Background

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Administration

To apply, interested persons should upload the combined Technical Proposal (if applicable), CV and Offeror’s Letter to “UNDP Jobs” by navigating to the link below and clicking “APPLY NOW”, no later than the date indicated on the “UNDP Jobs” website. Application submitted via email will not be accepted: -

Submission via UNDP Job Site ONLY

NOTE: The Financial Proposal should not be uploaded to “UNDP Jobs”.

If requested by the Procurement Unit, the Financial Proposal should be submitted to procurement.bb@undp.org within 24 hours of a request. Failure to submit the Financial Proposal will result in disqualification.

Any request for clarification must be sent in writing to procurement.bb@undp.org within three (3) days of the publication of this notice, ensuring that the reference number above is included in the subject line. The UNDP Barbados & the OECS Procurement Unit will post the responses two (2) days later, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to: -

http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=41316 (cut and paste into browser address bar if the link does not work)

A detailed Procurement Notice, TOR, and all annexes can be found by clicking the above link.

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The system allows the upload of one (1) document ONLY – should you be required to submit a Technical Proposal and CV, these documents along with the Offeror’s Letter should be combined and uploaded as one

 UNDP shall endeavour to provide such responses to clarifications in an expeditious manner, but any delay in such response shall not cause an obligation on the part of UNDP to extend the submission date of the Proposals, unless UNDP deems that such an extension is justified and necessary

Biodiversity within the Caribbean islands of Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) is under threat from a variety of sources, including expanding and unsustainable agricultural practices, invasive species  encroaching into native forests, tourism development, harvesting, pollution from solid wastes/sewage and oil spills.

To address these threats to both the terrestrial and marine ecosystems, sustainable land use management and biodiversity conservation have to be mainstreamed into national land use planning, sector policies, and legal frameworks. Further, climate smart agricultural practices should be an integral part of sustainable land use management to ensure long term sustainability of agricultural production at the community and producer level, supported through a set of nationally managed financial, technical and information services.

There are also important gender considerations for these agricultural and livelihood interventions since women traditionally make up a significant portion of the local agricultural sector including post production activities. There are constraints to their levels of involvement, and access to support is traditionally more available to men, such as extension services. There are also lower levels of female participation in positions of leadership in agriculture in general, but higher levels of involvement and leadership in the value chain (such as processing and marketing).

Two Project Preparation Grants (PPGs) have been approved by the GEF Secretariat to support development of full-sized project (FSP) documents to support these countries’ moves to address these challenges within a timeframe of 12 months. The projects – Climate Resilient Agriculture for Integrated Landscape Management (Grenada) and Conserving Biodiversity and Reducing Land Degradation Using a Ridge-to-Reef Approach (SVG) – are intended to do the following:

• Develop systemic and institutional capacity to support integrated landscape management
• Develop national capacity to provide financial, technical, and information services for climate smart agricultural production
• Operationalise resilient agricultural practices integrated with biodiversity conservation
• Manage knowledge for sustainable land management, climate smart agriculture and biodiversity conservation
• Increase investment in integrated landscape management practices with biodiversity mainstreamed.

Recognising the differential impacts of these interventions on men and women, the projects will ensure a balanced outreach and involvement of both women, men, and youth in capacity support actions involving extension services, such as demonstration plots and field schools on sustainable land management (SLM) and climate smart agriculture (CSA). Small business support for value chains will be tied to farming and production practices using climate resilient crops and methods, and will support women-led initiatives. Gender equality and social issues will be fully considered in these projects: both men and women will be incorporated into project implementation activities ensuring gender equality and gender accountability is mainstreamed at both the project level and component level that will be tracked as part of the M&E system. Special attention will be paid to gender equality issues in developing socioeconomic indicators, and in the capacity-building activities.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Gender and Socioeconomic Specialist will liaise with and feed relevant and succinct information to the Project Development Experts. Key responsibilities will include the following:

1) In accordance with identified target communities for each project, carry out a participatory Gender Assessment and provide corresponding gender action plans that will provide key information for the development of each project. These should provide inputs which include but are not limited to addressing the different needs, roles, benefits, impacts, risks and access to/control over resources of women and men (including considerations of intersecting categories of identity such as age, social status, ethnicity, marital status, etc.) given the project’s context, and will identify the share of the female and male direct population beneficiaries in target communities.

The 2 Gender Assessments will be informed by the following:

• Gender responsive socioeconomic assessments of target communities to address socioeconomic barriers and promote sustainable livelihoods. Data collection should address the different needs, roles, benefits, impacts, risks and access to/control over resources of women and men (including considerations of intersecting categories of identity such as age, social status, ethnicity, marital status, etc.). In accordance with the above, the Consultant will undertake:
• Desk reviews to inform the development of a socioeconomic profile of target communities including the identification of exisiting livelihoods sources in the GEF focal areas.
• The development and implementation of gender responsive qualitative/quantative data collection tools to complement the information gathered for the desk review and expanding on it to fully develop the community-based socioecocnomic profiles.
• Based on the community-based socioeconomic profiles developed, undertake capacity needs assessments and capacity development strategies for local communities and groups (NGOs, CBOs, CSOs) to enable meaningful participation in integrated landscape management, with biodiversity integrated, and for development of agroprocessing and alternative livelihood businesses. Coordinate outputs with other PPG technical experts for each project as relevant.
• Establish, as needed, the baseline of capacity development indicators for local communities and groups (NGOs, CBOs, CSOs) using the UNDP Capacity Development Scorecard

b) Undertake 2 gender responsive stakeholder analyses and stakeholder engagement plans (one for each project), with input from the other PPG team members, to:

• Identify key stakeholder groups and individuals to be involved in the project planning process.
• Develop a gender responsive Stakeholder Engagement Plan, using the information from  the gender responsive stakeholder analysis which is in alignment with the relevant UNDP guidleines and can be linked to the SESP and potentially to an Environmental and Social Management Plan.
• Assist the PPG team in identifying and developing partnerships with gender equality/women’s governmental institutions, local women’s NGOs/CSOs and other national stakeholders pivotal to gender equality and issues surrounding women’s access to sustainable livelihoods.
• Identify gaps in the relevant available gender and socioeconomic data and define specific project-level activities and results necessary to fill such. This should include identification of relevant studies on livelihoods, vulnerability assessments and community-level needs analyses as appropriate.

• 2) Working in collaboraton with PPG Teams, the Specialist will comprehensively support authoring of the project documents to ensure that they are gender responsive, including the projects’ logical frameworks, results matrices and theories of change as follows:

• Ensure that projet activities are gender-responsive, where relevant, and that reduction in gender-based vulnerabilities is mainstreamed in the development of project activities, including adherence to the UNDP Gender Equality Strategy.
• Develop gender-responsive outcomes, baselines, targets, and indicators for the project results framework and ensure that all applicable indicators are disaggregated by sex, age and other relevant demographics;
• Develop a Gender Action Plan for the project with indicators to facilitate implementation and monitoring of activities that promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Provide inputs to the UNDP Social and Environmental Screening Procedure (SESP) including assessing potential negative impacts of the project on gender equality and specific activities to avoid, mitigate and/or minimise them, as well as opportunities for gender mainstreaming or advancing gender equality.
• Ensure that gender considerations are integrated into the projects’ theory of change, including in the discussion of impact, assumptions, evidence and risks;
• Provide training and relevant data collection tools and techniques to the PPG teams, ensuring that they employ gender-responsive techniques for data gathering, analysis and presentation;
• Where relevant, assist with capacity building and other aspects of project preparation to ensure gender considerations are mainstreamed into the project document.

• 3) Define Communications and Knowledge strategies for targeted audiences in the 2 project documents, as per deliverables defined in component 4 of the PIF, in consultation with the PPG teams and the National Working Groups.

  4) Identify additional technical assessments, assistance and expertise needed to support project implementation on particular deliverables on the subject matter and develop preliminary TOR or task lists for support experts to be hired during the implementation phase.

  INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS

  The Specialist will report directly to the UNDP Programme Manager for Energy and the Environment at the Barbados SRO, with strategic guidance being provided bythe PPG Project Development Experts and the Regional Technical Advisor in Panama. The Specialist will work in close coordination with the other members of the PPG teams. The Specialist will communicate on the progress of the work, any challenges being encountered or risks foreseen, mitigation measures proposed or taken, and where UNDP/national support may be required. Outputs produced will undergo review for certification of acceptance. 

  LANGUAGE

  The reporting language for this consultancy is English. All outputs, contributions, documents, literature and data sources are to be produced and submitted preferably in electronic form. Printing/hard copies should be produced only if unavoidable.

  SCOPE OF PROPOSAL PRICE AND SCHEDULE OF PAYMENTS

  The Specialist is expected to have the appropriate software, equipment, facilities or access to such as relevant to complete the required services. The Specialist will operate from their usual base and undertake missions to Grenada as needed.

  The contract price is a fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the duration specified herein. The Financial Proposal will include all fees and costs associated with the execution of the contract, including professional fees, travel, equipment and all other expenses that will be incurred during the execution of the work.

  Payment will be remitted subject to the approval of final deliverables by UNDP, and based on the contractor’s price proposal. Expected deadlines and proposed payment allocations are as follows:

  Deliverables	Expected deadline	Percentage payment
  Task 1: Community based socioeconomic and stakeholder analysis and stakeholder engagement plan	2nd month	35%
  Task 2: Gender assessment and action plan inclusive of 1 a and b above	4th month	25%
  Task 3: Inputs to theory of change, project strategy (outcomes, outputs, activities) and strategic results framework, monitoring and evaluation plan and sustainability plan	5th month	15%
  Task 4: Inputs to the Environmental and Social Safeguards Procedure	7th month	10%
  Task 5:  Communication and knowledge management strategy	8th month	15%

Competencies

• Strong data management, reporting and analytical skills
• Self-motivated and ability to work in diverse settings, with diverse audiences
• Excellent interpersonal and conflict resolution skills
• Ability to meet deadlines and prioritise multiple tasks
• Excellent verbal and writing communication skills in English

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• A post-graduate university degree in social sciences, gender studies or related field.

Experience

• 8 years of demonstrated experience in gender and socioeconomic analysis
• Proven experience in the development and implementation of gender responsive participatory research tools and stakeholder engagement,  in community settings, as part of development initiatives, and preferably in relation to environmental management, adaptation to climate change, climate smart agriculture, or related subjects
• Proven experience in qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis
• Experience in project design and management with gender perspectives
• Ability to design and facilitate stakeholder consultations, document and report on results
• Ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams and coordinate and feed inputs to others
• Good understanding of result based management integrating gender considerations
• Advantage in experience in the Caribbean and Grenada/SVG
• Fully proficient in the following software applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Proposal explaining why they are the most suitable for the work and describing their portfolio of past successful projects

2. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references

3. Financial proposal

FINANCIAL PROPOSAL:

• Lump sum contracts

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). 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 this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).

• Travel

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. 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.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 Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.