Individual Consultant – Consultant to liaison with various govt officials, gather data and finalize Covid Resilience Proposal and present to Municipalities of Cities (Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Am

Contract

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

Background

India is actively pursuing to actualize the ambitious goals of “Transforming the World by 2030” and in this pursuit National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog and Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) are spearheading initiatives through a systematic and coordinated manner. Central Government has finalised the indicators, mapped the central sector schemes with goals and is in the process of institutionalization of a monitoring framework as well as creation of performance ranking indexes. State Governments are in the process of localisation of the SDG agenda and has found the process as a bit confusing as the long-term Fifteen Year Vision Planning process was a departure from the ongoing Five-Year Plans. Government of India has recently constituted the High-Level Committee to fast-track the agenda and monitor the progress of SDGs. United Nations as mandated is actively working with the national and state governments to ensure the dreams of 1.3 billion people living in one of the fastest growing economy of the world.

The UN General Assembly, and all its 193-member countries, in September 2015 adopted a global development vision entitled Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This 2030 Agenda was designed as a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It lays out 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets, to stimulate global action over the next 15 years on issues critical to humanity and the planet. It recognizes that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs including education, health, social protection and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection. At the sub-national level, where progress is key to India achieving the SDGs, the state governments have been developing long-term vision documents based on the SDGs and Parliament has devoted regular time for discussion on the SDGs.

UNDP North Region has set ambitious targets for itself for achieving its objectives set out in its Smart City Action Plan for building Covid Resilience. In the coming years, the SDG Smart Cities Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla and Dharmshala sees itself evolving as a development leaders, not only in the country, but also in South Asia, making its presence felt in the global arena.

The Project Coordinator will work under the overall leadership and guidance of Regional Head – North. The Project Coordinator will leverage broad-based partnerships to work towards the designing of new projects, adopting city covid resilient technologies, integration of UNDP SDG interventions focussed on cities and further growing of UNDP’s portfolio in the North Region. S/He will develop resource mobilization tools to manage the immediate threat of COVID-19 and build long-term resilience across cities. It will also include a series of enablers in areas such as repurposing existing facilities, smarter data analytics, the development of alternative emergency funding options and more effective cross-sector smart city level governance. S/he will coordinate efforts with the for better linkages across UNDP’s programme areas. The incumbent is also expected to provide advice in business development, project design, writes Concept notes, project proposals, research new interventions for cities for building covid resilience and resource mobilization at the North Region level.

Duties and Responsibilities

Engages in partnership building and resource mobilization in North Region Cities (****Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla and Dharmshala):

• Analysis and research of information on funding windows and any other potential sources, preparation of substantive briefs on possible opportunities for partnerships with the Smart city office in particular with a focus on Government cost-sharing.
• Preparation of project proposals based on the requirements from Smart city offices in North Region for submission to Government/Private sector/Foundations/ bi-lateral and multilateral agencies.
• Coordinate activities and communications with all relevant stakeholders to build and strengthen existing strengthen relationships with partners and relevant government counterparts.
• Identifies capacity building and institutional development needs and implementation of appropriate interventions to enhance capacity and skills in the North region for programme/project development and resources mobilization
• Develop and support implementation of UNDP’s strategy, making the business case for a closer private sector engagement focusing on both partnerships in CSR and core businesses.
• Organize private sector/public sector/banking institutions networking meetings and channelize funding in collaboration with Smart Cities in North Region.
• Organise North region SDG smart city conference/workshops for building covid resilience.
• To provide technical support in review of proposals submitted by UNDP, solutions mapping for identified development bottlenecks in the North region.
• Coordinate with Aspirational Smart city officials to identify the Low hanging fruits and prepare the project proposals to support the Smart cities in the North region for funding from CSR window of CPSEs and innovation proposals.
• Support in developing strategies to transform the human development indices in Aspirational Smart Cities.
• Establish and Maintain strategic contacts and association with relevant partners, follow-up proactively on engagement ideas.

Provides Support in oversight and in setting up and management of UNDP intervention centres through:

• Support in setting up UNDP Intervention centres and in ensuring full compliance of SDG Smart cities office operations with UNDP rules, regulations and policies.
• Support in Identifying approaches and modalities to achieve set management targets, ensuring cost-effectiveness and a satisfactory return on investment of the North Region smart city to build covid resilience for long term.
• Support in Identifying suitable partnership instruments and operational modalities for UNDP’s engagement with the State governments and negotiating non-standard instruments and modalities with the State governments, the UNDP country office and HQ, as needed.

Ensures facilitation of knowledge generation and management through:

• Provide support to formulate and develop best lessons learnt products, Smart city innovative interventions and resource mobilization tools for building covid resilience.
• Ensure quality assurance of knowledge products with relevance for UNDP’s work on signature solutions.
• Identifies, synthesize and share lessons learnt and good practices directly linked to UNDP policy goals.
• Identifies sources of information related to policy-driven issues; and quality contribution to knowledge networks to support the provision of quality advisory services and facilitation of knowledge building and management.
• Any other work related to SDG Smart cities and partnership suggested by the supervisor.

Consolidates and composes project narratives, reports and resource materials

• Reviews, writes and packages project reports and resource materials, i.e. using creative applications to produce and publish project reports with infographics including presentations slide desks, briefing materials, etc

Competencies

Functional competencies:

• Ability to produce high quality outputs in a timely manner while understanding and anticipating the evolving client needs.
• Strong analytical, research and writing skills with demonstrated ability to think strategically.
• Strong writing skills, particularly short, simple and engaging posts.
• An understanding of Sustainable Development Goals and previous Millennium Development Goals in the context of the country. Understanding of development context in India’s and UN’s activities
• Engage staff and stakeholders in understanding the links between the organization’s strategy and goals.

Core competencies:

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills and proven ability to work in a multicultural setting.
• Should possess excellent qualitative and quantitative skills.
• Promotes and enforces ethics and integrity and creates precedence in good practice.
• Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning

Required Skills and Experience

Required qualification and experience:

Educational qualifications:

• Post-graduate or equivalent in Public Administration, Economics, Management, Development Studies, Social Sciences, or closely related field.

Experience:

• 10-15 years of relevant experience at the national and international level in designing programmes and management advisory and support services and/or managing staff and operational systems.
• Proven experience and evidence in project designing and partnership development.
• Proven track record in providing policy advice and technical assistance.
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) and advanced knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages.
• Strong ability to analyze and visualize data in easy-to-grasp ways.

Desirable:

• Significant working experience in Government, International Organizations, Private Sector, Multilateral institutions focusing on development Sector.
• Sound understanding of the nuances of resource mobilization and partnership management.
• Experience in implementing large scale development or government programmes.

Language:

• Fluency in written and oral English. Proficiency in Hindi would be mandatory.

Travel

• Travel to SDG Smart cities of North Region (Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Shimla and Dharmshala) as and when required. All travel will require prior approval from Regional Head – North UNDP, India.

Evaluation Criteria

The award of the contract shall be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as Responsive to the requirement. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

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

• Technical Criteria weight - 70%

• Financial Criteria weight – 30 %

Technical Criteria (70% of the total evaluation)

1. Post-graduate or equivalent in Public Administration, Economics, Management, Development Studies, Social Sciences, or closely related field - 20%
2. 10-15 years of relevant experience at the national and international level in designing programmes and management advisory and support services and/or managing staff and operational systems - 30 %
3. Excellent demonstrated documentation skills vis-a-vis MS Office Suite and prior experience in developing concept notes/reports/project plans will be essential - 20%

Financial Criteria: (30% of the total evaluation) based on the total all-inclusive lump sum amount for the professional fee for tasks specified in this announcement

Financial Proposal:

Technically qualified consultants will be requested to submit their daily fee rate i.e. consultants who score more than 70% i.e. 49 marks with respect to the above-mentioned evaluation criteria. Consultant should not specify their consultancy fee on their CV or with the submission. The CV will not be evaluated further in case the consultant submits the same.

Payment Schedule

Deliverable

Payment

Project proposals are prepared for three cities

15%

Project proposals are prepared for remaining three cities

15%

1. Presentation is given to three city officials
2. Two networking meetings are organized for private sector/public sector/banking institutions/other relevant stakeholders

30%

1. Presentation is given to three city officials
2. Two conference/workshops organized for building covid resilience of relevant stakeholders.

30%

Final project report documenting all processes is submitted

10%

All deliverables will be approved by Regional Head – North UNDP, India before disbursement of payment.

Management Arrangement / Other details:

• The consultant will report to Regional Head – North UNDP, India.
• The Consultant will need to be self-sufficient in the use of information and communication technologies. Costs related to communication equipment, phone, laptop etc. (if any), will have to borne by the consultant. Consultant will need to have own laptop.
• UNDP shall not bear any reimbursements for relocation charges.
• Out of pocket expenses for official work will be reimbursed after proper prior approvals and bill attestations.
• The rights to the draft and final documents shall remain with UNDP.

UNDP 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.