9. Documents to be included when submitting the proposal

10. Financial Proposal

 Lump sum contract

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (please, refer to Section 4 Measurable outputs of the work assignment/deliverables). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of Cost by Components.

11. Evaluation Criteria

•  Educational background – 15 pts max
  • 15 pts – PhD or similar in Public Policy, Public Administration, social sciences (political science, philosophy, sociology) or related field;
  • 12 pts –Specialist’s degree or equivalent in Public Policy, Public Administration, social sciences (political science, philosophy, sociology) or related field.

• Experience in analytical or training activities related to public services delivery – 20 pts max
  • 20 pts – 6 or more years of experience;
  • 17 pts – from 4 to 5 years of experience;
  • 15 pts – at least 3 years of experience.

• Experience in training civil servants on issues related to administrative services provision, policy making, digital transformation – 20 pts max
  • 20 pts – three and more samples provided;
  • 18 pts – two samples provided;

• Experience in working with the government or international organisations – 10 pts max
  • 10 pts – experience in working with the government and international organisations;
  • 5 pts – experience in working either with the government or international organisations;
  • 0 pts – lack of experience in working with international organisations;

• Language Skills – 5 pts max
  • 5 pts – Native / fluent Ukrainian combined with fluent English;
  • 4 pts – Native / fluent Ukrainian. At least working-level knowledge of English;

Maximum available technical score – 70 points

Evaluation method:

 Cumulative analysis

Contract award shall be made to the incumbent whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and

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

* Technical Criteria weight: 70%

* Financial Criteria weight: 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70% from the maximum available technical score (49 points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal and will equal to 30. All other price proposals will be evaluated and assigned points, as per below formula:

30 points [max points available for financial part] x [lowest of all evaluated offered prices among responsive offers] / [evaluated price].

The proposal obtaining the overall cumulatively highest score after adding the score of the technical proposal and the financial proposal will be considered as the most compliant offer and will be awarded a contract.