Expert to Assess High-Value Open Data Sets of Public Administration in Montenegro

Contract

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

Background

Project ‘Digital Governance Acceleration’ aims to improve the institutional resilience and enhancing the trust in institutions through support to digital governance transformation. The goal of the project is to support the transition towards an adaptive, effective and open governance to place human development at the centre of digital transformation.

The COVID-19 crisis signalled a mismatch between quality of public services and citizens’ and businesses’ expectations in that regard and meeting the expectations of new reality poses a great challenge for Government as it requires the acceleration of digital transformation. Transparency practices of the Government are on the test. The amount of information classified by public institutions and withheld from the public continued to grow during the pandemic, in practice further restricting the access of CSOs and the public to key policy decisions. Furthermore, there is a lack of clarity on what constitutes public information and what can be shared outside of public sector. Even though Montenegro is committed to open data standards, many data sets that are being published do not meet real needs at the ground. In the field of open data, Montenegro ranks among the three last countries in Europe and 83rd among 115 countries overall, according to the Open Data Barometer. Key gaps and obstacles have been identified in terms of publishing or making data available in online, machine-readable and reusable data formats, whether the data are free of charge, openly licensed, up to date, and whether they are easily searchable for user needs. On the other hand, Global Open Data Index explores 15 different datasets according to the six criteria that determine the extent and characteristics of open data, including: openly licensed, open and machine-readable format, downloadable at once, up to date, publicly available and free of charge. According to the last update, Montenegro is ranked on the 49th place in the world.

Montenegro is a signatory to the Open Government Partnership initiative and is currently working on a new Action Plan, while the previous one was based on 6 commitments related to access to information, citizen participation, public services and anti-corruption. One of the obligations within the Access to information - openness of state authorities was to improve the open data management system through collection, classification and distribution of open data through a single centralized point that will ensure greater openness and new opportunities for citizens and businesses to create new value from the available data. By opening data, government fosters the development of creative businesses and knowledge-based economy, and in return it gets the feedback that can be used for improving data quality. The preconditions for re-use of information have been put in place with the Law amending the Free Access to Information Law, with authorities now being obliged to publish the information for re-using in an easily searchable, open and electronically readable format at the www.data.gov.me. The open data portal has been established with a view to a more efficient exercise of the freedom of information rights and contributes to using the data for commercial and non-commercial purposes via a shared metadata catalogue and serves as a foundation for setting standards in public data management. However, the provision for non-disclosure of data in a format prescribed by the Rulebook on the manner of publishing data in an open format is not legally regulated. Therefore, although the open data web portal contains over 130 sets of open data published by 19 public administration institutions, not all data sets meet the openness standards prescribed by the International Open Data Charter.

In addition, a new Public Administration Reform Strategy 2022-2026 is being developed, which aims to promote better access to open, innovative, participatory and transparent public administration, with greater access to information, especially through digitalization of services and interoperable registers, creating a more agile administration closer to citizens and businesses. Through the main strategic objectives, this policy act will regulate the availability of data without request, effective monitoring for proactive disclosure of data, as well as deviation from the practice of declaring documents secret. It is planned to improve the national open data portal, revise the existing available open data sets, identify high value-added open data sets and ensure their update, and raise awareness of the public and public administration about the importance of open data and the benefits of their reuse. Also, the Digital Transformation Strategy, which is also being drafted, envisages improving the accessibility and interoperability of data and increasing digital knowledge and skills.

Duties and Responsibilities

Objectives of the assignment:

The objective of the assignment is to assess and collect high-value open data sets of public administration in Montenegro. These sets should meet the criteria of transparency, legal availability and public interest, which opening up will lead to direct cost reductions in data management, production and exchange and that may bring great value to a specific target group in line with the DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council on open data and the re-use of public sector information.

Job content:

Under the supervision of the UNDP Project Manager and in consultation with the Ministry of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, the consultant will perform the following tasks:

• Present a methodology and a timeframe for the implementation of tasks defined by ToR
• Assess the Montenegrin and EU legal framework that regulates open data management, propose harmonization and best practices that can be applied
• Identify responsible public administration institutions and organize consultative meetings with focal points to assess available data sets on data.gov.me portal and the possibilities and measures for the improvement
• Identify pilot areas within which is necessary to collect, process and create a high-value open data sets, based on the:

- DIRECTIVE (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council on open data and the re-use of public sector information, - inputs from the UNDP conducted survey/focus groups, - revision of existing data sets from the data.gov.me portal and according from the inputs from the consultative meetings with responsible institutions, - Study on implementation of open data system by Montenegrin institutions (Open Data for European Open innovation - ODEON), - strategic priorities of the Government and development programs (National Strategy for Sustainable Development of Montenegro, Economic Reform Program, Development Directions of Montenegro etc.), - best EU and regional practices,

• Develop and present high-value open data sets on the data.gov.me portal and to the stakeholders (civil society, businesses and academia),
• Present a template for the collection of these data sets and modality for the automatic update of high-value open data sets to ensure their constant updating and availability, which directly contributes to shortening data acquisition procedures for most important users and increasing transparency and accountability of public administration,
• Prepare an overview of key findings and recommendations relevant for this process,
• Prepare the Final report on undertaken activities to the UNDP Project Manager. It should contain sufficient details and information that would allow for the appraisal of the effectiveness to date of the assignment’s activities.

The expected results: Under the supervision of the UNDP Project Manager, and in consultation with the Ministry of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, the consultant is expected to deliver the following results:

• Methodology and a timeframe for the implementation of tasks defined by ToR,
• Brief on the Montenegrin and EU legal framework that regulates open data management, with recommendations for the harmonization considering best practices that can be applied,
• Developed high-value open data sets and present them on data.gov.me portal,
• Develop the template for the collection of high-value data sets and recommend the modality for the automatic update of these sets to ensure their constant updating and availability,
• Report on key findings and recommendations relevant for this process,
• The Final Report on undertaken activities.

Timing and reporting: The international consultant will be engaged under individual contract, for total of 25 days in the period from April 10th to May 9th, 2022. The consultant will work under direct supervision of UNDP Project Manager and in consultation with the Ministry of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media. The consultant will be responsible to prepare the Final report to the UNDP Project Manager, and it should contain sufficient details and information that would allow for the appraisal of the effectiveness to date of the assignment’s activities.

Time duration and travel: The local consultant will be engaged under individual contract, for total of 25 consultancy days, during the period from April 10th to May 9th, 2022. During the engagement, the consultant will be home based with planned one visit to Podgorica lasting 5 days, so it is necessary to include daily fees and travel expenses in the lump sum.

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UN/UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Excellent communication skills, facility in working with teams and capacity to compose clear and readable narrative reports;
• Demonstrates ability to manage complexities and work under pressure, as well as conflict resolution skills;
• Excellent organizational and time management skills;
• Knowledge Management and Learning;
• Shares knowledge and experience;
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills;
• Ability to perform a variety of standard tasks related to Results Management, including collecting of documentation, data entering, preparation of revisions, filling, provision of information;
• Ability to provide input to business processes re-engineering, implementation of new systems;
• Excellent inter-personal and communication skills;
• Ability to work independently and in a team.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• University degree in Social Science / IT

Experience:

• Minimum five years of working experience in the fields related to digitalization
• Exceptional experience and understanding of open data and creation of open data sets
• Good knowledge in analysing and processing data, and preparation of extensive reports
• Knowledge regarding EU trends in open data management, especially in the creation of high-value open data sets will be considered an advantage
• Knowledge of the public administration system in Montenegro

Language:

• Fluency in Montenegrin language
• Excellent command of spoken and written English language.

Criteria for selection:

Combined Scoring method will be used. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: (i) responsive, compliant, acceptable, and (ii) 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% (Background and education 10%; Relevant previous experience 20%; Substantial knowledge/Required competencies 30%; Required language 10%);
• Financial criteria weight - 30%.

Only offerors obtaining a minimum 490 points for technical criteria will be considered for the financial evaluation. For more information on procurement methodology for Individual Contractors, please refer to Procurement Notice.

Application procedure:

Interested applicants are requested to submit their applications by March 27, 2022 by using the Apply now button. The application should contain CV or P11 that can be downloaded at https://www.me.undp.org/content/montenegro/en/home/jobs.html. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file.

Only the short-listed applicants will be contacted and requested to submit a letter of interest including a price quotation indicating the lump sum (in EUR) requested for the work envisaged in the section "Description of Responsibilities".