CONSULTANCY SERVICES ON MDG ACCELERATION AND POST 2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA IN AFRICA

Background

Since the adoption of Millennium Declaration in 2000, Sub-Saharan Africa has been making substantial progress on the MDGs – based on its initial conditions relative to other regions of the world. The number of people living in extreme poverty is falling; primary school enrolment rates and gender parity in primary school are rising faster than anywhere else in the world; Sub-Saharan Africa is the only sub region that has doubled the proportion of seats held by elected women in just one decade;  maternal  and child health is improving; HIV infections are stabilizing and the number of children and pregnant women sleeping under insecticide treated bed-nets is rapidly rising; number of people having access to safe drinking water is improving and the proportion of Africans having access to mobile phone and internet services has risen quite fast. The role of UNDP in raising advocacy, developing strategic planning on the MDGs interventions (including mainstreaming MDGs in development strategies and costing of the MDGs interventions), building national capacity and partnering with stakeholders to address implementation bottlenecks contributed to progress in the continent.    Yet progress towards achieving the goals has so far been below the desired pace in most of the African countries. Besides, there has been disparity across the MDGs, groups, regions and countries. A key missing link is inability to effectively translate appreciable economic growth into commensurate improvement in living conditions and sustainable human development. The capacity to rigorously assess the implementation bottlenecks of off track MDGs is another important challenge requiring urgent attention in many countries including the issue of addressing of economic and climate shocks as well as their associated vulnerabilities. This also includes capturing MDGs experiences from each country with a view to using it to informing the formulation of post 2015 development agenda and building the institutional capacity to plan and implement the MDG’s successor after 2015. In response to this, the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa is putting in place a strategy for enhancing RBA’s capacity to support MDGs acceleration and building national and regional capacities to formulate,  plan and implement post 2015 development agenda including the African Common Position on post 2015 development agenda. This is to consolidate on existing structures such as the MDGs team in Addis Ababa and the RBA Economists team at the country level with strong coordination from the Strategic Advisory Unit in HQ. The current efforts have yielded substantial efforts including maintaining strategic partnership with pan African institutions on regional MDGs progress monitoring and the articulation of post 2015 development agenda, progress monitoring reports at the national level and rollout of the MDGs acceleration framework in 27 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as holding national consultations in 29 30 countriesSince the adoption of Millennium Declaration in 2000, Sub-Saharan Africa has been making substantial progress on the MDGs – based on its initial conditions relative to other regions of the world. The number of people living in extreme poverty is falling; primary school enrolment rates and gender parity in primary school are rising faster than anywhere else in the world; Sub-Saharan Africa is the only sub region that has doubled the proportion of seats held by elected women in just one decade;  maternal  and child health is improving; HIV infections are stabilizing and the number of children and pregnant women sleeping under insecticide treated bed-nets is rapidly rising; number of people having access to safe drinking water is improving and the proportion of Africans having access to mobile phone and internet services has risen quite fast. The role of UNDP in raising advocacy, developing strategic planning on the MDGs interventions (including mainstreaming MDGs in development strategies and costing of the MDGs interventions), building national capacity and partnering with stakeholders to address implementation bottlenecks contributed to progress in the continent.    Yet progress towards achieving the goals has so far been below the desired pace in most of the African countries. Besides, there has been disparity across the MDGs, groups, regions and countries. A key missing link is inability to effectively translate appreciable economic growth into commensurate improvement in living conditions and sustainable human development. The capacity to rigorously assess the implementation bottlenecks of off track MDGs is another important challenge requiring urgent attention in many countries including the issue of addressing of economic and climate shocks as well as their associated vulnerabilities. This also includes capturing MDGs experiences from each country with a view to using it to informing the formulation of post 2015 development agenda and building the institutional capacity to plan and implement the MDG’s successor after 2015. In response to this, the UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa is putting in place a strategy for enhancing RBA’s capacity to support MDGs acceleration and building national and regional capacities to formulate,  plan and implement post 2015 development agenda including the African Common Position on post 2015 development agenda. This is to consolidate on existing structures such as the MDGs team in Addis Ababa and the RBA Economists team at the country level with strong coordination from the Strategic Advisory Unit in HQ. The current efforts have yielded substantial efforts including maintaining strategic partnership with pan African institutions on regional MDGs progress monitoring and the articulation of post 2015 development agenda, progress monitoring reports at the national level and rollout of the MDGs acceleration framework in 27 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as holding national consultations in 29 30 countries

Duties and Responsibilities

The consultant will be responsible for the following: Providing technical support to the formulation, rollout and implementation of the MDGs Acceleration Framework (MAF):  Based on requests from country offices support the articulation and the rollout of the MAF which is currently at varying stage at the country level. The activities include reviewing the various drafts of MAF, working with the national and regional teams to develop the priority action plans and the organization of stakeholders and validation workshops. This also includes support the upstream dimension of the MAF implementation. Contributing to the second phase of support to RBA countries in the formulation of the Post 2015 development agenda:  Building on the first phasethat has led to the organization of national and regional consultations post 2015 agenda, by deepening consultations with national governments and key actors/stakeholders (including civil society, the private sector, scientific and academic community, and other institutions), open dialogues on some of the means of implementation, such as partnership, monitoring and accountability, and implementation at the local, national and regional levels.  This includes support the HQ in transforming the national consultations reports into a synthesis of emerging issues from RBA countries. Contributing to the upstream engagement of the Regional bureau for Africa:  The consultancy will also provide technical support to the analytical works that could lead to better understanding of sustainable human development in the continent. This includes poverty and inequality analysis, deepening analysis of the various aspects of the MDGs and strengthening national and regional institutions’ capacity on policy space including fiscal policy management.  This will also include providing technical support to the Enhanced Integrated Framework for trade related assistance to LDCs as well as scaling support to the needs of LDCs. Knowledge building and documentation: Working under the leadership of senior MDG Policy Advisor, the consultant will: Contribute to development or refinement of tools for needs assessments and policy analysis in support of MAF processes;  Document good practices on the MDGs interventions and how that could feed into the post 2015 development agenda discussions; Contribute to knowledge management and sharing on MAF and MDGs interventions; Support publications on the relevant areas of the MDGs and post 2015 development

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. Functional Competencies Excellent verbal and writing skills; Capacity to interact with senior officials of government, donors, CSOs, etc.; Ability and disposition to travel extensively, especially in the Africa region; Outstanding analytical and negotiations skills. Ability to present coherent and convincing positions both in writing and orally; Strong ability to take initiative to move complex processes forward to achieve articulated results, work at varying levels and on different initiatives simultaneously (personal organization and ability for multi-tasking); Ability to work under pressure and to accommodate change; Demonstrable networking capability and interpersonal skills; Strong ability to promote team work.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Advanced University degree in development economics, economic planning, macroeconomics, quantitative economics, agricultural economics, health economics, or equivalent qualifications. Experience: Minimum of fifteen years of work experience, including substantial experience in managing complex projects and/or teams; Substantial experience with poverty reduction strategy processes and the MDGs related activities; Strong quantitative skills and demonstrated capacity to perform outstanding original research including statistical analysis; Fully literate in terms of software and e-networking. Language Skills: Excellent written and oral English communications skills; Fluency in French would be an added advantage. Documents to be included when submitting the proposal: Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications: Proposal: Including a maximum 500 words-long brief information on similar tasks implemented over the past 5 to 10 years with concrete experience from Africa. Evidence of key deliverables and results could be attached to the document; Filled P11 form including past experience in similar projects and contact details of referees (Blank form can be downloaded from here). Potential consultants are expected to provide an all-inclusive daily rate for the task. Please note the total working days per month are estimated to be 21.5 days. Travel Successful consultants must be able to travel to countries based on demand. When such request come, the organization shall bear the cost of travel including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses based on extant policies and rules.. Evaluation Criteria  Candidates will be assessed based on the following technical criteria: Technical Evaluation (70%): Evaluation of the P11 including educational attainment, relevance of past working experiences, sound knowledge of the MDGs, poverty analysis and African development issues (50 points); A brief ( 500 words) on past  similar tasks undertaken with concrete results (50 points); Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70 percent on technical evaluation  will be considered for the Financial Evaluation; Financial Evaluation (30%): This will be based on monthly fee provided by the consultants based on the understanding that there are 21.5 working days in a month. The fee. Should be quoted in US dollar only; The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal: p = y (μ/z), p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated; y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal; μ = price of the lowest priced proposal; z = price of the proposal being evaluated. The final evaluation method  will be based on a cumulative analysis of both the technical and financial proposals.  When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made 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; Technical Criteria weight: 70 points ; Financial Criteria weight:  30 points. Other: Incomplete applications will not be considered. Please make sure you have provided all requested materials. Payments will be made only upon confirmation of UNDP on delivering on the contract obligations in a satisfactory manner.   Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org. Qualified women and members of minorities are encouraged to apply. Due to large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process. The successful consultant may be expected to travel regularly.

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