English and French Interpreter and Translator (IC Framework Agreement)

Consultant

Overview

Provide English-French interpretation and translation services for UNCDF.

You have:

• Master’s degree in English/French Interpretation and Translation.
• At least five years of interpretation and translation experience in the area of economics, finance, investment or related development field.
• Experience in webinar interpretation and/or simultaneous translation for high-level events.
• Advanced knowledge of online event platforms’ interpretation functions (e.g. Zoom).
• Written and spoken fluency in English and in French is required for interpretation services.

Contract

This is a International Consultant contract. More about International Consultant contracts.

Background

The UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs). With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF’s financing models work through three channels: (1) inclusive digital economies, which connects individuals, households, and small businesses with financial eco-systems that catalyze participation in the local economy, and provide tools to climb out of poverty and manage financial lives; (2) local transformative finance, which capacitates localities through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance to drive local economic expansion and sustainable development; and (3) investment finance, which provides catalytic financial structuring, de-risking, and capital deployment to drive SDG impact and domestic resource mobilization.

UNCDF’s Local Transformative Finance Practice (LTF) is the UN Hub for Subnational Finance with two flagship areas of work: SDG Cities and Local Climate Finance. LTF promotes and supports transformative investment through local governments and domestic banks in developing countries by piloting and scaling up innovative financing mechanisms and policies in the public and private sectors. LTF adopts a transformative impact financing approach to promote service delivery, infrastructure investment and local economic development that retains value within the local territory. This builds local fiscal space and local fixed capital formation. The investment financing toolboxes include Fiscal Decentralization, Local Development Funds for public capital investment programming, Structured Project Finance, Municipal Finance, SME Finance, and Public-Private Partnerships.

LTF holds a one-hour global webinar once every two weeks, which provides a great opportunity for colleagues around the globe to get updates, brainstorm and be engaged in the discussion. LTF also holds online events and conferences that need to engage francophone partners. Given LTF’s expanding portfolio in West and Central Africa and more engagement with French-speaking partners, UNCDF is seeking individual English-French interpreters to provide simultaneous interpretation for the bi-weekly webinar as well as other online events and English-French translators to provide written translation if needed.

UNCDF would like to enter into a non-exclusive Framework Agreement, also known as Long-Term Agreement (LTA), with at least 2 individuals that will perform the services described below on a need-basis. In UNCDF, an LTA is a framework agreement by and between UNCDF and a company or individual where the latter may, at any time within the duration of the LTA, be required to render the agreed services at the agreed and fixed unit prices for a minimum period of 12 months, with potential extension for up to two (2) additional years, depending on satisfactory performance of the company.

Under an LTA, UNCDF does not guarantee that any specific quantity of services shall be purchased during the term of this agreement. The LTA does not form a financial obligation or commitment from UNCDF at the time the LTA contract is signed and that such an agreement is non-exclusive.

Call-Offs

Where a request for service arises, UNCDF can engage the individual on LTA through a “call-off” of the LTA. Every call-off shall have specific tasks, scope of services and outputs to be delivered within a specific period of time. For this particular work, the call-off shall be formalized through the issuance of a Purchase Order, attaching thereto the Terms of Reference, and any other document relevant to the call-off. Financial commitments will only be established each time a Purchase Order for the specific services/TOR for Individual Contractor is committed.

The LTA shall have a cumulative ceiling amount that may accrue to the individual contractor during the life of the LTA, but said amount shall remain as an upper limit, and must not and cannot be interpreted nor understood as neither a financial commitment nor guarantee of business volume.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Deputy Director of the Local Transformative Finance, the consultant will conduct up to 100 hours per year of simultaneous interpretation services on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and translation services as needed.

The consultant will:

• Provide accurate and fast English-French/French-English simultaneous interpretation services to LTF bi-weekly webinar;
• Provide English-French/French-English interpretation during meetings, conferences, regular technical discussions, small-scale workshops, and relevant online events as assigned by LTF;

Provide English-French/French-English translation services as requested by LTF.

Key Deliverables

• English-French/French-English simultaneous interpretation for LTF bi-weekly webinar;
• English-French/French-English simultaneous interpretation for LTF online events;
• Final translated documents in English or French as requested by LTF.

Payment Terms

Payment shall be made to the Individual Consultant based on receipt of the certificate of payment (COP) and acceptance of the agreed deliverables by the LTF Deputy Director. The payment is scheduled as follows:

• Upon delivery of English-French/French-English simultaneous interpretation for LTF bi-weekly webinar (by hourly fee);
• Upon delivery of English-French/French-English simultaneous interpretation for LTF online events (by hourly fee);
• Upon submission of final translated documents in English or French (by number of words).

Duration of the assignment

• Successful applicant will be engaged under an LTA for a duration of three (3) years, with a maximum level of effort of 100 hours per year of simultaneous interpretation services and translation services as needed. Within the said period, the consultant may be called upon to render the above-listed services.
• The duration of each assignment will vary based on multiple factors, ranging from size and complexity.
• Precise time duration for each assignment will be provided and discussed with the consultant.

Travel

This consultancy is home-based. Travel is not expected for this assignment.

Contract Modality

The successful offeror shall be engaged as LTA holder for a duration of three (3) years. UNCDF will sign framework agreement otherwise referred to as long-term agreements (LTA) with the successful applicant. Under IC Framework Agreement, there will be no financial obligations until the expert is called off to render the services, which shall be triggered by a written request accompanied by this TOR and a Purchase Order (PO) indicating the full cost of the services.

UNCDF Local Transformative Finance Practice (LTF) is the LTF manager. All programmes and projects under LTF can request a call-off for the interpretation and/or translation services as needed.

The consultant will be compensated based on deliverable-based Certification of Payment forms (COPs). COPs are certified and authorized for disbursement by LTF Deputy Director. At the end of every year, payment shall require a signed performance evaluation of the consultant for record and reference purposes.

Competencies

• Demonstrates commitment to UNCDF’s mission, vision and values;

• Promotes ethics and integrity;

• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;

• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;

• Client focused and results oriented, responds positively to feedback;

• Excellent communication skills, creates and promotes an environment for open communications;
• Keeps abreast of new developments in area of professional discipline and job knowledge and seeks to develop herself or himself professionally;
• Demonstrates a high degree of initiative and independence while in close coordination with the LTF HQ in delivering required outputs within tight timeframes, exercising problem solving while demonstrating flexibility and ability to accomplish the job effectively;

• Demonstrates excellent organizational and time management skills with strong interpersonal skills;

• Contributes to a culture of knowledge sharing and learning across the organization;

• Experience with the UNDP/UNCDF is a strong asset.

Required Skills and Experience

EDUCATION

• Master’s degree in English/French Interpretation and Translation.

EXPERIENCE

• At least five years of interpretation and translation experience in the area of economics, finance, investment or related development field;
• Experience in webinar interpretation and/or simultaneous translation for high-level events;
• Advanced knowledge of online event platforms’ interpretation functions (e.g. Zoom);
• Interpretation and translation experience with UNDP/UNCDF is highly desired;
• Knowledge of local government finance is an asset.

LANGUAGES

Written and spoken fluency in English and in French is required for interpretation services; for translation services, English or French must be native language that is translated into.

Evaluation Process

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose CV has been evaluated and determined as (a) technically responsive/ compliant/ acceptable and (b) lowest hourly fee/ fee per word.

Applications will be rated on both technical and financial submissions. The following method will be used: Highest rated proposal using the combined scoring method, which assigns the weight distribution between the technical and financial proposals. The overall combined score will be 100 points, where weight distribution shall be 70% technical (Desk Review and Interview) and 30% financial.

Step I: Screening:

Applications will be screened, and only applicants meeting the following minimum criteria (listed under education and experience) will progress to the pool for shortlisting:

• Master’s degree in English/French Interpretation and Translation.
• At least five years of interpretation and translation experience in the development field;
• Written and spoken fluency in English and in French is required; for translation services, English or French must be native language that is translated into.

Step II: Shortlisting by Desk Review

UNCDF will conduct a desk review process to shortlist and technically evaluate candidates as per the following criteria:

• At least five years of interpretation and translation experience in the area of economics, finance, investment or related development field (30 points);
• Experience in webinar interpretation and/or simultaneous translation for high-level events (20 points);
• Advanced knowledge of online event platforms’ interpretation functions (e.g. Zoom) (20 points);
• Interpretation and translation experience with UNDP/UNCDF is highly desired (30 points).

Only the candidates obtaining a minimum of 70 points at desk review will be considered for interview.

Step III - Interview (100 points x 40%)

Only candidates achieving 70% of the combined evaluation at shortlisting (desk review) and interview will move forward to the financial proposal evaluation.

Step III: Financial Evaluation:

The following formula will be used to evaluate the financial proposal: Lowest priced proposal/price of the proposal being evaluated x 30%. The Price proposal must quote an all-inclusive effective hourly fee (interpretation services) and fee by word count (translation services) in USD.

Step V: Issuance of Individual Contract

LTA award shall be made to candidates 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 scores out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical criteria (70%) and financial criteria (30%) specific to the solicitation.
• Both individual consultants and individuals employed by a company or institution are welcome to apply.
• Any individual employed by a company or institution who would like to submit an offer must do so in their individual capacity (providing a CV so that their qualifications may be judged accordingly).
• Women candidates or women-owned businesses are strongly encouraged to apply.

Application Procedures

Interested individuals must submit the following as proposals in order to demonstrate their qualifications. Proposers who shall not submit below-mentioned documents may not be considered for further evaluation.

• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.

• Cover letter with a summary statement of competencies and track record in relation to the TOR, please also indicate whether you can perform both interpretation and translation, and from English-to-French or French-to-English.

• Financial proposal: The financial proposal shall specify an all-inclusive lump sum hourly fee for interpretation and fee by word count for translation. For this purpose, please complete and submit the Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability (Please click here for document) and Financial Proposal (do not upload your financial proposal online, please send it separately to the email address [email protected] with the subject line: English-French Interpreter and Translator (IC Framework Agreement).

Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when traveling 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. If the consultant is over 65 years old, UNCDF reserves the right to require full medical certification and clearance from the consultant’s physician prior to commencing the travel.

UNCDF 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.

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Potential interview questions

Added 3 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org