International Consultant - IC - INT/2020/011 - Systems Change Facilitator for Sustainable Cashmere Platform Project

Consultant Leadership

Contract

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Background

Cashmere is a strategic commodity in Mongolia making the sector an important pillar of the country’s economy, supporting the livelihood of about million pastoralist herders. Increasing global demand for natural fibres and more accessible ‘luxury’ products has resulted in unprecedented surge in demand for cashmere. It was followed by rapid expansion of goat herds in Mongolia, the world’s second largest producer of cashmere, causing significant environmental degradation due to overgrazing, deforestation, erosion of the landscape and rangeland and loss of biodiversity. While the herders acknowledge and face disappearing pastureland, they struggle to change everyday practices and are largely uninformed about ways to shift to more sustainable herding and raw material preparation and production which is also true for national processing companies.

UNDP Mongolia with the support of UNDP Green Commodities Program recognized the need to introduce sustainability measures into cashmere sector and initiated the Mongolia Sustainable Cashmere Platform (MSCP) with the overarching objective to position Mongolia as a global leader for sustainable cashmere. The platform’s Steering Committee has been established in May 2020 and three technical working groups (TWG) are operational as part of the Platform’s planned activities: one on Consensus on sustainability, one on COVID-19 recovery and one International market sector advisory group. Building on the discussion and collective work of these TWGs, the first plenary meeting of the MSCP is planned for 20 November 2020 in Ulaanbaataar as well as virtually for the international platform members. The plenary meeting is a consensus building multi-stakehlder forum with the aim to accelerate collective action in the Mongolian cashmere sector to make it sustainable and competitive.

The disruption of Mongolia’s cashmere industry resulting from COVID-19 combined with broader changes in global supply chains and the fashion industry have also created unprecendented opportunity for creating structural shifts in the cashmere industry. As the cashmere platform looks to take advantage of the opportunity to make the shift towards a high quality and sustainable cashmere industry, it is seeking the support of an expert with experience in systems change, collective action and design thinking to support the planning, design and delivery of a set of initiatives to aligh the industry around creating systems change.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

1. Support for preparing and delivering the MSCP Plenary Meeting Provide support in designing the November workshop, including guides for session topics, session activities, and frameworks using a systems change and collective impact approach.

• Provide support for stakeholder workshops in advance of the November meeting to develop the shared mission and agenda for sustainable cashmere and the platform.
• Train local facilitators to conduct activities during the November meeting or pre-meeting workshops.
• Produce a report documenting key agreements from the November meeting.

2. Public Advocacy – Cashmere systems mapping and scenario planning

Cashmere leverage points report?. A report that highlights the top leverage points to shift the cashmere sector to being high quality and sustainable, laying out key focus areas for Mongolia’s cashmere industry.

Scenarios brief.? A short publication that can be communicated to government and cashmere industry stakeholders to lay out potential futures and build the case for change.

• Hold conversations with key stakeholders to clarify the scenarios (where needed).
• Produce a brief with the scenarios developed by participants for sharing within the industry and the greater public.
• Make changes to the scenarios based on stakeholder feedback.

3. Platform Road Map upgrade using systems change lens

Platform activation upgrade?. Assemble a plan of events and digital platforms to build momentum, bring stakeholders together, connect them with the cashmere platform, and act as a beginning of a longer journey towards system change.

• Plan a series of events and identify platforms participants can continue communicating on online to develop continuous communication and trust between key stakeholders in the community between the start of the project and the end of the year.
• Lay out a roadmap of workshops, meetings, and capacity building for community leaders for the next year to build the community’s capacity for acting systemically and collectively, including to jointly build the collective action plan with key stakeholders and to develop initial collaborations between stakeholders for systems change.

4. Accelerating Collective Action

This area of work includes a series of initial activities designed to build stakeholder commitment, relationships, and surface community leadership in the cashmere industry.

Deep listening support?. Provide support for existing field research on deep listening methodology and to align the field research with the leverage points identified for the leverage points report and to uncover change opportunities offered by COVID-19.

Support in developing the conversation guides for interviews.

Calls to provide feedback on the field research as it is happening and identify new research questions and directions.

Identify and scope experiments?. In partnership with stakeholders, identify and scope out an initial set of experiments and “low hanging fruit” projects that activate the technical working groups and serve to build collaborations between participants around systems change in the COVID-19 recovery.

Guide discussions with key stakeholders to identify and scope out potential collaborations and experiments.

Support the development of the experiments, including the questions they are seeking to answer, how they might be conducted, and how they might be evaluated.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

Deliverables/ Outputs

Estimated Duration to Complete

Target Due Dates

Payment schedule

Review and Approvals Required

Q4 activation plan with description of events, agenda and target groups

Building on previous COVID-19 TWG discussion and reporting, produce an expanded report identifying initial leverage points for Mongolia’s cashmere industry, including a system map.

3 days

November 2020

10%

Shinenemekh Volooj

Mongolia Platform Manager

Nashida Sattar

UNDP Mongolia Deputy Resident Representative

Leverage Point Report(Less than 20 pages.) and Scenario brief

15 days

November 2020

20%

Final Workshop Report

6 days

November 2020

20%

Platform prototyping brief

10 days

December 2020

20%

2021 Road Map for collective action describing workshops, meetings, and capacity building programs over 2021

4 days

December 2020

30%

Institutional Arrangement

The International Consultant will work in close collaboration with the UNDP Green Commodities Programme and the Mongolia Sustainable Cashmere Platform team. The consultant will also work closely with the stakeholders involved in the MSCP – including but not limited to the Advisory Committee, Steering Committee and International Market Sector Advisory Group.

The International consultant will meet virtually at least once a week with the Platform Manager during the period of the assignment. The focal point with UNDP for the assignment will be the Platform Manager.

The presented TOR may be subject to modification, without changing the overall objective and the scope of work. UNDP will hold the copyright of the assignment of deliverables.

Duration of the Work

The work is expected to start in October 2020 for a total duration of 38 workdays.

Duty Station

The work will be home based with no travel required.

Detailed information can be found in the Terms of Reference (TOR), which is available in the following link:

https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=71008

If you meet the qualifications of the announced vacancy, please submit the following documents by the deadline 19 October 2020 11:00a.m. Ulaanbaatar time (GMT+8). Incomplete and late applications will be excluded from further consideration.

When submitting your application, it can be made in electronic submission to bids.mn@undp.org:

• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
• Personal CV or P11 application form, 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;
• Technical proposal including a) a brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment; and b) a methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment;
• Sample report, related to the previous work on systems thinking/systems change/Design thinking;
• ****Financial Proposal**** that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per the template provided. Note: Proposal must be indicated in United States Dollars (USD).

The UNDP reserves the right to accept or reject, in part or whole, any or all of the proposals at any time without assigning any reason.

Only the successful candidate will be notified of contract award.

Competencies

• Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
• Strong analytical, reporting and writing abilities skills;
• Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback;
• Ability to plan, organize, implement and report on work;
• Ability to work under pressure and tight deadlines;
• In-depth knowledge of Systems Change, multi-stakeholder collaboration, design thinking
• Proficiency in the use of office IT applications and internet in conducting research;
• Outstanding communication, project management and organizational skills;
• Excellent presentation and facilitation skills.
• Demonstrates integrity and ethical standards;
• Positive, constructive attitude to work;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Required Skills and Experience

Educational Qualifications:

• Master’s degree or higher in Public Administration/Policy, International Development, International Relationship, Political Science, Economics, Industrial/Strategic Design, Organizational Development, Psychology, Social Work or other related fields;
• Certificate in social innovation, policy and innovation, systems thinking and innovation, social change, community development, collaborative meeting facilitation or other related programmes will be an asset;

Experience

• A minimum of 3 years of professional experience in systems thinking/systems change/Design thinking;
• Experience in leading a minimum of two similar assignments in the last five years;
• Experience in delivering training and facilitating workshops as part of a systemic design project;
• Experience working in development projects with UN agencies or international development organizations will be an advantage;

Language requirements

• Excellent written and spoken English is required.

Apply now

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