UNDP Jobs - 94059- International Consultant to Convene meetings, to n

International Consultant to Convene meetings, to negotiate the best consultation and Provisional Memorandum of Understanding

Location :

Bissau, GUINEA-BISSAU

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

16-Oct-2020

Application Deadline :

25-Sep-20 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

Languages Required :

English French Portuguese

Expected Duration of Assignment :

35 working days

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

Guinea-Bissau houses a wealth of natural resources that are of local, national, regional and global significance. However, despite its enormous potential, the country embodies some of the world’s toughest development challenges, combining acute and rising poverty with persistent fragility.

Being a coastal country, Guinea-Bissau’s challenges are magnified as a Least Developed Country and Small Island Developing State, due to its environmental and socio-economic vulnerabilities, geographical situation and climate conditions.

The Government of Guinea-Bissau has elaborated various plans and reports to safeguard the environment and promote sustainable development, including the National Adaptation Plan of Action (2006) and Second National Communication on Climate Change (2011). The Strengthening natural resource valuation capacities for improved planning and decision-making to conserve the global environment project, a Rio Convention capacity development project, proposes as that sets out to address challenges identified in Guinea-Bissau’s 2011 National Capacity of Self-Valorization (NCSA) and is fully aligned with these plans. Thus, this project and its strategy are consistent with the findings of the NCSA, as well as with Guinea-Bissau’s national plans, priorities and policies. It also considers Guinea-Bissau’s PAN/LCD and National Strategy and Action Plan on Biological Diversity and the National Action strategies.

Indeed, the project will contribute to the establishment of reliable environmental accounting tools and a monitoring system which allows presentation of the state of the environment in understandable terms to policy decision-makers, both national and international, and regularly update the status of Guinea-Bissau capacity to plan its future for sustainable development.

So far, the country has not implemented specific activities regarding environmental accountability, except for the Guide for the economic evaluation of impact assessment, elaborated under the Environmental Assessment framework.

The UNDP Office intends to recruit an iInternational consultant, to convene task force meetings to negotiate the best consultation and provisional memoranda of understanding based on projects about consultation and decision-making. He/she will support the pursuit of some of the objectives of the project, namely, to integrate environmental accounting and natural resource valuation tools into key policies and regulations in the scope of:

Output 1.3 - MoU to promote collaboration and coordination among organisms for an efficient use of natural resources assessment, to comply with and maintain the Rio Convention obligations.

Scope of work

The International consultant, under the supervision of the project coordinator, UNDP GEF and UNDP Country Office in Guinea Bissau, will work closely with the government specialists, and will take into account the Project Document, the international best practices and standards for environmental accounting and valuation of ecosystem services, with specific references to the following sectors: Faculty of Law, General Directorate of Environment, General Directorate for Sustainable Development, Competent Environmental Assessment Authority, General Tax and Contributions Directorate, General Directorate of Budget and Tax Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Fisheries, Land and Ecosystems, Biodiversity Institute and Protected Areas, and Water Resources, and all the needed references, on environmental accounting in Guinea-Bissau, including:

Convene task force meetings to negotiate the best consultation and Provisional Memoranda of Understanding based on projects about consultation and decision-making processes.

Duties and Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities and Tasks:

Present a specific consultation methodology;
Visit Bissau, to consult the relevant players, attend meetings with the Ministries of Environment and Finance as needed, and discuss the main findings with the Project Management Unit (PMU) and UNDP;
Convene working group meetings to negotiate best consultative and decision-making processes.This activity is critical to the project.There have been past experiences, some successful, some not so successful on how government agencies collaborate and consult with each other.This activity, which comprises as set of meetings, is intended to discuss and debate best practicable approaches to improving how planners, decision-makers, and other stakeholder representatives work together across institutions and sectors to use environmental accounting and natural resource valuation.These meetings would result in the preparation of project-based memoranda of agreements that would be drafted as part of activity 1.3.2.Due to their complementary nature, activities 1.2.1 and 2.3.1 should be carried out as parallel exercises;
Draft project-based memoranda of agreement on consultative and decision-making processes.This will be based on the extensive discussions and recommendations made under 1.3.1.The process to the formulation of these agreements is critical and must be undertaken in a transparent and inclusive manner, building on similar transparent and collaborative process to negotiate the best practice features of consultative and decision-making processes.These agreements must address the inherent barriers that limit transparent and inclusive consultation and collaboration in the decision-making process, which also includes issues of gender balance, community engagement, and engagement of the private and academic sectors.
Elaborate a final training report.

Institutional Arrangement

The International consultant will work under the supervision of the project coordinator, UNDP GEF and UNDP Country Office in Guinea Bissau. The Head of the Sustainable Development Cluster in Guinea-Bissau oversees approving/accepting outputs and deliverables from the consultancy; decisions will also be based on the positive evaluation of the consultant’s performance by the National Project Coordinator.

The international consultant will interview the required institutions, including, at least: Faculty of law, General Directorate of Environment, Directorate General for Sustainable Development, Competent Environmental Assessment Authority, General Tax and Contributions Directorate, General Directorate of Budget, Agriculture, Energy, Fisheries, Land and Ecosystems, Biodiversity Institute and Protected Areas, and Water Resource Faculty of Law, etc.

Duration of the Work and Duty Station

The consultancy is expected to start in 16/10/2020, and to be completed in 16/01/2021. It requires 35 working days to be carried out within a 35 days contract period. The duty station will be Bissau, workshops places and home-based.

Proposed period Location N° of working days

xxx 2020 Home/UNDP 07

xxx 2020 Home 15

xxx 2020 Home 08

xxx 2020 Home and validation workshop place 05

xxxx 2020 TOTAL 35

Competencies

Corporate Competencies

Demonstrates integrity by modeling 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 favoritism.

Functional Competencies

Knowledge Management and Learning
Ability to provide top quality policy advice services on environmental issues;
In-depth practical knowledge of interdisciplinary development issues.

Development and Operational Effectiveness

Ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing in order to communicate complex, technical information to technical and general audiences;
Good negotiation skills for difficult situations;
Ability to achieve results by persuading, influencing and working with others;
Meeting facilitation and conflict resolution skills.

Management and Leadership

Focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to critical feedback;
Encourages risk-taking in the pursuit of creativity and innovation;
Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Hold Master degree, with expertise in the area of environment, geography, agronomy, ecology, forestry, economy, natural sciences, environmental law or similar disciplines.

Experience:

At least 10 years of proven experience in environment, natural resources and ecosystems management, protected areas, environmental law and biodiversity conservation in West Africa, Guinea Bissau in particular;
Institutional evaluation, capacity building and knowledge;
Have a mastery of the methods and approaches to collecting/producing information and to their analysis;
Have a good knowledge of environmental issues in Guinea Bissau or west Afrique countries;
Have a professional experience in environmental accounting, ecosystem services accounting, natural capital accounting;
Knowledge of the context and previous working experience in natural resources management of Guinea-Bissau is an asset;
Have a good capacity for analysis, synthesis and writing.

Language:

Language requirement: Portuguese and English or French.

Evaluation:

Applicants will be screened against qualifications and competencies specified below through a desk review or an interview process. Applicants will be evaluated based on: Cumulative analysis based on a combination of the Technical and Financial Scores.

Technical Evaluation Criteria: 70%

Financial Evaluation Criteria: 30%

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

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by the UNDP;

2. Personal CV and P11 form, duly signed and contact details (email and telephone number) of the candidate and at least three (3) professional references;

3. Brief description of why the candidate considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment;

4. Technical Proposal, proposing a methodology to carry out the assignment in accordance with this ToR;

5. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price. The term “all-inclusive” means that it has to include international travels, fees, insurance, living allowance, in-town transportation, and other related costs. The Financial Proposal has to be supported by a breakdown of costs, as per the template provided. Preferred Currency of Offer: United States Dollars (US$). 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 the Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate such point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

Incomplete applications will be excluded from further consideration.