UNCDF Jobs - 87756- Independent Assessment Local Governments and Clima

Independent Assessment Local Governments and Climate Change Bridging Phase (LGCC BP) Project - National Consultant

Advertised on behalf of

UNCDF

Location :

Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

10-Oct-19 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

5 weeks

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP 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. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Project Description and Background

UNCDF works with local and central government institutions to improve the capacity of local governance institutions in planning, budgeting, public expenditure management, procurement and delivery management and other areas related to the application of development capital and other resources.

UNCDF is supporting an expanding portfolio of programmes in all regions that provide capital resources to local governance processes to enable them to meet the challenges of poverty reduction, the Millennium Development Goals and climate change. These programmes promote local level public financial management and decentralized governance responses to these challenges.

The goal of the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) is to promote climate change resilient communities and local economies by increasing investments in Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) at the local level in target countries, thereby contributing to the achievement of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the specific goals of poverty eradication (SDG1) and climate action (SDG13). The objectives are to increase local government access to climate finance to implement climate change adaptation investments in participating countries and to establish a standard and internationally recognized country-based mechanism to channel climate finance and increase local resilience through PBCRGs

LoCAL focuses on the delivery of four outputs that will directly contribute to increasing local governments’ access to climate finance and building resilience to climate change:

Output 1 – Awareness and capacities to respond to climate change adaptation at the local level are increased

Output 2 - CCA is mainstreamed into government’s planning and budgeting systems and investments are implemented in line with the PBCRG mechanism

Output 3 - The PBCRG system is effectively and sustainably established in participating countries and leads to an increased amount of CCA finance available to local government and local economy

Output 4: The role of local authorities and of the PBCRGS in addressing climate change are increasingly recognized at international level, through outreach, learning and quality assurance

The LoCAL approach entails into capacity building of local governments and operates through Performance Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRG).

LoCAL works in three phases.

Phase I: Following scoping, the first phase entails testing in a small number (2-4) of local governments. Phase I has a budget of USD 300,000 per year. It can include co-financing from government or other partners. Phase I introduces the Performance-Based Climate Resilient Grant (PBCRG) over one or two fiscal cycles; it tests the minimum conditions and performance measures of the PBCRG and the relevance of the menu of investments (eligible adaptation measures). It provides the necessary experience and lessons for the refinement of the approach and the design of phase II in conjunction with the appropriate national authorities and partners.

Phase II: Phase II takes place in around 5 to 10 of local governments (of the appropriate tier) in a country. Phase II is usually financed by UNCDF together with financing partners and has generally a budget of USD 3,5 to USD 10 million. Funding can come directly through the LoCAL project or through parallel financing if government or other development partners make resources available to the LoCAL methodology, with TA and QA by UNCDF. The purpose of this phase is to demonstrate the effectiveness of LoCAL and create the conditions for a full national rollout of the approach.

Phase III: Phase III consist of a full national rollout of the PBCRG in the country based on the results and lessons of the previous phases. It is gradually extended to all local governments (of the appropriate tier). Phase III is expected to be financed by central government through a re-adjustment of the architecture of existing resources to enable financing of local adaptation, as well as through financing from international organizations, financing institutions and funds such as the Green Climate Fund.

The LoCAL initiative is currently on-going in 13 countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, Benin, Cambodia, Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Tuvalu, Tanzania and The Gambia). Programmes are under preparation in Uganda and Ivory coast with more countries expected to join the initiative in 2019-2022.

LoCAL in Cambodia

Cambodia’s Local Governments and Climate Change (LGCC) was one of the first LoCAL country projects and is a recognized success. Consequently, Cambodia is considered ready to become one of the first LoCAL countries to move to Phase 3, in which the national implementing partners directly mobilizes funds from a variety of external and domestic sources for a programmatic approach to sub-national climate change adaptation.

Strategic results of LGCC include, first and foremost, the successful demonstration that SNA can have an important role in climate change adaptation and have adequate capacity to plan and implement CCA interventions responding to the needs of their local communities. LGCC, with other projects, has piloted the used of local CCA planning tools including Vulnerability Reduction Analysis (VRA) and the District Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. LGCC has been the first local development programme in Cambodia to link grant awards to performance Evaluations. LGCC has assisted in developing guidelines to mainstream climate change adaptation into local development planning. These achievements have been widely recognized and have stimulated considerable interest, including from the Ministry of Environment and from development partners supporting CCA activities.

The main objective of the assignment is to conduct an in-depth assessment of the Cambodia’s Local Governments and Climate Change (LGCC). The result of the report will complement the project reporting and case study documentation carried out by UNCDF. Therefore, the focus of the in-depth Evaluation will be on achievement of strategic results and lessons learned which are useful in design of future activities.

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will have a team leader/coordinator role and will thus oversee the work of the one other national ICs, in close collaboration with the LoCAL Facility. Working under the direct supervision of the UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i) or designate(s) from UNCDF LoCAL Programme Manager (Global a.i) and in close collaboration with the governments and UNCDF, the Consultant will be in charge to conduct final assessment for LoCAL project in Cambodia.

The assessment approach should also take into consideration, as far as possible, UNCDF’s broader monitoring efforts and incorporate – where possible - financial and economic evaluation techniques into the evaluation design.

The assessment should draw upon mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative data using both existing secondary data sources and primary data to be collected during the assessment, ensuring evidence-based findings and recommendations. The secondary data sources of the assessment should include the studies commissioned by the programmes themselves.

The objective of the work is:

To assess the effectiveness, efficiency and timeliness of programme implementation of the LGCC (BP)
To verify progress of LGCC BP towards the outcomes and objectives identified in the results framework for LGCC BP;
To assess the contribution made by the LGCC BP investments to strengthening climate resilience of local communities;
To assess the gender/poor/vulnerable people inclusion/consideration/analysis in the PBCRG mechanism and LGCC BP investments;
To assess the capacity of NCDDS to sustain the PBCRG mechanism in place, in case there is no DPs fund supports;
To assess viability of the LGCC model for scale-up within the context of the NP-SNDD, taking into account relevant factors including the availability of general-purpose fiscal transfers to the SNA (District/Municipality Fund and Commune/Sangkat Fund) and specific climate resilience financing instruments.
To identify key lessons learned;
To analyze the findings by measuring the positive or negative consequences of the investment, approach implemented under LGCC, and provide narrative with a Theory of Change (ToC) based approach.
Provide appropriate recommendations to guide UNCDF and NCDDS in developing proposals for future funding of investments for climate resilience at sub-national level.

Scope of Work

The scope of work for the Consultant is to support the Team Leader to conduct the final assessment of LoCAL project in Cambodia, which will include:

Review key literature, datasets and discussions with stakeholders, achieve a thorough understanding of the purpose and context of LGCC, Support discussions with stakeholders; Support and advise the Team Leader to achieve a thorough understanding of Cambodia context.
Obtain and analyze indicators data from the current and NCDDS and UNCDF project staff, evaluate the actual and projected (end of project status) project achievement measured by the Results Framework indicators;
Make field visit arrangements. Conduct field visits and stakeholder discussions and prepare brief summary reports of findings (or facilitate if Team Leader present) ; Validate the results framework indicator values through, at least some field visits (all if time allows) and stakeholder discussions including discussions with beneficiary communities;
Analyze and collect data for the baseline information as certain baseline information may have changed as a result of the LGCC BP programme intervention.
Establish a new robust baseline for the next phase of LGCC
Support the assessment of the appropriateness and effectiveness of the planning tools used by LGCC BP, in particular the Vulnerability Reduction Evaluation (VRA), the District Climate Resilience Strategy, PBCRG Programming process and PBCRG annual performance assessment;
Support the assessment of the appropriateness of the design of the PBCR Grants, including eligible expenditures, allocation formula, and the system of using sub-grants from the District level to finance Commune level investments
Support the assessment of the appropriateness and effectiveness of the sub-project selection process of LGCC BP;
Support the assessment of the contribution made by the LGCC sub-projects to developing climate resilient communities;
Support the assessment of the extent to which LGCC sub-projects specifically benefit women, the poor and other vulnerable groups (Specific narrative part for women/poor/vulnerable beneficiaries’ analysis would be required in the report).
Support the assessment of the relevance of the LGCC model to the policy direction of the RGC as expressed in (1) the NP-SNDD and (2) the Cambodia Climate Change Strategic Plan.
Support the assessment of the capacity of NCDDS in sustaining PBCRG mechanism by using government financing mechanism.
Support the assessment of any bottlenecks and constraints of the programme implementation and for the scaling up of the programme national wide.
Based on the assessment findings, support the review and strengthen the LGCC BP project indicators by verifying and updating the benchmarks on key performance indicators as well as recommending additional qualitative and quantitative indicators for the next phase of LGCC.

Competencies

Committed to highest regards of professionalism, impartiality, accountability, transparency, ethics, and integrity;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, ethnicity, and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Demonstrates substantial experience in gender equality and social inclusion;
Treats all people fairly without favouritism.

Functional Competencies:

Ability to work effectively within a team and develop good relationships with counterparts and stakeholders;
Ability to synthesise research and draw conclusion on the related subjects;
Ability to pay attention to details;
Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing;
Ability to establish effective working relations in a multicultural team environment;
Commitment to accomplish work;
Responds positively to critical feedback;
Results and task oriented.
Ability to work under pressure;

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree (Masters and equivalent) in development studies, social science economic development, international relations, or related field.

Experience:

A minimum of 2 years of professional experience specifically in the area of evaluation of international development initiatives and development organizations;
Extensive knowledge of results-based management evaluation, as well as of participatory M&E, methodological and practical considerations in conducting evaluations of development interventions is required;
Solid knowledge and experience in local governance and local development of Cambodia;
Knowledge of Performance Based Grant System;

Knowledge of Climate Change Adaptation and Climate Resilience project in the context of Cambodia.

Language requirements

Fluency in Khmer and English (Writing, Speaking and listening)

Evaluation Method and Criteria

Consultants will be evaluated based on cumulative analysis method. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract shall be made to the consultant whose offer has 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 score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical (70%) and financial (30%) criteria.

Technical Criteria for Evaluation

10 points - Advanced university degree (Masters and equivalent) in development studies, social science economic development, international relations, or related field;

30 points - Extensive knowledge of results-based management evaluation of international development initiatives and development organizations as well as of participatory M&E, methodological and practical considerations in conducting evaluations of development interventions is required

20 points - Solid knowledge and experience in local governance and local development of Cambodia

20 points - Knowledge of Performance Based Grant System;

20 points - Knowledge of Climate Change Adaptation and Climate Resilience project.

Application process:

Interested individuals must submit the documents mentioned below as proposals in order to demonstrate their qualifications (Note: the system does not allow multiple uploads of documents. Applicants must make sure to upload all documents in one PDF file).

All applications must contain the following information:

Cover letter with a summary statement of competencies in relation to the Terms of Reference (TOR);
Earliest availability and proposed schedule for consultancy;
Curriculum Vitae;
Signed financial proposal for the assignment outlining: All-inclusive fee (including professional fees and other professional expenses, such as insurance, taxes, etc.), Available at http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_file.cfm?doc_id=29916).

Please make sure you have provided all requested materials.

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