Regional Social and Environmental Standards Oversight Support Consultant

Consultant Medical & Health

Overview

Support oversight of Social and Environmental Standards in high-risk projects

You have:

• Master’s degree in a field related to international development, environmental science, anthropology or similar field.
• At least 10 years of experience related to social and environmental safeguards.
• At least 10 years of experience related to impact assessment and management.
• At least 5 years of experience in applying social and environmental due diligence in project-level implementation and management.
• Minimum 3 years experience in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region.
• Fluency in English
• Fluency in Russian will be considered an asset.

Contract

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

Background

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work carried out at Headquarters, Regional and Country Office levels forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan.

Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Bureau (CB) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

The Social and Environmental Standards (SES) underpin UNDP’s support for sustainable development. The objectives of the standards are to:

• Strengthen the social and environmental outcomes of Programmes and Projects
• Avoid adverse impacts to people and the environment
• Minimize, mitigate, and manage adverse impacts where avoidance is not possible
• Strengthen UNDP and partner capacities for managing social and environmental risks
• Ensure full and effective stakeholder engagement, including through a mechanism to respond to complaints from project-affected people

The starting point to ensure these standards are applied is through UNDP’s project-level Social and Environmental Screening Procedure (SESP), which is a requirement for proposed projects. The objectives of the SESP are to: (a) integrate the SES Overarching Principles (human rights, gender equality and environmental sustainability); (b) identify potential social and environmental risks and their significance; (c) determine the Project's SES risk category, and (d) determine the level of assessment and management required to address potential social and environmental risks and impacts. All guidance on UNDP's Social and Environmental Standards can be found in the SES Toolkit.

The consultant will support oversight of the implementation of SES requirements, from project design through implementation, in high-priority and “High Risk” projects (e.g. GEF, GCF, crisis, others) in the Europe and CIS region. This will include quality assurance, spot-checking, and advising on measures to be taken to ensure effective implementation of and compliance with the SES. The consultant will also facilitate learning across the region and beyond, tracking and sharing lessons learned.

The consultant will work closely with programme colleagues in the Regional Hub, the RBx Safeguards Focal Point(s) and BPPS safeguards experts. For Nature, Climate and Energy (NCE) programmes and projects, the consultant will coordinate with the Regional Team Leader, Regional Technical Advisers and the BPPS NCE safeguards team in HQ.

Duties and Responsibilities

Support implementation of regional SES action plan

• Ensure a regional baseline is established to assess overall SES implementation and quality (applying corporate methodology and indicators). Regularly scan available data on SES implementation across the region to identify emerging risks or High Risk projects that may require additional oversight and support.
• Ensure that new projects prepare the SESP or appropriately claim the exemption.
• Conduct quality review of draft SESPs to ensure they meet technical standards and requirements, verify proper risk categorization, and to build internal capacity on SES.
• Identify common risks, capacity needs, challenges across the region and support the development of strategies to address these issues.
• Regularly monitor and report on the number of High-and Substantial risk projects, emerging issues, capacity needs and demand for support to ensure issues are escalated and additional support mobilized when needed.
• Support SES capacity development and trainings in the region and in COs.
• Provide adhoc support as needed to address SES capacities and emerging issues in the region, and other aspects of the regional SES action plan.

Targeted technical oversight and quality assurance for high risk and high priority projects

• Identify high risk/priority projects and advise on SES considerations as early as possible;
• Review draft and final SES documentation for projects (e.g. SESP, ESIA, ESMP, ESMF, IPP, RAP, SEP, relevant ToRs, etc) to ensure they meet technical standards and requirements;
• Advise regional and/or CO colleagues on new social and environmental risks or changes to project risk categorization;
• Identify issues on which additional technical support may be needed through the Global Policy Network or external consultants (e.g. through ExpRess roster);
• Undertake safeguards oversight missions, as needed.
• Track progress of high risk/priority projects’ implementation of required SES elements (ESIA, GRM, etc.).

Support corporate accountability, reporting, coordination and learning across regions

• Engage and coordinate with SES experts in Headquarters (Nature, Climate, Energy team and Effectiveness Group) and other regions to ensure consistency in policy interpretation and advice and share lessons learned and avoid duplication of efforts.
• Prepare an annual report on SES implementation in the region (applying corporate methodology and indicators).
• Convene regional and CO colleagues, and escalate issues as needed to the RBx and BPPS to ensure decisions are taken at the appropriate levels.
• Document lessons learned, including from cases where things went wrong as well as good models of SES implementation.

Information on Working Arrangements:

• The consultant will work from the Istanbul Regional Hub with mission travel;
• The consultant will report to the Chief of COST;
• The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• Given the global consultations to be undertaken during this assignment, the consultant is expected to be reasonably flexible with his/her availability for such consultations taking into consideration different time zones; and
• Payments will be made upon submission of a detailed time sheet and certification of payment form, and acceptance and confirmation by the Supervisor on days worked (with a “day” calculated as 8 hours of work) and outputs delivered. If the quality does not meet standards or requirements, the consultant will be asked to rewrite or revise (as necessary) the document before proceeding to payment.

Travel:

• Missions (incl. virtually) to approx. 10 countries (might also be conducted virtually if in-person not feasible; duration might vary depending on the country office’s baseline and complexity.;
• Such travel shall be at UNDP’s expense and the Individual Contractor shall receive a per diem not to exceed United Nations daily subsistence allowance. The mission travel cost will be excluded at this time from the price proposal.
• Any necessary mission travel must be approved in advance and writing by the Supervisor;
• The BSAFE course must be completed before the commencement of travel;
• Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director;
• Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under https://dss.un.org/dssweb/;
• The consultant will be responsible for making his/her mission travel arrangements in line with UNDP travel policies; and
• All travel expenses related to mission travels will be supported by the project travel fund and will be reimbursed as per UNDP rules and regulations for consultants. Costs for mission airfares, terminal expenses, and living allowances should not be included in the financial proposal.

Competencies

Corporate:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability; and
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism.

Technical:

• Demonstrated expertise in the development and quality assurance of safeguards instruments (e.g. ESIAs, ESMPs, ESMFs, IPPs, GRMs, RAPs)
• Excellent skills related to stakeholder engagement;
• Experience implementing social and environmental safeguards at the project level and providing technical support to implementing partners

Functional:

Communications

• Able to communicate effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner.

Professionalism

• Capable of working in a high- pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;

• Excellent analytical and organizational skills; and

• Exercises the highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner.

Teamwork

• Works well in a team;
• Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
• Focuses on results for the client; and
• Welcomes constructive feedback.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Master’s degree in a field related to international development, environmental science, anthropology or similar field. [max. 15 points]

Experience****:

At least 10 years of experience related to social and environmental safeguards. [max. 10 points]

At least 10 years of experience related to impact assessment and management. [max. 10 points]

At least 5 years of experience in applying social and environmental due diligence in project-level implementation and management. [max. 20 points]

Minimum 3 years experience in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region**. [max. 10 points]**

Languages: Fluency in English [max. 5 points]

Fluency in Russian will be considered an asset[max. 2 points].

Evaluation Method:

• Only those applications which are responsive and compliant will be evaluated. Incomplete applications will not be considered;
• Offers will be evaluated according to the Combined Scoring method – where the technical criteria will be weighted at 70% and the financial offer will be weighted at 30%;
• The technical criteria (education, experience, language [max. 70 points] and interview [max. 30 points]) will be based on a maximum 100 points. Only the top 3 candidates that have achieved a minimum of 52.5 points (75% of 70 points) from the review of education, experience and language will be deemed technically compliant and considered for the interview;
• The financial proposal shall specify an all-inclusive lump sum fee. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal must additionally include a breakdown of this daily fee (including all foreseeable expenses to carry out the assignment);
• An applicant receiving the Highest Combined Score and has accepted UNDP’s General Terms and Conditions will be awarded the contract.

Documentation to be submitted:

• Applicants must submit a duly completed and signed UNDP Personal History Form (P11) and/or CV including Education/Qualification, Professional Certification, Employment Records /Experience;
• Applicants must reply to the mandatory questions asked by the system when submitting the application.
• Applicants must submit a duly completed and signed Annex I Offeror´s letter to UNDP confirming interest and availability for the Individual Contractor (IC) assignment to be downloaded from the UNDP procurement site.

Kindly note you can upload only ONE document to this application (scan all documents in one single PDF file to attach).

UNDP Personal History Form (P11) required of all applicants:

General Conditions of Contract for the ICs:

Annex I Offeror´s letter to UNDP confirming interest and availability for the Individual Contractor (IC) assignment

Templates can be found under the link: https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=73614

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Potential interview questions

Added 5 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org