Technical Expert, Future Cities and Digitalisation

Contract

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

Background

The Global Centre for Technology, Innovation and Sustainable Development (GCTISD) is a joint initiative by the Government of Singapore and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to identify and co-create technological and innovative solutions to help countries achieve their Sustainable Development Goals.

The Centre’s areas of focus are Sustainable and Digital Agriculture, Future Cities and Digitalisation, and Sustainable Finance. For each of our programmes we are connecting policymakers, practitioners, think tanks, leading private sector actors, entrepreneurs, civil society, and other stakeholders to build practical solutions that will create lasting impact through deep collaboration.

UNDP’s digital transformation focuses on developing the organization’s capability to leverage existing, emerging and future digital technologies and the opportunities they offer to profoundly improve the way UNDP creates and delivers value and benefits for those we serve. UNDP’s new Digital Strategy 2019-2021 guides these efforts and builds off UNDP’s extensive range of digital initiatives spanning the country, regional, and global levels. This Strategy has created a new Chief Digital Office (CDO), charged with leading the next wave of innovation in sustainable development, and particularly in leading UNDP’s Digital Transformation offer to COVID-19 response and recovery efforts.

Future Cities and Digitalisation

By 2050, nearly 70% of the world's population - an additional 2.5 billion people - will live in urban areas. This rapid urbanisation will bring new economic opportunities but is also likely to sharpen income disparities, increasing the potential for social conflict. In this context, it is a global development priority to build inclusive, liveable and sustainable urban areas: future cities.

Building on Singapore’s pioneering efforts, the Global Centre has shaped a Future Cities and Digitalisation programme. This is providing actionable technical and strategic guidance to UNDP Country Offices around the world and highlighting the importance of these areas in international development. The programme is also working to build future cities and digitalisation expertise and understanding of Country Offices – and their national and regional partners.

Building on this foundation, the Centre has incorporated digital transformation as a crucial element in driving the development, usage, and sustainability of digital public services to enable countries to respond to, and recover from, COVID-19.

The Global Centre is looking for a Technical Expert to support Country Offices with their efforts related to Future Cities and Digitalisation, particularly in the context of COVID-19 response and recovery. The Expert will work directly with technical focal points in Country Offices to help shape and deliver their programmes and provide them with knowledge and tools needed to further explore these areas of work. The Expert will also lead the team’s work with Country Offices and local stakeholders in Francophone Africa.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of key functions:

• Deliver the 'Future Cities and Digitalisation' workstream at the Global Centre - working closely with Country Offices.
• Provide support to Country Offices on their digital efforts related to COVID-19 response and recovery
• Engage with relevant global partners in technical and in-kind support directly to Country Offices.
• Support strategic external communications and thought leadership opportunities, and internal efforts to build a coherent narrative across future cities, digitalisation and COVID-19 focus into the overall work of the Centre.

1. Deliver the 'Future Cities and Digitalisation' workstream at the Global Centre, working closely with Country Offices.

Responsibilities include:

• Design specific activities for the workstream and Centre’s strategy, and engage strategic partners to help implement them.
• Identify strategic and operational needs from Country offices and other UNDP internal actors in the implementation of digital projects relevant to future cities objectives. Define strategic service lines and develop adapted support proposals.
• Identify and codify best practices and lessons learned from the Country Offices engaged with first year of the programme to ensure they drive strategy and approach moving forward.
• Lead the Centre’s engagement with Country Offices and local stakeholders in Francophone Africa.

2. Provide support to Country Offices on their digital efforts related to COVID-19 response and recovery.

Responsibilities include:

• Provide capacity building to Country Offices on foundations of digital transformation, methodologies to design digital services, and guide on the enhancement of innovation ecosystems to successfully deliver Covid19 response and recovery projects.
• Provide technical advisory services to Country Offices, which may include needs assessment, ecosystem mapping and technical input, in reference to the COVID-19 situation in country.
• Identify and implement opportunities for peer learning and mentorship across Country Offices, partners and other stakeholders.
• Provide technical assistance to Country Offices projects, including draft of terms of reference, identification of partners, and M&E support.

3. Engage with relevant global partners in technical and in-kind support directly to Country Offices.

Responsibilities include:

• Identify and engage with international city networks and thematic platforms, and broker these partnerships for Country Offices and national stakeholders to promote North-South and South-South cooperation, in support of the strategic priorities of Country Offices.
• Support in the identification of resource mobilisation opportunities, drafting funding proposals and designing projects, in close coordination with the Global Centre’s Resource Mobilisation Advisor.
• Build strategic alliances and specific outputs with tech partners working on future cities and digitalisation, to support the work of the team.
• Broker and manage relevant partnerships for Country Offices, in support of country level priorities. Facilitate Country Office access to key and relevant players and partners.

4. Support strategic outreach and engagement opportunities related future cities, digitalisation and COVID-19.

Responsibilities include:

• Work with the Communications Specialist in communication activities and events founded on supporting Country Offices, and engaging priority audiences for the team and Global Centre.
• Organise regular online and offline knowledge sharing and training activities involving researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, non-governmental representatives or any other stakeholders
• Develop think pieces, blogs and other content to be shared with an external audience.

Competencies

Core

Proactivity : Ability to plan ahead and initiate required actions

Autonomy: Capacity to work independently in assigned projects

Communication and relationship management: Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform

Innovation: Ability to make new and useful ideas work

Delivery: Ability to get things done while exercising good judgement

Technical/Functional

System Thinking: Knowledge of system thinking and ability to apply in diverse settings.

Portfolio and project management: Ability to manage several projects in parallel, and design and manage portfolios of experiments

Knowledge Curation and Packaging: Ability to turn raw information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to stated need

Sustainable Development Goals: Knowledge of the Sustainable Development Goals and the ability to apply to strategic and/or practical situations.

Substantive Networking: Ability to substantively engage and foster networks with academia, research institutions, and think tanks.

Collaboration and Partnerships: Ability to develop, maintain, and strengthen partnerships with others inside (Programmes/projects) or outside the organization who can provide information, assistance, and support. Sets overall direction for the formation and management of strategic relationships contributing to the overall positioning of UNDP

Coordination: Ability to manage and coordinate a diversity of stakeholders around a particular project. Sensitive to diversity in the workplace and reshaping the workforce to meet need.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• A Master's degree, preferably in international development, law, international affairs, business administration, development economics, or other relevant field, or extensive compensating experience in in relevant, technical fields.

Experience:

• A minimum of 6 years of experience in either public sectors (local, national or multilateral, including UN) or private (academia, non-governmental sector, corporate).
• A minimum of 4 years’ experience in smart and future cities areas of work (required)
• A minimum of 3 years’ experience in scoping and delivering digital projects to the public sector at an international level (required).
• Proven track record and technical/advisory experience in designing innovation policies and technical pilots for the public sector (required)
• Demonstrated expertise in social innovation and working in the development sector (required)
• Ability to successfully manage multi-stakeholder projects (required)
• Experience implementing projects in developing countries (desirable)
• Knowledge of the UN system (desirable)
• Excellent negotiating and communication skills and ability to mobilize support from a wide range of partners (desirable)

Language:

• Fluent written and spoken English and French is required.
• Knowledge of another UN language is desired

Evaluation Process:

Applicants are reviewed based on Required Skills and Experience stated above and based on the technical evaluation criteria outlined below. Applicants will be evaluated based on cumulative scoring. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Being responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation where technical criteria weigh 70% and Financial criteria/ Proposal weighs 30%.

Technical evaluation - Total 70% (70 points):

The technical evaluation will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Proven experience working on projects related to smart and future cities (20 pts)
• Experience scoping and delivering digital projects to the public sector at an international level (10 pts)
• Demonstrated expertise in social innovation and working in the development sector (10 pts)
• Knowledge of the UN system (5 pts)
• Interview (25 pts)

Candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% (49 points) of the maximum obtainable points for the technical criteria (70 points) shall be considered for the financial evaluation.

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

The following formula will be used to evaluate financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
• y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Contract Award:

Candidate obtaining the highest combined scores in the combined score of Technical and Financial evaluation will be considered technically qualified and will be offered to enter into a contract with UNDP.

Payment Modality:

• Payment to the individual consultant will be made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the manager;
• The workweek will be based on 35 hours, i.e. on a 7-hour working day, with core hours being between 9h00 and 18h00 daily.

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE APPLICATION.

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

Proposal:

1. Financial proposal and availability form: Offeror's Letter to UNDP

2. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references

General Conditions of Contract is available here: GENERAL CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT

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