Background

Within the context of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Country Programme Document and Action Plan (2015 – 2018) and in response to Kuwait’s commitment to implementation of Agenda 2030 and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals; UNDP Kuwait, the UN Women Regional Office for the Arab States and The General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GSSCPD) are partnering with Kuwait University to support a 2 year project with national partners to accelerate the implementation of SDG5.

The project will set in motion longer term transformative changes that will enable Kuwait in achieving the ambitious goals set under the women’s empowerment agenda of the SDGs in Kuwait. The project capitalizes on previous work carried by UNDP during the previous CPAP cycle on women’s empowerment in the rest of the Arab States region.

The project is fully aligned with the Kuwait National Development Plan (KNDP) strategic objectives and targets including: 1) increasing the share of women that occupy positions of leadership in different fields in the private and public sector, 2) addressing the low level of participation of women in parliament, 3) increasing the efficiency of social assistance to provide income earning opportunities for women and move them into the productive sector.

The project is focusing on 3 key areas including:

1. The enhancement of women’s participation in political and public life;
2. Women’s participation in all sectors is enhanced through increased awareness and application of gender positive policies to promote women’s participation; and
3. Making data available to support elaboration of a comprehensive national plan it address violence against women.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of KU – WRSC and UNDP Analyst, regular basis liaising with UN Women (regional office, Cairo) and in close collaboration and coordination with other relevant national institutions, the Project Manager will assume the following tasks in line with UNDP rules and regulations:

Planning, implementation and monitoring:

• Responsible for the day to day implementation of the project starting with the preparation of the annual workplans and ensuring timely implementation.
• Builds solid relationships with key national partners supported by the project.
• Ensures systematic and effective analysis, monitoring and evaluation, including the preparation and participation in Project Board and other related meetings.
• Directly supervise project staff and consultancies and provides effective leadership.
• Manage and monitor the project risks initially identified, submit new risks to the project board for consideration, provide advice on mitigation strategies if required and update the status of these risks by maintaining risks log.
• Prepare for the project’s evaluation.
• Develop the project exit strategy plan and lessons learned.

Financial and Administrative management of the project:

• Prepare and implement the annual project budget and the recruitment and procurement plan;
• Mobilize personnel, goods and services, training and initiate activities, including drafting terms of reference and work specifications and facilitating all consultants’ work;
• Closely coordinate with UN Women for the recruitment and selection of project consultants;
• Monitor and synergize the performance of the project’s staff and experts;
• Monitor the timely delivery of the project budget;
• Perform regular financial reporting to the project board on quarterly and annual basis;
• Assist the implementing partner in fulfilling the responsibilities of the project and budget monitoring, using best practices;
• Monitor financial resources and accounting to ensure the accuracy and reliability of financial reports of the project and that all financial and budgetary processes are in accordance with UNDP standards and procedures and submitting financial reports to UNDP on a quarterly basis;

Capacity building and Knowledge sharing:

• Assess the capacity development needs and priorities, with special focus on improving in depth knowledge of gender equality related services and national situation.
• Develop and support the implementation of capacity building plans;
• Facilitate knowledge sharing activities within and between (KU-WRSC) and other relevant counterparts;
• Ensure a gender mainstreaming approach in all the work requirements and ensure gender sensitivity of all the deliverables which would be based on a gender analysis to ensure that the needs and specific considerations related to men and women is taken into account
• Benefit from best practices and lessons learned that are available regionally and globally for the benefit of the project and the national counterparts and ensure the identification and synthesis of best practices and lessons learned from the project;

Follow up, coordination:

• Coordinate all tasks between UNDP and the implementing partner pertaining to the project activities with other national institutions.
• Perform stakeholders’ analysis as required
• Coordinate and follow up with relevant stakeholders to guarantee the synergy of all administrative processes relevant to the project;
• Coordinate and follow up locally and with UN Women relevant to the project’s activities;
• Follow-up the implementation of communication and advocacy plans;
• Any other tasks/assignment relevant to subject of the assignment.

1.Expected Outputs and Deliverables

2. Institutional Arrangement

• Selected candidate will be based in Kuwait for the whole assignment duration and will be either present in UNDP Kuwait office or WRSC – Kuwait university during the working days and will work closely under the supervision of WRSC and Authorized Personnel of UNDP.
• The consultant will report on a day to day implementation of the project to the Authorized Personnel UNDP.
• All reports submitted are subject to endorsement / approval by WRSC- Kuwait University, UNDP, and GSSCPD.

3. Duration of the Work

• Initially 3 months
• The Consultancy is expected to start in May 2018.

4. Duty Station

1. Kuwait – UNDP Office
2. Kuwait – WRSC / Kuwait University 

5. Scope of Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Lump sum payments per the satisfactory delivery of the milestone deliverables

6. EVALUATION

The selection of candidates will be done in 3 stages:

1st stage: Prior to detailed evaluation, all applications will be thoroughly screened against eligibility criteria (minimum qualification requirements) as set in the TOR in order to determine whether they are compliant/non-compliant.

2nd  stage: Evaluation of technical proposals

Short-listed candidates will be evaluated based on the following criteria. Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 490 points (70%) at the Technical Evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

3rd stage: Financial evaluation

Cumulative analysis will be used based on the following methodology: All the offers of individual consultants who scored 490 (70% from 700) and more points during the desk review are acceptable for financial evaluation. The lowest financial qualified proposal receives 300 points and all the other technically qualified proposals receive points in inverse proportion per the formula:

The candidate achieving the highest cumulative score for both Technical and Financial evaluations will be recommended by the Evaluation Committee for contracting.

7. DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS (ALL DOCUMENTS SHOULD BE COMBINED IN SINGLE FILE AND UPLOADED WITH SUBMISSION)

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP http://www.kw.undp.org/content/kuwait/en/home/operations/procurement.html ;
2. Personal CV or P11, http://www.kw.undp.org/content/kuwait/en/home/operations/procurement.html 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;
3. Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, if applicable, on how they will approach and complete the assignment. A methodology is recommended for intellectual services, but may be omitted for support services [Note: this is optional for support services]; 
4. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided.  If an 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 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.  http://www.kw.undp.org/content/kuwait/en/home/operations/procurement.html

Competencies

• Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity.
• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.
• Self-development, initiative-taking.
• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work.
• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively.
• Creating synergies through self-control
• Managing conflict.
• Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others. Promoting learning and knowledge management/sharing is the responsibility of each staff member.
• Informed and transparent decision making.

Required Skills and Experience

I. Academic Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in social science, gender, public administration or any other related fields.
• Prince 2 certification desirable

II. Years of experience:

• 7 years working experience in fields related to Gender Equality, Women’s Empowerment, Human Rights, SDGs and mainly SDG 5.
• 7 years of project management experience in gender related projects.
• 3 years experience in administering budgets, training and working effectively with counterpart staff at all levels and with all groups involved in the project;
• Knowledge of the national context is a must;
• Strong communication, interpersonal, drafting, presentation and reporting skills;
• Strong computer skills (Word, Excel, Power Point, Statistical Packages, project management packages, etc.)
• Fluency in Arabic and English is a must.