Background

Bangladesh will graduate from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group in 2026. The United Nations in Bangladesh is supporting the Government of Bangladesh to develop a sustainable Graduation and smooth transition strategy. There is a consensus among experts, academics as well as government counterparts that a sustainable Graduation and smooth transition strategy will critically hinge on how well the country can negotiate with the international community to mitigate the potential losses due to progressive drawdown in international support measures as well as climate change. 

In the above context, the UNDP proposes to support human resource development on negotiation skills and relevant institutional capacity-building. The human resource development initiative will include a series of training programmes primarily targeted towards mid and senior-level civil servants of Bangladesh to strengthen their negotiation capacities in matters relevant to post-LDC Graduation challenges. The training programme may further be expanded to accommodate relevant private sector actors such as leaders of business chambers and federations. The training programmes will centre around building expertise on areas that are critical for the country’s sustainability after 2026: international trade, market access, development finance, climate change, migration, intellectual property rights, contributions to multilateral systems, public-private partnerships are among other topics of interest.

UNDP Bangladesh is looking for a Senior Strategic Advisor who will coordinate all relevant activities to develop a high-quality capacity-building programme framework on negotiation skills and building necessary institutional capacities.

Objectives:  

The Senior Strategic Advisor is expected to coordinate designing and implementing an effective skills development and institutional capacity-building programme on international negotiations. The Advisor is expected to liaise with various government and non-government organizations while developing the framework and coordinate the module development activities. The Advisor will also coordinate activities suggesting relevant institutional capacity-building to provide training on different types of negotiation skills.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of work and expected outputs/deliverables: 

The Advisor will coordinate the following activities:

1. Developing a repository of knowledge on LDC graduation (mostly literature review) and identify critical areas for which the civil servants and relevant private sector actors may require negotiation skills.

2. Assessment of existing skills training capacity on negotiation skills at various public institutions including Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC), Bangladesh Institute of Administration and Management (BIAM), Foreign Service Academy (FSA). Skills training facilities in the private sector, specially, in private universities, will also be explored.

3. Explore further needs for skills training and related needs for institutional capacity-building in connection with the LDC Graduation,

4. Explore opportunities for collaboration with government and private institutions to execute the full-fledged training.

5. Assessment of course curricula existing at the local and international levels on different types of negotiation skills and utilize them for piloting some short-term training programmes.

6. Identify potential participants for the pilot skills training sessions both from the public sector and the private sector. 

7. Devise an implementation plan identifying different possible implementing partners and their needs for capacity-building.

Supervision and Performance Evaluation

The National Consultant –Senior Strategic Advisor will be working with UNDP under the direct supervision of the Resident Representative of UNDP Bangladesh who will be responsible for reviewing the performance and approve the deliverables of the incumbent.

Timeframe and deadlines:

The assignment will be for 25 Working days over 4 months.

Duty Station: The consultant shall be stationed in Dhaka. Some occasional visits outside Dhaka may be required.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

1. Promotes UN's Values and ethical standards (tolerance, integrity, respect, result orientation, impartiality) 
2. Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and sensitivity and adaptability 
3. Demonstrates integrity by modeling in the UN's values and ethical standards (human rights, peace, understanding between people and nations, tolerance, integrity, respect, result orientation, UNDP core ethics, impartiality.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning

1. Promotes knowledge management and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example, excellent knowledge of capacity-building theory and the application of the methodology, good understanding of capacity assessment methodologies, excellent ability to identify significant capacity-building opportunities, ability to get capacity-building, excellent ability to demonstrate national capacities building (mastery of the tools and their application).

        2. Excellent communication skills (written and oral) in English.

        3. Ability to provide top-quality policy advice services on issues concerning human resource development programmes and relevant institutional capacity building.  

        4. In-depth practical knowledge of inter-disciplinary development issues, specially, in the context of trade, finace and climate change related international relations.

Development and Operational Effectiveness

1. Ability to engage with high-ranking UNDP Managers, Government Officials and international donor community and advise on activities concerning human resources development and institutional capacity building. 
2. Ability to effectively support strategic planning, results-based management and reporting 

Management and Leadership

1. Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude. 
2. Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills.
3. Provides inspiration and leadership to all the implementing partners.

Communications and Networking 

1. Has excellent oral communication skills in English and conflict resolution competency to manage inter-group dynamics and mediate conflicting interests of varied actors.
2. Has excellent written communication skills in English, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize project outputs and relevant findings for the preparation of quality project reports.
3. Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high-ranking members of national and international institutions, government, and non-government. 

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications:

Academic Qualifications:

Master degree in public administration/international relations/law/political science/international development or a related field.

Experience:

• Minimum 15 years of work experience in the field of programme planning, implementation and capacity-building. 
• A clear understanding of the government system in the context of development interventions and international relations.   
• Prior experience in a senior government position will be an added advantage.

Financial Proposal:

Total lump sum:

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract).

Here is an example:

Travel

All envisaged local travel costs should be borne by the Senior Strategic Advisor. In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs, including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Senior Strategic Advisor, before travel and will be reimbursed. 

Evaluation Criteria:

The evaluation process of selecting the Senior Strategis Advisor will be based on the following criteria

* Technical Criteria weight; [70]

* Financial Criteria weight; [30]

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 point in Technical Evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation

The Financial proposal of the technically qualified candidates will be evaluated based on the formula provided below. The maximum number of points (30) assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal. All other price proposals receive points in inverse proportion. A suggested formula is as follows:

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 price proposal

z= price of the proposal being evaluated

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Interested individual 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.

• Personal CV or P11 indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; P11 can be downloaded from the link below: http://www.bd.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/operations/jobs/
• Confirmation of Interest and Availability: Interest and Availability to perform the task and Financial Proposal must be submitted through a standard template available in the below link:

http://www.bd.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/docs/Jobs/Interest%20and%20Submission%20of%20Financial%20Proposal-Template%20for%20Confirmation.docx