Jobs

Education:

• University degree a bachelor or higher-level degree in civil engineering, environmental engineering, or public health engineering.

Professional Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years' experience in: A. Planning, designing and construction of centralized and decentralized systems, sewerage, Environmental sanitation tools, pumping systems, sludge and effluent management, etc.
• Experience in similar projects working as Drainage Engineer.
• Experience in the donor funded projects of Water will be an added advantage. 6. Knowledge of climate change impacts and resilience strategies.

Language Requirements:

• Fluently in spoken and written English and Tetum.

SCOPE OF PRICE PROPOSAL AND SCHEDULE OF PAYMENTS

Lump Sum Amount

The financial proposal must be expressed in the form of a lump sum all-inclusive cost linked to deliverables specified in ToR Section, supported by a breakdown of unit costs as per the template provided. 

Schedule of payments

Per deliverable/s upon submission of its completion deliverables report and accepted by UNDP, each deliverable as per the timeline mentioned in section C (expected outputs and deliverables).

Recommended Presentation of Offer

Individual consultants interested in the assignment must submit the following documents to demonstrate their qualification in one single PDF document:

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP (the template to be downloaded from the procurement notice link).
2. Personal CV or P11 indicating all past experiences from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (2) professional references (to be downloaded from the procurement notice link).
3. Financial Proposal: that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided (the template to be downloaded from the procurement notice link).
4. Technical Proposal:
   1. Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment;
   2. A methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment and work plan as indicated above.

Evaluation Method and Criteria:

Individual consultant will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
2. 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%

* Financial Criteria weight 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical Evaluation (70%)

Qualification, Experience and Technical Proposal (70 marks):

1. General Qualification (10 marks);

• University degree a bachelor or higher-level degree in civil engineering, environmental engineering, or public health engineering.

1. Experience relevant to the assignment (40 marks);

• A minimum of 5 years' experience in: A. Planning, designing and construction of centralized and decentralized systems, sewerage, Environmental sanitation tools, pumping systems, sludge and effluent management, etc. (15 marks)
• Experience in similar projects working as Drainage Engineer. (15 marks)
• Knowledge of climate change impacts and resilience strategies. (5 marks)
• Experience in the donor funded projects of Water will be an added advantage. (5 marks)

1. Brief methodology and workplan on how the consultant will approach and complete the work (20 marks).

Financial Evaluation (30%):

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

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

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

Incomplete, joint proposals and applications will not be considered and will be disqualified automatically. Upon completion of the procurement process, the selected consultant can choose to sign an individual contract him/herself or sign a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) through its company. Women candidates are also encouraged to apply.

Lebanon faces several environmental threats, including air and water pollution, lack of wastewater treatment, deforestation, unsustainable agricultural practices, solid waste management and risks associated with climate change.

There is mounting scientific evidence of climate change impacts in Lebanon. Most notably, in Lebanon, sea levels are expected to rise by 30-50 cm within the next 20 years, and temperatures are expected to increase by 1.2–1.7°C. In combination with expected decreased total precipitation (by 4–11 percent by 2100), more frequent heat waves, extreme weather events and drought, this will have large and dire impacts on the lives of children. Loss of agricultural productivity, destruction of coastal urban areas that host critical infrastructure and industry and weakened tourism will have large impacts on the country's economy, which will further affect sectors such as health and education. Additionally, water scarcity will further constrain economic growth and development, as well as agriculture and food production, health, survival, and social and economic development.

UNDP is collaborating with UNEP West Asia and UNICEF Lebanon to develop a concept note on “Building Resilience in the Water and WASH Sector in Lebanon” to be submitted to the Adaptation Fund. UNDP will be proposing and developing activities related to strengthening the sustainable operational capacity of water network in a coastal city (to be determined) through installing district water meters (WM) and intelligent metering systems (IMS) which will help inform water allocation and distribution.

The purpose of this consultancy is to draft a concept note for the Adaptation Fund, on behalf of UNDP Lebanon following the Adaptation Fund Concept Guidance

UNDP Vietnam is seeking for 01 International Consultant to support the UNDP Office on health-related program – 104 working days.

Procurement Notice with enclosed TOR and evaluation criteria can be downloaded from the link:

https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=97059

The selection will be on a competitive basis and will comply with UNDP procurement regulations.

Interested offerors are invited to submit Letter to UNDP confirming Interest and Availability, CVs, financial proposals and other information following guidance in the Procurement Notice to:

quach.thuy.ha@undp.org

With subject line:             A-221103 International Consultant to support UNDP Office on health-program

with notification by email (without attachment) to: procurement.vn@undp.org that the bidder has submitted proposal.

UNDP will not be responsible for the missing of proposal if the bidder does not send notification email to above address.

Deadline for submission: 23.59 hrs., 08 December 2022 (Hanoi time)

We look forward to receiving your proposal by the above deadline.

The UNDP Accelerator Labs Network is the largest learning network in the world. It includes 91 public innovation labs and a global curation team, all embedded within UNDP’s global architecture and country platforms.  

Each lab surfaces and reinforces locally sourced solutions to development challenges, and mobilizes a wide and dynamic range of partners who contribute knowledge, resources, and experience. The goal is to transform traditional development approaches by introducing new protocols, backed by evidence and practice, to accelerate the testing and dissemination of solutions within, and across countries, while at the same time enabling the global community to collectively learn from local knowledge and ingenuity at a speed and scale that our societies and planet require.

To support these learning outcomes, the UNDP Accelerator Labs global team is building a Network Learning Strategy and Prototype for knowledge management. The strategy has a strong digital component, that builds on the idea of “going where the information is”. The goal is to facilitate the detection of “where” knowledge is held in the network, and “why” it can be assumed to be held there, rather than trying to capture, infer, or extrapolate precisely “what” that knowledge is. This requires “listening” to the activities of the network, by centralizing and making sense of the content the labs put out, as well as the digital traces they leave behind as they conduct their work.

The Network Learning Prototype pulls together these unstructured data mainly text from various sources, including conversations on WhatsApp and Teams, blogs published on UNDP Country Office websites and Medium, and internal reporting feeds. While it is hardly big data, the volume is reaching a point where automation is becoming necessary to detect latent topics and trends that emerge from the network, and to structure and map open-ended taxonomies. The NLP researcher will work on this directly with the Lead Data Scientist of the UNDP Accelerator Labs global team.

The purpose of this procurement exercise is to contract an individual consultant who will work with the lead Data Scientist of the UNDP Accelerators Labs global team on a novel knowledge management pipeline that pulls together unstructured data (mainly text) from various sources including conversations on WhatsApp and Teams, blogs published on UNDP Country Office websites and Medium, and internal reporting feeds and computationally looks for latent topics and trends that emerge from the work being conducted across the network of Accelerator Labs. The main objective of the consultancy will be to improve the topic modeling component of the pipeline.

OF WORK, RESPONSIBILITIES AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED ANALYTICAL WORK

• Explore word and sequence embedding techniques to improve an early prototype for structuring open-ended, multi-language taxonomies.
• Design, build, and evaluate topic models and more recent BERT-based zero-shot classifiers in Python for the Network Learning Prototype—primarily in English, but ideally also in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.
• Collaborate with different teams across UNDP to build a corpus of sustainable development-related documents, presumably in multiple languages, and fine-tune language models using this corpus.
• Work with the Lead Data Scientist and the Full Stack Developer to take useful models and classifiers to production and integrate them into a suite of UNDP Accelerator Labs online tools and platforms.
• Conduct occasional text analyses for the Accelerator Labs Network global team.
• Document the work produced.

Expected outputs and deliverables:

A.         Professionalism

• Comfortable working with diverse programming languages, and open-source language models, frameworks, and libraries—including Python and PostgreSQL; BERT; SpaCy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or fast.ai; Pandas and NumPY; and Matplotlib.
• Passionate about natural language processing, data science, and their integration into digital products.
• Passionate about open source/ free software movements.
• Passionate about the use of data for human and social development.
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team, but also independently with little supervision.
• Ability and confidence to work directly with partners or clients to define requirements.
• Ability to work with people from around the world, with different backgrounds, motivations, and competencies.

B.          Planning and organization

• Ability to meet deadlines, work under pressure, manage workflows, and operate as part of a distributed team with members across almost every time-zone on the planet.
• Ability to prioritize activities and assignments.
• Possesses good organizational skills.

C.          Knowledge management and learnings

• Motivation to continuously learn new things, and ability to put them to use.
• Motivation to share personal knowledge and experience with others.

D.         Communication

• Speaks and writes clearly and effectively, with a particular attention for the audience.
• Demonstrates openness in sharing information.
• Listens to others.

Academic qualifications:

• Master's degree or higher in Computational Linguistics, Data Science, Computer Science, Information Retrieval, Statistics, Engineering, or any related field with strong computational and text analysis elements is required.

Experience:

1.  A minimum of three years of experience (this can include time as a PhD student) in building and training language models (e.g., recurrent neural networks, transformers, etc.) is required.
2.  A minimum of two years of experience in using transformers and pre-trained language models, such as BERT, BART, or GPT; as well as NLP/ text analytics Python libraries, such as SpaCy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or fast.ai is required.
3.  A solid online portfolio or repository of NLP work that demonstrates the candidate’s experience is desirable
4. A peer-reviewed paper track record (Academic publications) is desirable

In line with UNDP’s gender policy, female candidates are highly encouraged to apply.

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required
• Working knowledge of French is desirable
• Working knowledge of Spanish, Arabic, or any other UN language is an asset.

Application Procedure

The application package containing the following (to be uploaded as one file):

• A cover letter with a brief description of why the Offer considers her/himself the most suitable for the assignment;
• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects and specifying the relevant assignment period (from/to), as well as the email and telephone contacts of at least three (3) professional references; and
• A link to an online portfolio of similar work completed within the last three years, and a list of all relevant peer-reviewed publications

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.

• The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around the specific and measurable deliverables of the TOR. Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR, and deliverables accepted and certified by the technical manager. 
• The financial proposal must be all-inclusive and take into account various expenses that will be incurred during the contract, including: the daily professional fee; (excluding mission travel); living allowances at the duty station; communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work under hardship and hazardous conditions (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.
• This consultancy is a home-based assignment, therefore, there is no envisaged travel cost to join duty station/repatriation travel. 
• In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
• If the 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 a 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.

The Financial Proposal is to be emailed as per the instruction in the separate email that will be sent to shortlisted candidates.

Evaluation process

Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below.  Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring.  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:

• Being 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 where technical criteria weighs 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.

Technical evaluation – Total 70% (70 points):

• Criteria 1: Relevance of the experience in building and training language models (e.g., neural networks, transformers, etc.). Weight =20%; Maximum points = 15  (3-5 years: 10 points, 5-10 years : 12.5 points, above 10 years: 15 points)

• Criteria 2: Relevance of the experience in using transformers and pre-trained models, such as BERT, BART, or GPT; as well as NLP/ text analytics Python libraries, such as SpaCy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, or fast.ai. Weight = 15%; Maximum points = 15 (2-4 years: 10 points, 4-6 years: 12.5 points above 6 years: 15 points)
• Criteria 3: Relevance of the online portfolio or repository of work. Weight = 5%; Maximum points = 5 (no portfolio: 0 points, online portfolio that is not primarily NLP/ Data Science-related: 2.5 points, portfolio that is primarily NLP/ Data Science-related: 5 points)
• Criteria 4: A peer-reviewed paper track record (academic publications). Weight = 10%; Maximum 10 points (less than 3 publications: 3 points; between 3 and 10 publications: 7 points; more than 10 publications: 10 points).

• Criteria 3: Interview, Weight = 30%; Maximum points = 25

Having reviewed applications received, UNDP will invite the top three shortlisted candidates for interview. Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (49 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

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

Contract Award

Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into contract with UNDP.

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will work under the guidance and direct supervision of Accelerator Labs Network Lead Data Scientist and will be responsible for the fulfilment of the activities and deliverables specified above.

The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop.

Payment modality

•  Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified above and deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager. 
• The work week will be based on 35 hours, i.e. on a 7 hour working day, with core hours being between 9h00 and 18h00 daily.

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

Annex 1 - UNDP P-11 Form for ICs

Annex 2 - IC Contract Template

Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions

Annex 4 – RLA Template

Any request for clarification must be sent by email to cpu.bids@undp.org 

The UNDP Central Procurement Unit will respond by email and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants.

Instructions to Applicants: Click on the "Apply now" button. Input your information in the appropriate Sections: personal information, language proficiency, education, resume and motivation. Upon completion of the first page, please hit "submit application" tab at the end of the page. Please ensure that CV or P11 and the Cover letter are combined in one file.

The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors. References may also include peers.

A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.

Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns or other materials.

Office/Unit/Project Description 

The Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA) leads and supports the organization in cultivating, building and nurturing strategic relationships and alliances that are essential for advancing and successfully achieving the mission of UNDP. Within BERA, the Innovative Digital Partnerships Unit (IDP) was established to facilitate the development of creative partnerships and programs that accelerate progress towards the SDGs, raise non-traditional revenue streams for UNDP, and increase the organization’s advocacy and reach. Anchored in a partnership with Samsung Mobile which has produced the Samsung Global Goals app, IDP also leads on global impact giving for UNDP. 

Among UNDP’s madates is a committment to promoting and supporting youth empowerment for sustainable development and peace worldwide, including by supporting the role young people play as positive agents of change in the implementation, monitoring and follow-up on 2030 Agenda.

In 2020, BERA/IDP and the UNDP Youth Global Programme came together to co-create the innovative Generation17 youth empowerment initiative, a signature platform made possible through the Samsung partnership, built on the key insight that across the globe, young people are taking action for sustainable development and leveraging technology to do so.

Since its inception, the initiative has grown considerably both in terms of scale and complexity. In 2023—with the goal of strengthening the Generation17 initiative, and to seed new innovation related to youth-inclusive programmes—a new role for Youth Engagement Coordinator has been identified.  

The position demands direct experience working with youth, ideally informed by personal experience as a youth leader. Further, it requires demonstrated ability to liaise and actively coordinate between internal teams and external organizations, ideally in a United Nations context. The ideal candidate will also possess proven skills in content creation with a demonstrated ability to drive engagement for social and digital media through the use of mobile technology. Last, as the Youth Engagement Coordinator will drive innovation in new areas, he/she should have a strong understanding of opportunities for youth and youth-inclusive organizations to receive or be supported by various funding streams, including programme funds, charitable giving, grantmaking, corporate and individual giving.  

Institutional Arrangement

Reporting to the Global Lead, Digital Fundraising and Marketing (BERA) and performance-matrixed to the Global Youth Empowerment Team Leader, the Youth Engagement Coordinator will support the needs of both units through a variety of core and ancillary functions. The position is based in New York.

Lao PDR has witnessed impressive economic growth. The economy registered 7 percent GDP growth rates for the period 2009-2019. Poverty rates have declined from 33.5 percent in 2002-2003 to 18.6 percent in 2018-2019. The country is expected to graduate from Least Developed Country status by 2026.

In the past decade, the country’s growth vision centred on becoming the “the battery of ASEAN” and becoming “Land-linked”. The impressive growth rates have been achieved with rapid expansion of hydropower and mining sectors although this growth path posed some long-term risks. Investments were heavily focused on developing hydropower and connectivity related infrastructure, the financing of which included external loans. These projects produced mismatches between the short-term maturity of debt obligations and the longer-term mobilisation of state revenue. The economy has not undergone structural transformation. The share of agriculture in GDP declined from 17 in 2016 to 15 percent in 2020; industry increased from 29 to 32 percent and services remained at around 42 percent over the same period.  Agriculture remains the largest employer with 61 percent of the total workforce (down from 74 percent in 2008), services account for 26 percent of employment, up from 19 percent in 2008, with industry accounting for the remaining 13 percent. Hydropower and mining which accounts for 20 percent of GDP, contribute to only 1 percent of employment. To attract foreign direct investment to prioritized non-resource sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, handicrafts and services, the Government has introduced a range of policies, including special economic zones providing infrastructure, commercial facilities and generous tax incentives to specific industries (World Bank, 2022). Efforts to mobilise foreign direct investment (FDI) to expand manufacturing and processing industries are constrained by challenges related to labour productivity, access to raw materials and unfavourable business environment. The Government is further promoting green growth and digital economy. The National Green Growth Strategy 2030 aims to promote sustainable economic growth, towards improving the living standards of people in urban and rural areas, and creating jobs and income-generating activities. The Digital Economy Strategy promotes the digitalization of the manufacturing sector through the development of smart factories, digital parks, and digital economic zones that can attract foreign investments to build manufacturing facilities for parts related to digital equipment and systems. The opening of the Lao-China railway in 2021 has potential for strengthening Lao PDR’s access to export markets in the region. The government of Lao PDR already has ambitions to develop various sectors through trade and improved logistics and transportation. However, it will have to overcome systemic challenges in a range of sectors from agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and the barriers blocking the growth of new industries that harness the green and digital/technology-based value chains.

Against this background, the Development Research Institute of the Ministry of Planning of Investment aims to produce knowledge that would stimulate dialogue on economic diversification in Lao PDR. This is in line with the first outcome of the 9th NSEDP, ‘continuous quality, stable and sustainable economic growth’, and ambitions further reiterated in the national agenda to address financial and economic difficulties, which will expire in 2023. Advocating for sustainable and inclusive growth, UNDP stands ready to support the Development Research Institute, Ministry of Planning and Investment through its project ‘Initiation Plan for Effective Planning and Financing for Sustainable and Inclusive Development’ implemented in close collaboration with Ministry of Planning and Investment with support from USAID

OBJECTIVE:

The consultant is expected to work closely with the Development Research Institute of the Ministry of Planning of Investment, the head of Poverty Reduction Unit, UNDP Lao PDR with close guidance from the country economist and team to produce a high-quality background paper, with a focus on development of potential sectors that could gain from the improved connectivity infrastructure. The recommendations in the paper should be practical and should build on the existing development policies the government is currently implementing, especially the 9th NSEDP, the national agenda to address financial and economic difficulties, the Green Growth Strategy and the Digital Economy Strategy.

National estimates report that the prevalence of disability in the Kyrgyz Republic is about about three percent, affecting 194,000 people (53% women), with an overall increase of 21.5 percent over the past seven years, and a total increase in child disability from 22.4 thousand in 2010 to 32 thousand children in 2020. At the end of 2018, the total number of recipients of state benefits as related to disability (57,204) made up approximately 15% of the total recipients of state benefits (365,227)[1]. According to the National Statistical Committee, every year on average about 11,000 people are recognized as persons with disabilities for the first time, while more than 4,000 cases of disability are reported among children. Disability prevalence both in general and in women’s groups and persons of working age is considerably higher in rural areas compared to urban areas. Likewise, among children, there is also a higher level of disability in rural areas (71%) versus urban areas (29%), including more than a thousand children who do not enroll in a school due to disabilities every year.

In this context, in the past few years, the rights of people with disabilities (PWDs) have been increasingly ranking high on the national development agenda, leading to the ratification, in May 2019, of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the People with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and the establishment,  shortly after, of an Interagency Working Group, tasked with drafting the Initial Action Plan for implementation of the CRPD in 2019-2022 and the concept for the programme “Accessible country” (“????????? ??????”) aimed at elimination of discrimination against PWDs in various areas and improvement of accessibility of infrastructures. The national Population Housing Census[2] has also finally been conducted from March 25 to April 3, 2022, providing for the first time updated data on disability based on Washington Group Questions. The full report on disability is expected to be finalized by the end of the year.

However, despite these promising pledges, PWDs continue to be the hardest hit by the current gaps in economic and human development and experience serious challenges of discrimination, poverty and severe difficulties in accessing fundamental rights.  The implementation of the UNCRPD is lagging behind while the legal and policy frameworks still do not fully comply with the ratified international human rights framework and disability-inclusion standards.[3] This also includes one of the main legislations on disability, the Law No. 38 on the Rights and Guarantees of Persons with Limited Health Functions, which continues to reflect the medical model of disability. In December 2020, a new inter-agency governmental body, the National Disability Council (NDC), has been established to accelerate, coordinate and oversee efforts towards implementation of the CRPD, while the Ombudsman Institute (the National Human Rights Commission) has also formed a “Coordination Council for PWDS and their Families”. However, the “Accessible country” has not been approved due to political and COVID-19 circumstances, while both the NDC and the Ombudsman’s Coordination Council are still lacking resources and are not yet effective as expected.

Against this backdrop, the participating UN organizations (PUNOs), i.e. UNICEF, UNDP and UNFPA, under the overall coordination of the Office of the Resident Coordinator (RCO), have been invited to implement the Inception Phase of the UNPRPD Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF; 4th Funding Round Call for Proposals) in order to promote national progress on disability-inclusive development and the rights of PWDs in the Kyrgyz Republic. In particular, the UNPRPD MPTF aims at supporting the following objectives:

1. Objective One – Advance CRPD implementation at the country level by focusing on the essential preconditions for disability inclusion across sectors, translating these into concrete policies, programs, and/or services which lead to systemic changes through a cohesive, inter-sectoral approach;
2. Objective One  - Improve and increase the implementation of disability inclusive SDGs at the country level by providing fundamental support to the UN’s collective response to the SDGs – including UNCTs, governments, OPDs, and civil society – to address national priorities and gaps concerning persons with disabilities in their national planning to advance the SDGs.

[1] UNICEF (2021) “Situation Analysis:  Children and Adolescents Disabilities in Kyrgyzstan.”

[2]https://kyrgyzstan.un.org/en/176799-population-and-housing-census-started-march-25-kyrgyzstan

[3] UNICEF (2021) “Situation Analysis:  Children and Adolescents Disabilities in Kyrgyzstan.”

The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors. References may also include peers.
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.
• Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as  reports, presentations, publications, campaigns or other materials.

Office/Unit/Project:

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan.

Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages; represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora, including public-private, government and civil society dialogues; and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.

BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Bureau (CB) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

As a Global Environment Facility (GEF) Implementing Agency and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Accredited Entity, UNDP also supports countries in addressing development, climate, and ecosystem sustainability in an integrated manner. UNDP-Global Environmental Finance (UNDP-GEF) Unit is based in BPPS and is responsible for providing leadership and technical support for, among other areas, delivery of the Environment and Sustainable Development pillar of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. The principal areas of work are in environmental mainstreaming, environmental finance, adaptation to climate change, and local governance of resources, including energy.

Addressing climate change is one the key global challenges and priorities for UNDP. Working in over 170 countries and territories, UNDP is uniquely placed to work with all sectors of society to help mobilize the institutions and resources required to support countries implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in the context of the Paris Agreement.

Additionally, one of six signature solutions under UNDP’s current Strategic Plan is to “Close the energy gap.” Access to clean and affordable energy is a critical enabler for sustainable development whether it be for nutrition, transport, education or economic opportunity. UNDP’s work in this area focuses on increasing energy access, promoting renewable energy, and enhancing energy efficiency in a manner that is inclusive and responsive to the needs of different sectors of the population (urban/rural, women/men, household/businesses), in line with the aspirations of Sustainable Development Goal 7. UNDP’s offer builds on UNDP’s growing portfolio of innovative interventions and projects at the country, regional and global levels – funded both by the GEF and by other donors – for which UNDP provides oversight, quality assurance, and policy and technical advisory services. The UNDP energy and climate change mitigation team is based in BPPS.

UNDP has developed a clear, market transformation-based theory of change and offer on energy, with its Derisking Renewable Energy Investment (DREI) framework central to this offer. DREI is innovative, quantitative methodology for developing countries to cost-efficiently select public instruments scale up sustainable energy investment. With DREI, UNDP assists governments to systematically identify the barriers and risks which can hold back private sector investment, and then supports policymakers to put in place packages of targeted public interventions to address these risks. Detailed techno-economic modelling and analysis underlies this support.

The DREI framework includes a theory of change, various conceptual tools (such as derisking tables), reports and a suite of financial models and tools in Excel (including LCOE tools, financing cost tools, instrument costing tools). Collectively, these conceptual and financial tools bring methodological coherence, and create efficiencies in generating quantitative and graphic outputs. At present, the DREI framework is available for application in four distinct renewable energy sectors, both grid-connected and off-grid: utility-scale (grid-connected PV or wind), grid-connected rooftop PV, off-grid solar PV-battery mini-grids, and off-grid pay-as-you-go solar home systems (SHS). For more information please visit www.undp.org/DREI.

In the context of the above, UNDP is looking to engage a Derisking Renewable Energy Investment (DREI) Specialist to provide support to UNDP’s Principal Technical Advisor, Climate Change Mitigation/Energy.

The Government of Sweden, through SIDA, has funded a four-year, USD$40m global Strategic Collaboration Programme designed to strengthen UNDP capacities to achieve its overall sustainable development vision for poverty eradication through a more integrated, coherent approach to the environmental and climate dimensions of the UNDP Strategic Plan. SIDA funds will be used to hire new staff and consultants, including to support elements of this position.

Institutional Arrangement:

• The Specialist will be home-based;
• The Specialist will be expected to work five (5) days per week (full time);
• The initial contract will be for one year, with the possibility of renewal for an additional year dependent on demand for services, availability of financial resources and good performance.
• The Specialist will report to UNDP’s Principal Technical Advisor for Climate Change Mitigation/Energy.
• The Specialist will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• The Specialist will be responsible for providing her/his own working station (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, etc.) and must have access to a reliable internet connection;

Travel:  

• International travel may be required to countries in the following regions: Africa, Latin America and Asia over the 1-year period, a maximum of 6 missions are foreseen, with expected mission duration of approximately 5 days per mission. Exact locations to be determined and discussed upon commencement of each specific assignment;
• Any necessary mission travel must be approved in advance and in writing by the Supervisor;
• The BSAFE course must be successfully completed prior to commencement of travel;
• The Specialist is responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director;
• The Specialist is responsible for obtaining any visas and security clearances needed in connection with travel with the necessary support from UNDP;
• The Specialist is required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under https://dss.un.org/dssweb/;   
• The Specialist will be responsible for making his/her own mission travel arrangements in line with UNDP travel policies.

Scope of Work
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 (A/RES/70/1), are at the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The SDGs set ambitious targets for achievement within the current decade.

The IEO has recently launched a series of synthesis studies to systematically analyse evaluative evidence on key areas under the five pillars of the Sustainable Development Goals. These are: Peace, People, Planet, Prosperity and Partnership – known as the “5P”. The series will be delivered by a Global Coalition on Evaluation Evidence, and will provide policy recommendations to achieve the goals in the last five years before 2030, and beyond. As of October 2022, the “Coalition” consists of 23 United Nations agencies, six bilateral partners, and several evaluation networks, who inform the direction of the series and the conduct of the synthesis, and provide time, evidence and other resources to the exercise.

The first synthesis in the series – covering the Partnership Pillar – is currently underway, and the remaining four pillars will follow shortly after. All syntheses will be completed within 2023-2024.

UNDP seeks a Coordination Consultant to facilitate the 5P syntheses. S/he will support the 5P Steering Committee and management groups, helping to organise and track the inputs from the Coalition Members, and will work with the IEO 5P focal person to manage external teams conducting the syntheses. S/he will also support dissemination of the Synthesis findings, working closely with IEO lead evaluators and consultants to arrange events. The work of the Coordination Consultant will be guided by UNEG and IEO professional standards, guidance and manuals.

The specific tasks include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Run the secretariat to the Global Coalition for Evaluative Evidence for the SDGs. This will include: Implement the overall partnerships and engagement strategy for the initiative, convene regular meetings and handle communications with the management groups for each synthesis exercise, maintain meeting minutes and records, organize workplans and sequence calendars.
• Support data collation and preparation for synthesis: Identify relevant evaluations, research and studies, assess them for inclusion/exclusion, screen for quality, and extract relevant data.
• Upon request, help with synthesizing knowledge, comparing and contrasting the findings of impact evaluations and reviews, assessing their quality and the strength of their recommendations, and providing a summary of the evidence.
• Support the IEO Synthesis Manager and Lead Evaluators in monitoring their budgets and expenditures, preparing documentation for recruitment, payments and performance evaluation, and supporting budget revisions as needed.
• Prepare inputs for synthesis reports and annexes, providing formatting support and developing limited content relevant to processes.
• Support the planning and management of dissemination events for each of the 5 syntheses.
The coordination consultant will work as a member of the Synthesis & Lessons section, in support of efficient and effective execution of work planned through the Global Coalition for Evaluative Evidence for the SDGs and high-quality evidence syntheses.