Individual Contractor (IC) – Trade/Regional integration Expert

Consultant

Overview

Conduct analysis to enhance regional economic integration and trade in the Arab region.

You have:

• Master’s Degree in Economics, International Trade, Development Economics, Public Policy or any other related field.
• Minimum 10 years of relevant experience at the international level with a focus on international trade, regional integration and development.
• Proven experience in impact evaluation in the mentioned fields.
• Previous experience of undertaking research on trade and trade integration.
• Fluency in both written and oral English is required. Good knowledge of French and/or Arabic would be an advantage.

Contract

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

Background

CONTEXT/BACKGROUND

Regional economic integration through stronger trade and investment ties is instrumental to the process of enhancing the competitiveness, resilience, and the transformative capacity of the economies in the region. Greater Arab economic integration still stands as an untapped opportunity that has the potential in accelerating the achievement of the sustainable development goals, including stronger economic growth, the creation of productive jobs, and the reduction of poverty –the core focus of outcome 1 of the UNDP Regional Programme (2022-2025). Indeed, economic integration entails larger markets and consequently more gains at the trade, investment and prosperity levels. In 2020, the Arab region’s trade openness – measured as the sum exports and imports ratio-to-GDP was 74 percent – 22 percentage points higher than the global average in the same year. However, this relatively high regional average is highly driven by oil and gas trade and masks significant variations among countries. For example, trade openness has reached in 2020 a high of 162 percent in UAE compared to a low of 4 percent in Sudan. In addition, the extent of trade openness makes some countries more vulnerable to global trade disruptions than others.

Despite the well documented benefits of economic integration and relatively high overall trade openness, the Arab region has been unable to harness the economic benefits associated with greater regional economic cooperation. Existing trade agreements have been unable to intensify intra-regional trade and stimulate further economic integration. Though increasing over time, intra-regional trade in the Arab States was only 12.9 percent of total trade in 2019, which is lower than other regions. At the subregional level, trade among Arab Maghreb Union member countries accounts for just 2.4 percent of total trade, one of the world’s lowest levels of trade integration, compared with 14.7 percent for Mercosur in South America and 8.6 percent for the Economics Community of West African States in Africa. It is also often noted that a stylized fact of the Arab region is the low intra-industry trade in goods and the low share of intra-Arab manufacturing global value chains (GVCs) in total trade.

This low level of intra-regional trade is existent despite the presence of a variety of preferential and regional trade agreements. For example, and specifically in the case of PAFTA, the volume of Arab intra trade between the member states of PAFTA still did not achieve the desired growth, despite the improvement witnessed in 2018 during which the value of Arab intra trade increased by a modest rate of 1.6 percent, compared to 2017 levels.In addition, most of these intra-trade transactions are focused within nearby countries. For example, in 2018, 68 percent of the UAE’s exports in the Arab region were directed to KSA and Oman; 78.3 percent of Bahrain’s exports in the Arab region were to UAE, KSA and Oman; 77.1 percent of Tunisia’s exports in the Arab region were to Libya, Algeria and Morocco; 96.3 percent of Algeria’s exports in the Arab region were directed to Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco; and 92.2 percent of Sudan’s exports in the Arab region were directed to UAE, KSA and Egypt.

Previous studies have identified some key hurdles to greater Arab intra-regional trade alluding to the dire need for more diversification, a higher complementarity, and lower trade frictions.Others point to the fact that “behind the border” constraints are responsible for a considerable gap between potential and actual trade among Arab countries.In addition, non-tariff measures (NTMs), limited foreign direct investment and institutional capacity, restricted labour mobility, limited trade readiness and competitiveness of SMEs to produce and trade through intra-Arab marketplaces, and the limited capacities of national and regional institutions to create an enabling environment conducive to the realization of existing trade agreements that shall benefit the Arab populations, especially women and youth have all been identified as barriers. Other factors pertinent to businesses that were cited in previous research on international trade in the Arab region include the complexity of dealing with diverse trade agreements, limited harmonization of tariff and non-tariff measures, lack of an adequate regulatory framework for trade in services, inadequate transport and logistics infrastructure, and a business environment that is not supportive enough of firms’ ambition to participate in international trade.

Other more specific challenges in relation to PAFTA implementation as reported by a 2019 survey conducted by the Union of Arab Chamber, were, but not limited to, difficulties in the financial transactions between importers and exporters, problems associated with customs procedures; the bureaucracy in the customs’ processes; the incomplete enforcement of the customs exemptions applied by some PAFTA member states; the non-tariff barriers (NTBs), and the lack of awareness sessions and capacity building programs to the Arab private sectors.

Against this background, there is a growing need for digging deeper into these challenges to highlight the main impediments that affect intra-Arab trade, the existing untapped opportunities and the lessons learned from interventions that worked and that did not work with respect to the Arab region trade integration, especially when it comes to enabling the private sector to access markets within the region. This calls for a better understanding of the structure of exports in terms of composition, degree of sophistication and geographic destination within the Arab countries, identifying and assessing the untapped export potential for products and for destination markets, and analysing factors that help explain why the existing trade agreements did not lead to deep integration. To this end, this study’s main objective is to undertake the necessary analyses that would help understand the bottlenecks pertaining to unlocking the region’s intra-regional trade within a broader framework of greater regional economic integration

OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT

This study is one of two contracted research studies on regional economic integration that aim at providing a better understanding of the current status and prospects of greater Arab regional integration through mapping and identification of the main challenges and opportunities, as well as existing and promising value chains. Both studies will include in-depth analyses of at least 6 Arab countries, representing the different income groups (high and low- and middle-income countries). The overall objective of this study is to provide a better understanding of the state of regional integration in the Arab region through in-depth country-level analyses that aim at identifying the key impediments for greater integration, existing trade opportunities taking into account recent global trade developments, reviewing countries needs and priorities, and propose key impactful policy interventions and measures at the regional, sub-regional and national levels that shall inform the development of the UNDP’s new programme on regional economic integration in the Arab States region.

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK, RESPONSIBILITIES AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED WORK

The consultant will be responsible for conducting an overall analysis of trade performance within the Arab region over the past decade, and undertaking in-depth analyses for at least six Arab countries that would help better understand the key impediments and opportunities with a special focus on hurdles affecting the private sector in the agricultural, manufacturing and services sectors to access new markets especially for SMEs, identifying existing opportunities taking into account the global trade developments, as well as proposing the needed interventions by the different stakeholders. In doing so, the consultant will:

• Develop a methodology and implementation plan for the study;
• Provide an overview on how trade within the Arab region has progressed over the past decade in terms of growth, composition, degree of sophistication and geographic destination, as well as key political economy considerations;
• Explore trade opportunities within the Arab region through identifying common products by conducting analysis at the disaggregated product- level (preferably at HS 4-digit level);
• Conduct a landscape assessment of trade and other related policies in at least 6 countries, bearing in mind political economy considerations, and evaluate how gender inclusive these policies are;
• Develop, for the selected countries, a detailed overview of the country’s economic performance and economic trends over the past decade; political and diplomatic relations with other Arab countries; existing key trade-related policies and trade-related procedures; rating on transparency, accountability, access to information, women and youth inclusion, and equity;
• Analyse export performance in terms of composition and relatedness of exported products at the country level, geographic concentration, and relatedness to traded products at the regional and global levels;
• Analyse the gender aspect of regional trade challenges and opportunities in accessing new markets and what trade policy reforms are needed to ensure that women can benefit from greater regional integration based, whenever possible, on data disaggregated by sex;
• Conduct an in-depth analysis of supply-side constraints including the adequacy of trade-related infrastructure, availability of trade finance, access to technology and information, etc and propose measures at the country to alleviate these constraints;

• Identify the regulatory barriers among other impediments to trade and propose the required regulatory reforms to deal with the existing challenges;

• Undertake research based on available firm-level data (such as ITC NTMs business surveys which could help evaluate the regulatory and procedural obstacles that firms face at home and abroad);

• Present the results of the study to relevant stakeholders and support the development of the regional integration new programme activities;
• Ensure that the principles of gender equality and Leave No One Behind are adequately reflected in the analysis.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES

The consultant is expected to conduct an overview of the status of the progress of trade integration at the regional level, as well as conducting in-depth analyses for at least six countries (two from each income group) that shall inform future interventions through better understanding of the key impediments, existing opportunities and countries’ priorities. The methodology should be: a) conflict and gender sensitive, b) outline data gathering and analysis plan, and c) responsive to the context and the practical needs of the UNDP RBAS. Taking this framework into consideration, the consultant is expected to undertake:

• Quantitative and qualitative analysis of available primary and secondary data, from existing international data sources (UN COMTRADE, ITC, Trade Map, WTO, UNCTAD ..etc), national sources and based on data collected in UNDP’s previous regional programme that was concluded in March 2022;
• Desk review of documents that were produced based on existing analysis (from UNCTAD, UNDP, WTO, AMF, LAS, UNDP, EMEA, EMANES, Femise, OECD, IMF, WB, etc) on regional economic integration;
• Key informant interviews—UN partners (at regional and national levels), relevant government counterparts (export promotion agencies), regional organizations (Economic Research Forum and other think-thanks), private sector (Union of Arab chamber, business enterprises); business associations; women’s organizations; academia and others including consultants worked in the previous regional integration project as deemed essential).

EXPECTED OUTPUTS AND DELIVERABLES

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

Expected number of working days for each deliverable

Targeted Due Dates/Time Frame

Review and Approvals Required

Deliverable 1: Inception report with detailed outline, methodology and timeframe

Up to (8) working days

Within 10 calendar day(s) from contract signature date

Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Finance Team Leader, UNDP’s Regional Hub for Arab States

Deliverable 2: In depth analysis for one country as reference

Up to (8) working days

Up to 2 calendar week(s) from contract signature date

Deliverable 3: A first draft study

Up to (32) working days

Up to 9 calendar week(s) from contract signature date

Deliverable 4: Final study with feedback and comments incorporated

Up to (8) working days

Up to 12 calendar week(s) from contract signature date

Deliverable 5: Present the findings of the study to relevant stakeholders

Up to (2) working days

Competencies

Corporate

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness, by modeling the UN/UNDP’s values and ethical standards;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional

• Excellent analytical skills with ability to compile, analyse and interpret quantitative and qualitative data, prepare reports and draw conclusions and recommendations;
• Excellent technical writing and written communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize relevant collected data and findings for the preparation of quality analysis for the project proposal;
• Strong knowledge of the Arab States region, including strong understanding of preferential trade agreements;
• Knowledge and understanding of gender equality issues in the region and gender lens of trade is desirable;
• Excellent oral and written communication skills to engage experts and liaising with external and internal stakeholders as appropriate;
• Ability to write clear and concise technical reports;
• Familiarity with the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and the SDGs;
• Ability to the use of computers and office software packages and handling of web-based management systems;
• Ability to use a statistical software such as STATA, R or CGE modelling would be desirable;
• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;

Leadership skills, with capacity to lead a team and ensure timely results;

• Good team player with the ability to maintain good relationships.

Leadership

• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and to provide credible leadership;
• Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development experience;

Managing Relationships

• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain strategic partnerships;
• Demonstrated well developed people management and organizational management skills;
• Excellent negotiating and networking skills with strong partnerships in academia, technical organizations and as a recognized expert in the practice area.

Managing Complexity

• Ability to address global development issues;
• Demonstrated substantive leadership and ability to integrate knowledge with broader strategic, policy and operational objectives.

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Ability to strongly promote and build knowledge products;
• Seeks and applies knowledge, information and best practices from within and outside of UNDP;
• Demonstrates a strong capacity for innovation and creativity in providing policy advice and direction.

Judgment/Decision-Making

• Mature judgment and initiative;
• Proven ability to provide strategic direction to the project implementation process;
• Independent judgment and discretion in advising on handling major policy issues and challenges, uses diplomacy and tact to achieve result.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s Degree in Economics, International Trade, Development Economics, Public Policy or any other related field;

Work experience:

• Minimum 10 years of relevant experience at the international level with a focus on international trade, regional integration and development;
• Proven experience in impact evaluation in the mentioned fields;
• Previous experience of undertaking research on trade and trade integration;
• Proven experience in leading design of project proposals, particularly in trade ;
• Strong expertise in development programming, with a focus on trade and global and regional value chains issues;
• Strong knowledge of economic and development cooperation issues in the Arab region, with issues related to trade and regional integration would be desirable;
• Experience in dealing with senior members of national and international institutions.

Language Requirements:

• Language fluency in both written and oral English is required. Good knowledge of French and/or Arabic would be an advantage.

INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT

• The individual is required to exhibit his or her full-time commitment with UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS);
• S/He shall perform tasks under the general guidance and the direct supervision by the Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Finance Team Leader, with the substantive support by relevant Regional Hub’s Teams, including Governance, Energy, Gender, SDG Integration, and Innovation.
• The supervision will include approvals/acceptance of the outputs and deliverables as identified in the previous sections;
• The individual is required to maintain close communication with UNDP-RBAS on regular and needed basis at any period throughout the assignment in order to monitor progress. In the event of any delay, s/he will inform UNDP promptly so that decisions and remedial action may be taken accordingly. Delays that would affect the flow of the collaborative work and the delivery of outputs on schedule will lead to termination of contract; and
• Should UNDP deem it necessary, it reserves the right to commission additional inputs, reviews or revisions, as needed to ensure the quality and relevance of the work.

DURATION OF THE WORK

The duration of this assignment is expected to be (58) working days extended over a period of (3) calendar month(s) from contract signature date.

DUTY STATION

Home-based assignment.

TRAVEL PLAN

If any unforeseen travel outside the consultant home-based city is requested by UNDP and not required by the Terms of References (ToR), such travel shall be covered by UNDP in line with applicable rules and regulations and upon prior written agreement. In such cases, the consultant shall receive living allowances not exceeding the United Nations (UN) Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) rate for such other location(s).

SCOPE OF PRICE PROPOSAL AND SCHEDULE OF PAYMENTS

Interested candidates should provide lump sum fees for requested services with detailed breakdown. This amount must be “all-inclusive”. Please note that the terms “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, consumables, etc.) that could possibly be incurred are already factored into the final amounts submitted in the proposal. Also, please note that the contract price will be Deliverables/Outputs based - not fixed - subject to change in the cost components.

The contractor will be paid an all-inclusive Deliverables/Outputs based lump sum amounts over the assignment period, subject to the submission of Certification of Payment (CoP) duly certified or an invoice and confirmation of satisfactory performance of achieved work (deliverables/outputs) in line with the schedule of payments table hereunder:

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

Expected number of working days for each deliverable

Targeted Due Dates/Time Frame

Review and Approvals Required

Deliverable 1: Inception report with detailed outline, methodology and timeframe

Up to (8) working days

Within 10 calendar day(s) from contract signature date

Up to 10% of total contract amount disbursed following the satisfactory delivery of deliverable(s) 1 and submission of a duly certified Certification of Payment (CoP)

Deliverable 2: In depth analysis for one country as reference

Up to (8) working days

Up to 2 calendar week(s) from contract signature date

Up to 30% of total contract amount disbursed following the satisfactory delivery of deliverable(s) 2 and submission of a duly certified Certification of Payment (CoP)

Deliverable 3: A first draft study

Up to (32) working days

Up to 9 calendar week(s) from contract signature date

Up to 60% of total contract amount disbursed following the satisfactory delivery of deliverable(s) 3, 4 & 5 and submission of a duly certified Certification of Payment (CoP)

Deliverable 4: Final study with feedback and comments incorporated

Up to (8) working days

Up to 12 calendar week(s) from contract signature date

Deliverable 5: Present the findings of the study to relevant stakeholders

Up to (2) working days

RECOMMENDED PRESENTATION OF OFFER

Interested individual consultants must submit documents under point 1, 2, & 3 to demonstrate their qualifications. Candidates that fail to submit these documents, the application will not be considered.

1. 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;
2. T****echnical Proposal: Outlining the methodology and overall understating of the assignment’s content and scope of work required to achieve desired outcomes;
3. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
4. Financial Proposal* When the financial proposal is requested it should indicates the all-inclusive Deliverables/Outputs based total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided. The terms “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, travel costs, living allowances, communications, consumables, etc.) that could possibly be incurred are already factored into the final amounts submitted in the proposal. If an 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 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.

** Please do not submit financial proposal in this stage. Financial proposal shall be requested from Candidates who are considered technically responsive*****.

Interested candidates can find Procurement Notice, Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability and P11 templates on the following link: http://procurement-notices.undp.org/.

Interested candidates shall submit required documents to Job Advertisement Website (https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_jobs.cfm) as one document not later than 05 November 2022.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF THE BEST OFFERS

This selection criteria will follow the Combined Scoring method – where the qualifications and methodology will be weighted a max. of 70%, and combined with the price offer which will be weighted a max of 30%; using the following evaluation criteria and methodology:

Step I: Screening and desk review:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Applications will be first screened and only candidates meeting the following minimum requirements will progress to the pool for shortlisting:

• Criteria A: Master’s Degree in Economics, International trade, Development Economics, Public Policy or any other related field;
• Criteria B: Minimum 10 years of relevant experience at the international level with a focus on international trade, regional integration and development;
• Criteria I: Language fluency in both written and oral English language;

Step II: :

Shortlisted candidates will undergo a technical evaluation which will include desk review for shortlisted candidates as per above criteria, and submission of a technical proposal to tackle the assignment.

Technical evaluation Criteria max 100 points (Weighted 70):

• Criteria A: Master’s Degree in Economics, International trade, Development Economics, Public Policy or any other related field (15 points);
• Criteria B: Minimum 10 years of relevant experience at the international level with a focus on international trade, regional integration and development (15 points);
• Criteria C: Proven experience in impact evaluation in the mentioned fields (5 points);
• Criteria D: Previous experience of undertaking research on trade and trade integration (10 points);
• Criteria E: Proven experience in leading design of project proposals, particularly in trade (10 points);
• Criteria F: Strong expertise in development programming, with a focus on trade and global and regional value chains issues (10 points);
• Criteria G: Strong knowledge of economic and development cooperation issues in the Arab region, with issues related to trade and regional integration would be desirable (10 points);
• Criteria H: Experience in dealing with senior members of national and international institutions (5 points);
• Criteria I: Language fluency in both written and oral English language (5 points);
• Criteria J: Knowledge of written and oral French and/or Arabic is an asset (5 points);
• Criteria K: Technical Proposal (10 points).

Shortlisted candidates will be assessed and scored against the following evaluation criteria:

Financial Criteria - 30% of total evaluation

For those offers considered in the financial evaluation, the lowest price offer will receive 30 points. The other offers will receive points in relation to the lowest offer, based on the following formula: (PI / Pn) * 30 where Pn is the financial offer being evaluated and Pl is the lowest financial offer received.

Step III: Final evaluation

The final evaluation will combine the scores of the desk review and the financial proposal with the following weights assigned to each:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the cumulative analysis methodology (weighted scoring method), where 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 technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Technical Criteria weight: [70%]

Financial Criteria weight: [30%]

Only Individual Consultants obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70%) on the Technical Evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

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Potential interview questions

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