GPN/ExpRes Vetted Roster of Experts: Consultancy services under the Poverty-Environment Action (PEA) for SDGs Project 2018 - 2022

Since 2014, the joint UNDP–UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI) project has delivered full poverty-environment mainstreaming programmes in a total of 20 countries and provided technical advisory services in an additional 9 countries.  Results have been achieved through the provision of an integrated approach to mainstreaming the poverty-environment nexus in 24 national and 4,214 local development plans for 17 countries, 93 sector strategies in 13 countries, 84 budget processes in 10 countries, 56 monitoring and evaluation systems in 12 countries. A total of five countries increased public sector expenditures for poverty-environment results.

Building up on the success of the PEI, the Poverty-Environment Action (PEA) for Sustainable Development Goals was developed. PEA is a four year (2018-2022) joint global programme between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment). It supports country-led efforts to mainstream poverty-environment-climate resilience objectives into national development and sub-national development planning, from policymaking to budgeting, finance, implementation, and monitoring. PEA presently provides support to nine countries: Bangladesh, Lao PDR, Malawi, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Rwanda and Tanzania. The proramme also provides support to other country or regional projects through technical assistance. More proposals for technical assistance are being developed for additional countries.

The GPN/Experts Roster for Rapid Response (ExpRes) is a recruitment and deployment mechanism which maintains pre-vetted consultants on a roster and contracts them quickly for country office support. The primary purpose of this roster has been to deploy Crisis Prevention and Recovery (CPR) technical experts to UNDP Country Offices on short notice.

The GPN/ExpRes roster provides pre-selected and technically vetted consultants across 21 profiles and 79 sub-profiles to support the work of UNDP Country Offices/units and other UNDP partner agencies in the area of crisis prevention and recovery.

The PEA project will target better the engagement with public and private sector stakeholders to promote investments that strengthen livelihoods. Particularly innovative aspects of the Poverty-Environment Action include:

• Greater focus on gender and better-targeted poverty diagnostics, including going beyond GDP measurements such as multidimensional poverty indexes
• Greater focus on strengthening a rights-based approach including on gender analysis, stakeholder participation and accountability, and access to information and recourse in line with Principle 10 and the Bali Guidelines
• Deeper in-country work to address the implementation gap, including the establishment of effective regulatory frameworks to direct domestic public and private investments to the implementation of poverty-environment objectives
• More concerted effort to scale up poverty-environment work beyond the targeted 20 countries through South-South cooperation and related efforts to integrate poverty-environment principles and tools into SDG implementation guidance and programming frameworks.

Poverty-Environment Action focus and strategy will encompass the following areas:

• Influencing national and where applicable, sub-national budgets and enhancing the coherence of relevant policies, plans and budgets
• Enabling legal, regulatory and fiscal reform
• Improving the evidence base for demonstrating the impact of poverty-environment mainstreaming policy changes
• Strengthening public sector capacity to engage the private sector and promote quality investment in support of environmental sustainability and climate objectives for poverty eradication
• Strengthening advocacy for poverty-environment mainstreaming and the role of “champions” in the public sector, parliament, civil society and the private sector
• Enabling strategic partnerships and improving coordination and complementarity with other development actors and initiatives at the country level

The PEA programme therefore seeks to add to the GPNExpRes One Roster experts for thematic areas outlined Below, from interested International Individual Consultants to provide technical support.

• Institutional Development Experts: Organizational Development experts – Project Management, Capacity Assessments, Strategic Management and Organizational Sustainability, Monitoring &Evaluation (M&E) systems at country/regional/global levels
• Knowledge Management, Report Writing, Communications
• Public Finance & Investment Expert
• Poverty & Economics Expert
• Equity & Gender Expert

Functional competencies:

• Strategic vision, strong technical and analytical capabilities;
• Strong reporting and writing abilities;
• Ability to work in a team, develop synergies and establish effective working relations with government counterparts, donors, NGOs and other development partners;
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, resourcefulness, initiative, maturity of judgment, tact, and negotiating skills, and the ability to cope with situations which may pose conflict;
• Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback;
• Ability to accommodate additional demands on short notice; 
• Ability to work under pressure and stressful situations;
• Ability to manage heavy workload and solve complex problems with minimum supervision.

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; and
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism.

Institutional Development experts

• Minimum Masters University Degree political, social or management sciences or equivalent
• Minimum – Masters University Degree political, social or management sciences or equivalent
• At least 7 years of extensive and progressively responsible relevant experience in project management, preferably within a UN organization
• Experience in designing M&E systems and developing Theory of Change
• Excellent facilitation and training skills
• Excellent report writing skills
• Previous experience with PEI and or PEA is a strong asset

Knowledge Management

• Minimum Master’s Degree in Journalism, Political Science, International Development Studies or related fields.
• Minimum of five years of work experience at international level in knowledge management and report writing
• Excellent analytical skills and ability to integrate diverse quantitative and qualitative data as demonstrated by prior involvement in producing well thought-out written publications on business, economic, development, and social issues indicators and measurements
• Familiarity with SDGs within the international development context
• Excellent writing, editing and oral communication skills in English is required.
• Fluency in French is a strong assert
• Previous experience with PEI and or PEA is a strong asset

Public Finance & Investment Expert

• A minimum of five years of experience in public financial management, including budget processes; ENR related public and private investment processes, including FDI; investment regulatory and monitoring processes.
• Experience with the integration of ENR management into budget development, implementation, co-ordination and monitoring processes and mechanisms
• Experience in establishment and/or promotion of  Green Bonds
• Excellent analytical skills and ability to integrate diverse quantitative and qualitative data
• Excellent inter-personal and multi-cultural engagement skills
• Excellent writing, editing and oral communication skills in English is required.
• Fluency in French is a strong asset
• Previous experience with PEI and or PEA is a strong asset

Poverty & Economics Expert:

• Minimum of advanced degree in economics, environment, natural resources, agriculture, development or related fields.
• Minimum of advanced degree in economics, environment, natural resources, agriculture, development or related fields.
• A minimum of five years of experience in economic analysis applied to environment and natural resources (preferably including climate change and Blue economy) in LDCs and/or MICs is required including:
• Economic modelling and project appraisals, including cost-benefit analysis and financial investment appraisals in relation to ENR.
• Distributional impact analysis, poverty assessments and poverty reduction targeting in the context of ENR.
• Experience with environment fiscal reform an asset
• Excellent analytical skills and ability to integrate diverse quantitative and qualitative data
• Excellent inter-personal and multi-cultural engagement skills
• Excellent writing, editing and oral communication skills in English is required.
• Fluency in French is a strong asset
• Previous experience with PEI and or PEA is a strong asset

Equity & Gender Expert:

• Advanced degree in gender studies or closely related field
• A minimum of five years of experience in gender analytics and policy development related to ENR
• Demonstrated understanding of the links between sustainable development, social and gender issues
• Experience in facilitating gender responsive stakeholder meetings is highly desired;
• Demonstrated experience working on policy and programmatic issues with national and local governments and civil society organizations
• Excellent analytical skills and ability to integrate diverse quantitative and qualitative data
• Excellent inter-personal and multi-cultural engagement skills
• Excellent writing, editing and oral communication skills in English is required.
• Fluency in French is a strong asset
• Previous experience with PEI and or PEA is a strong asset

Evaluation of Applicants

Applicants will be evaluated based on a cumulative analysis taking into consideration the combination of the applicant’s qualifications and financial proposal. The contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
• Only those candidates who obtained a minimum of 50 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for financial evaluation.
• The consultant will be evaluated against a combination of technical and financial criteria. Maximum score is 100% out of a total score for technical criteria equals 70% and 30% for financial criteria.