| Overview : Registration and Identification systems worldwide serve the purpose of providing up-to-date and reliable information for social-economic planning, promotion of fundamental rights, good governance and integrity of its citizens and resident foreigners through positive identification. In Malawi, the National Registration Bureau (NRB)-a department in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security-was established in line with the National Registration Act of 2010, with the legal mandate to facilitate, manage and coordinate the implementation of a National Registration and Identification System (NRIS). This involves issuing ICAO complaint ID cards to aged 16 and above, amongst others; registering the occurrence and characteristics of vital events such as deaths, births and marriages and issuing identity cards to bonafide Malawians and eligible residents. Despite its establishment NRB has not been able to fulfil its mandate, for several reasons, such as lack of an appropriate structure, technical skills assessment to employ appropriate human resources for the job at hand, limited staff, among others. To support NRB fulfil this task, an NRIS project was designed and negotiated with government and development partners. The expected results of the project are: design, establish and manage the necessary systems, infrastructure and equipment for the NRIS; supervise the mass registration for all eligible Malawians (an estimated 9 million) within the country in 2017; transition the system to a continuous registration model in 2018 and to develop the capacity and systems of NRB to maintain and operate the system, provide an interface to other public and private sector systems that allow for appropriate data sharing within a legal framework that complies with international principles and standards for the right to privacy and data protection; and to ensure the effective management of the project. To date UNDP Malawi has provided technical support to the National Registration Bureau (NRB) of Malawi, in the elaboration of the National Registration and Identification System (NRIS) concept and the design and development of critical software and operational procedures, and directly implemented the registration of approximately 9 million Malawians, including issuing biometrically secure ID cards. Following the above-mentioned activities, UNDP will be providing preparatory institutional and capacity development support that will see NRB fully capacitated to manage and administer continuous registration processes. In light of this, it is critical that a comprehensive and participatory technical and organizational capacity assessment is undertaken to inform any capacity development work that is to be done, in support of NRB’s transition to continuous registration. It is against this background that UNDP is inviting proposals from suitably qualified individual consultants for consultancy services to support the NRIS project in the participatory technical and organisational capacity assessment of the NRB. | 
