Procurement Notices

Background

The United Nations Partnership Framework is the strategic framework and the basis for cooperation between the government of Guinea-Bissau and the United Nations for the 2016-2020 period. It is the expression of the common will of all parties to further strengthen their partnership to help break the vicious cycle of political instability and poverty the country has been trapped for more than three decades. The overall objective of the UNPAF is to help consolidate peace and security, by establishing governance for citizens to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth to meet the legitimate aspiration of the people of Guinea-Bissau in line with the Strategic and Operational Plan 2015-2020 “Terra Ranka”. UNPAF contributes towards four (4) mutually reinforcing and supporting outcomes align to national development priorities and SDGs:

·         Outcome 1: the State institutions, including defense, security, and justice, consolidate the stability and Rule of law, democratic participation, and equitable access to opportunities for all;

·         Outcome 2: economic growth is inclusive and sustainable, to promote poverty reduction, decent jobs, food security, and the structural transformation of the economy;

·         Outcome 3: all citizens, especially the most marginalized and vulnerable, have equitable, sustainable access to and use the health, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, water, sanitation and hygiene, education, and quality protection services;

·         Outcome 4: public institutions, Civil Society Organizations, and the private sector ensure the promotion of the sustainable management of the environment and natural resources, risk management, and disaster prevention

To ensure that the UNPAF guides effective UN action in Guinea-Bissau, the partnership framework was developed based on the principles of human rights, gender equality, RBM, promotion of SDGs, and aid coordination and harmonization, in line with the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

The objectives of the UNPAF annual reviews undertaken were mainly to review the Outcome Groups’ annual work plan for the respective years and to finalize annual work plans for the forthcoming years under the UNPAF outcome group, aligned to the National Development Plan’s priority areas and SDGs.

This UNPAF Mid Term Review (MTR) will be undertaken to provide an overall assessment of the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and coherence of the UNPAF as a delivery mechanism to support national development priorities.

UNPAF Mid-term Review Key Objectives

The UNPAF Mid Term Review will be undertaken to:

1.    Determine the relevance and strategic positioning of the UNPAF to respond to national development priorities, given the changing development and political environment, and emerging issues, the repositioning the United Nations development system to deliver on the 2030 Agenda, UN’s priorities and core values, including human rights, climate change and gender equality;

2.    Assess the effectiveness in terms of progress made towards the agreed results and identify the factors that influenced achievement of results;

3.    Assess the efficiency of the UN’s process and the quality of the UN’s contribution for attaining national development priorities as outlined in the UNPAF’s results framework;

4.    Propose changes to programming to realign the UNPAF Outcomes’ results framework and joint annual work plan in respond to achieving stated UNPAF goals and SDGs; focusing on more effective and efficient delivery of UN’s contribution to development, as well as improved incorporation of cross-cutting issues such as human rights and gender equality; and provide recommendations for strengthening the UN’s overall performance and support to the national development plan.
 

5.    To identify best practices and lessons learned for UN and partners and provide actionable recommendations for 2019-2020 Joint Annual Work plan and new UNPAF (UNDAF).

Scope of Assessment and Key Questions

Given the above underlying principles, the strategic questions that would guide the implementation of the 2016-2020 UNPAF MTR include:

1.    Relevance and Strategic Positioning

Ascertain the strategic focus of UN support to national development priorities

·         How well are the UNPAF Outcomes, specifically the results frameworks, aligned to the National Development Plan, Terra Ranka? Have the results framework been flexible enough to adjust to evolving national policies, strategies and reforms during the current cycle?

·         How well is the UNPAF Framework aligned to the country National Development Plan?

·         How well are the international agreed frameworks and commitments and standards that guide UN agencies (ex: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, leaving no one behind principles) aligned with the UNPAF Framework?

·         To what extent was the UNPAF development, implementation and review reporting process fully owned by the national counterparts, particularly the government and Civil Society Organizations?

·         How has the UN been able to respond to the changing global and national development environment such as climate change, food crisis, human rights, gender, global and regional economic crisis and other national and regional emerging issues? How has the UN been able to respond to the changing aid environment in Guinea-Bissau?

·         How has UNPAF contributed to the mainstreaming and implementation of Human Rights in national policies and programmes?

·         What adjustments are required to the UNPAF to remain relevant to Guinea-Bissau’s national development priorities? What adjustments are required to the UNPAF to ensure its strategic positioning for responding to climate change, gender, economic crisis and other national and regional emerging issues?

2.    Effectiveness and Achievement of Development Results

Determine the effectiveness of the UN system in achieving stated UNPAF outcome results

IMPACT/RESULTS OF UNPAF IMPLEMENTATION

·         What progress has been made towards achieving the UNPAF outcomes at the national level?

·         What are the main factors contributing to the achievement of outcomes and what are the main challenges and constraints to the achievement of outcomes? To what extent risks and assumptions were addressed in the implementation of the joint annual work plan?

·         What are the main results, as a result of UN intervention, that have contributed to achievement of key national development results? How has the UNPAF implementation contributed to addressing the capacity issues in the Guinea-Bissau?

QUALITY OF THE UNPAF

·         How likely are planned joint programming lead to the UNPAF results? Are the expected outcomes realistic? Do the indicators in the Joint Annual Work Plan and monitoring and evaluation (ME) framework sufficiently measure the intended UNPAF outputs, outcomes and key impact? How can the UNPAF M&E framework be improved?

·         How has gender equity and equality been mainstreamed into programming? To what extent has gender disaggregated data and indicators to assess progress in gender equity and equality been included in the UNPAF ME Framework? What are the challenges and constraints for gender mainstreaming in the UNPAF?

·         How has the UN promoted national execution of programmes, national systems and strengthening of national capacities, in alignment with the Paris Declaration on Principles of Aid Effectiveness?

3.    Efficiency of the UN processes and system to achieve UNPAF results Assess the efficiency of the UNPAF and its implementation process as a mechanism for coordination and partnerships as well as a mechanism to minimize transaction costs of UN support for the governments and UN agencies.

·         Has it contributed to the overall UNPAF results?

·         How different has been the level of support, implementation and resources invested by non-resident Agencies versus resident Agencies?

·         How can we improve the support and balance between non-resident AFPs and Residents for the UNPAF?

·         How has the UNPAF contributed to increased synergies among programmes of UN agencies and enhanced joint programming?

·         How has UNPAF promoted effective internal UN and external partnerships with governments, CSOs, development partners around the main outcomes areas, specifically in relation to efficiency and effectiveness of outcome groups?

·         Has the UNPAF contributed to a reduction of transaction costs for the government and UN agencies? In what ways can transaction costs be reduced?

·         How well does the current UNPAF reflect the mandates and programmes of the specialized agencies?

·         How well is the current UNPAF mechanism system working? Which areas of the Outcomes and Working Groups are working? Specifically, which outcome groups are functioning well and what are the common elements in those outcome groups that can be replicated in the other outcome groups? What areas of simplification and streamlining mechanisms and processes are there to reduce transaction costs while at the same time, increase effectiveness?

·         How can the current UNPAF mechanisms become more efficient in supporting “Delivering as one” viz a viz joint programming, joint programmes, joint premises, harmonized funding and joint accountability? How can the operationalization of the ME plan and framework be improved? What are the options for improving M&E capacity – within and across agencies? Has the UN contributed to reduced aid fragmentation and improved aid effectiveness?

Duties and Responsibilities

The MTR will cover the period 2016-2017. Under the direct responsibility of the Resident Coordinator and the UNCT and under the direct supervision of the Head of the Resident Coordinator Office, the International Consultant will be responsible for the  following activities:

·         Propose a methodological note on the conduct of the evaluation in accordance with the terms of reference of the mid-term review;

·         Review the strategic design, planning, and assumptions made during UNPAF development process.

·         Analyze the linkage of concerned Agencies CPDs’ results to overall UNDAF results framework, including the relevance of the outcomes, outputs and indicators set.

·         Assess the achievement of results in the four (4) outcome groups and identify lessons learned;

·         Assess the UNPAF’s coordination mechanism, partnership arrangements and national ownership.

·         Assess the synergy with others International Development Partners’ strategies and programs, particularly the World Bank, and suggest ways of creating effective collaboration in future undertaking.

·         Determine the relevance and strategic positioning of the UNPAF programme to respond to national development priorities, given the changing development and political environment, and emerging issues, including climate change, and UN priorities and core values, including human rights and gender equality;

·         Assess the efficiency of the UN’s process and the quality of the UN’s contribution for attaining national development priorities as outlined in the UNPAF’s goals and result framework;

·         Propose changes to programming to realign the UNPAF Outcomes’ results framework and joint annual work plan in respond to achieving stated UNPAF goals and results; focusing on more effective and efficient delivery of UN’s contribution to development, as well as improved incorporation of cross-cutting issues such as human rights and gender equality; and provide recommendations for strengthening the UN’s overall performance and support to the national development plan.

Deliverables

The assignment will crystallize to the following deliverables:

1.    Inception Report detailing consultancy work-plan and proposed processes (It should detail the evaluators’ understanding of what is being evaluated and why, showing how each evaluation question will be answered).

2.    The draft reviewed UNPAF document based on orientations and consultations with stakeholders, including the revised Result and M&E frameworks;

3.    Draft Reviewed UNPAF Report for presentation in a validation meeting.

4.    Validation workshop report.

5.    Final endorsed reviewed UNDAF document incorporating comments from UNCT and national stakeholders.

All reports will be in English. The final version of the revised UNDAF will be submitted in hard copy (1 copies) and in electronic format (Word and PDF format).

Competencies

·         Ability to set and implement activities for timely results.

·         Good facilitation, analytic and communication skills.

·         Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards.

·         Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

·         Team building approach.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

·         Master's Degree or equivalent in Development studies, Monitoring and Evaluation, Social Sciences, Business Administration, Public Administration, Economics or related field.

Experience:

·         At least 10 years extensive experience at the national or international level in evaluation and design of projects, programme and plan of development.

·         Demonstrated knowledge of, and successful experience with: program evaluation; qualitative and quantitative research design and implementation; data analysis and synthesis of research results.

·         Demonstrate knowledge of and ability to apply theoretical design, management and evaluation of complex development programmes or plan involving the national government, civil society organizations.

·         Familiarity with participatory methods of data gathering and UN four Programming Principles: ((i) Human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment, (ii) Sustainable development and resilience, (iii) Leave no one behind and (iv) Accountability);

·         Have a strong understanding of the development context in West Africa, particularly in Guinea-Bissau, and national development plan and strategies.

·         Demonstrated experience of having worked or evaluated UNDAF and UN programmes will be an added advantage.

·         Demonstrate knowledge and capacities in gender mainstreaming in planning processes is desirable and an asset

Communication:

·         Excellent writing and oral communication skills in English and French.

·         Good Working knowledge of Portuguese is an asset.

Interested individual Consultants must submit a dossier comprising two proposals (technical and financial) and including the following documents / information to justify their qualifications:

Technical proposition:

·         Explain why they are the most appropriate for the job;

·         Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and lead the work (if any);

·         A detailed work plan, with start and end dates for each action and indicative timeframe for all tasks and deliverables (3-4 pages);

·         A CV with clear name, date of birth, academic qualifications, skills and work experience (4-5 pages), including past experience in similar assignments and at least 3 references;

Financial proposal:

The financial proposal must specify a total lump sum and payment terms around specific and measurable deliverables (qualitative and quantitative). In order to help compare financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum (including travel expenses, per diem allowances and number of days of travel. planned work).

Criteria

Weight

Max. Point

Technical

70%

100

·         Criteria A: Education background

10%

100

·         Criteria B: Experience as defined in the ToRs

20%

100

·         Criteria C: Competences as defined in the ToRs

10%

100

·         Criteria D: Understanding of the ToRs

  5%

100

·         Criteria E: Methodology and overall approach

15%

100

·         Criteria F: Overall quality of the proposal (comprehensiveness, structure, language and clarity)

10%

100

Financial

30%

100