Procurement Notices

Project Title

Building the Resilience of Persons with Disabilities to Cope with Climate Change in the Asia Pacific Region

Project Overview

In October of 2018, the Adaptation Fund endorsed a pre-concept, “Building the Resilience of Persons with Disabilities to Cope with Climate Change in the Asia Pacific Region,” for a multi-country project led by UNDP under the A2R Initiative umbrella on building resilience for persons with disabilities which was informed extensively by consultations and workshops conducted previously by country offices and relevant stakeholders. This pre-concept was submitted in relation to Cambodia, Nepal, Philippines and Thailand for which endorsements had been received by the relevant designated national authorities (DNA).

This resulted in the compilation of project activities under three streamlined paths, i.e.:

1. Capacity building for disabled people’s organizations (DPO), persons with disabilities, and governments to address climate change, and enhance institutional frameworks.
2. Early warning infrastructure and last mile services targeting the specific needs of persons with disabilities to better manage and reduce vulnerability to climate change induced risks.
3. Knowledge generation, codification and dissemination of the effectiveness of targeted measures to reduce the vulnerability of persons with disabilities to climate change risks.

The pre-concept will now be expanded into a full project proposal to be submitted to the Adaptation Fund Board in August 2019. The project proposal will follow the same structure as the concept and will include Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan, provided that the necessary letters of endorsement are received from all relevant DNAs in time.

The overall objective of the project is to build the capacity of participant countries to more effectively take actions in improving the resilience of persons with disabilities to climate change and climate related disasters.  The project will work with persons with disabilities and disabled people’s organizations, to build their capacity on adapting to climate change, raise awareness so that they can be empowered, and work with government and the private sector to design effective climate change adaptation policies and strategies, which are inclusive and address the concerns of persons with disabilities.  The project will work to collect appropriate and disaggregated data, which can be used to help design effective laws and regulations relating to persons with disabilities and climate change.

The project will engage with governments and disabled people’s organizations, providing the governments technical advice and designing specific tools for persons with disabilities on climate change, while facilitating the inclusion of person with disabilities and disabled people’s organizations, in the overall policy development discussion in the country.  Overall, the project will build the capacity of the participant countries to take effective actions to improve the resilience of persons with disabilities to climate change and climate related disasters.

Scope of Work

The main objective of the consultancy is to support the development of the full Adaptation Fund Proposal, “Building the Resilience of Persons with Disabilities to Cope with Climate Change in the Asia Pacific Region” for the Philippines component. 

Under the direct supervision of UNDP Country Office’s Climate Action Outcome Lead and Climate Action Programme Analyst, and in coordination with UNDP BRH, the Human-centred Design Consultant shall provide design thinking expertise to supplement and prepare the full project proposal and focus on climate and disaster risk early warning systems.

A major focus of the project will be the development of early warning systems, specifically for persons with disabilities, through the introduction of cutting-edge technology, working with disabled people’s organizations and the private sector, using a human-centered design process to design products specifically tailored to persons with disabilities which will be scaled up, and reproduced.

At the country level, a draft country proposal has been developed, informed by desk review and consultations with national stakeholders. The outputs of the HCD process will form part of the full country proposal and the overall regional proposal.

UNDP’s Bangkok Regional Hub plans to mobilize local and international experience to provide a model that can eventually be scaled up to countries in need around the world. A multi-disciplinary team, co-led by the country office and experts in climate change and innovation from the Bangkok Regional Hub, will be fielded to design an innovative prototype that will bring together human-centered design, accessible technology, and climate change adaptation principles to provide innovative approaches that will improve the project design to ensure accurate targeting of project activities, and eventual implementation by putting persons with disabilities at the center of the design.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

Activities

The design stage should develop a process that would be implemented during prototyping that will drill down into more specific approaches relevant for each context. The design for the prototype would incorporate and integrate the most relevant and viable methodologies tested in the Philippines and internationally by UNDP.

This engagement entails consultations and field work from August until September that will include specialists on climate change, disability rights, and information technology. Activities include the following:

Pre-Consultation Preparation

Preparation of workplan and review of the experience of incorporating HCD and design thinking approaches in climate change adaptation, early warning systems, persons with disabilities work will be carried out prior to the in-country mission. Methodologies for the consultation and design stage will be drawn up for initial discussion among team members. This will include the following deliverables:

• Workplan and methodology for the overall engagement
• Review of the experience of incorporating HCD and design thinking approaches in climate change adaptation, early warning systems, persons with disabilities work.
• Establishing commonalities with the design consultants hired for the other national proposals.
• Customizing survey for national context and prepare an administration strategy

Consultations and engagement with national government agencies and local government units, DPOs, persons with disabilities, and other stakeholders

Consult identified stakeholders to understand the context and opportunities and (specifically with the DPOs) to co-design the field work.  This may include the following

• Identification of gaps and opportunities.
• Design of the country-level HCD/Design thinking workshops, including mapping of stakeholders to be involved
• Facilitation of the country-level workshops
• Field visits to rural/remote sites with country office colleagues to conduct research
• Presentation/validation of HCD process findings to national stakeholders
• Workshop documentation reports

Conduct HCD workshops and/or design thinking experiences:

• By working closely with national experts, consultants, government agencies, disabled persons’ organizations, CSOs, NGOs, and religious groups, identify appropriate tools - user journey map, service map, interviews, ethnographic observation that can specify and help develop a detailed understanding of the bottlenecks and user “pain points” in the preparedness and responses of persons with disabilities to climate related disasters.
• Conduct ethnographic research on the lived experiences of people with disabilities and how they are impacted by disasters/climate change: collect stories, observations, field diaries, etc. 
• Analyze and document the user experience of people with disability with regards to the services currently provided by the government or civil society when it comes to climate and disaster risk early warning system, climate information (using tools such as user journey maps) and language on climate change and risks.
• When feasible, conduct ethnographic research to highlights patterns of beliefs of service providers (e.g. government workers) targeting people with disabilities.
• Detail possible methodologies to facilitate process simplification and re-design/ enhancement of existing processes in climate information dissemination and reception.
• Assess the scope and opportunities for digitization of local services, including through the use of accessible technology solutions.
• Make recommendations on effective and efficient solutions to the pain points for persons with disabilities and create a map of how these solutions can be facilitated and how they should be budgeted through a report summarizing the key insights from the ethnographic work: identifying key patterns and insights that can inform the prototype development phase of the project. This should include: gaps, pain points, recommendations; CBA of recommended options; User journey maps that identify touchpoints, pain points and part of the service provision that are currently working well; Photos, videos, and any documentation that can help illustrate with vivid examples the lived experience of people with disabilities.
• Formulate a process flow that links the solutions within the framework of the AF proposal.
• Identify technological partners and requirements to support the solutions.

Plan for resources and the required steps for the eventual implementation of recommended and selected solutions:

Provide an outline of a work plan and a resource plan (including national and international expertise) for the roll out of recommended and selected solutions, including an SOP.

• Provide success criteria to review the outcome of the experiment and if required, to refine the design.
• Provide a monitoring and evaluation framework to evaluate success of the solution once implemented using mixed methods.
• Other tasks as agreed between UNDP team and consultant (possibly including participation in a regional workshop to present findings and contribute to discussions on the formulation of the regional proposal)

Provide strategic advice and insights to the larger project development team:

Work closely with members from the country office, Bangkok Regional Hub, and other consultants (national and international) to provide other aspects of inputs to the proposal development for the Adaptation Fund and review relevant sections of an early proposal draft.

Institutional Arrangement

The Climate Action Outcome Lead and Climate Action Programme Analyst shall directly supervise the Consultant. At different points during the contract, the Consultant is expected to liaise/interact/collaborate/meet with the UNDP BRH, government partners, DPOs, and other stakeholders. As needed, UNDP shall provide logistical assistance to the Consultant in order for her/him to accomplish enumerated outputs.

Duration of Work

The expected duration of work is estimated to be 20 work days, spread over from August to November 2019.  The target start date is August 2019 and ends on 30 November 2019.

Duty Station

The Consultant is not expected to report on a daily basis to UNDP Philippines office based in Mandaluyong City but shall be available on an on-call basis.

Scope of Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Corporate competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling 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;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Functional and technical competencies

• Ability to work in a diverse and multi-cultural environment;
• Self-motivated and ability to work under pressure and to meet strict and competing deadlines;
• Displays analytical judgment and demonstrated ability to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner;
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
• Computer literate.

Qualifications of the Successful Individual Contractor

Educational Qualifications

• The position requires post graduate degree in economics, education or social sciences, or any relevant field

Experience

• At least 4 years of experience in human-centered design thinking, co-creation and innovation; experience in action-oriented research in development issues is required (40 points)
• Knowledge and background in issues concerning persons with disabilities, and disabled persons’ organizations and previous experience in the region working with persons with disabilities on accessibilities issues (20 points)
• The following will be a significant advantage: (20 points)
  • Experience in the region on issues of sustainable development, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, early warning systems
  • Extensive knowledge on addressing risk reduction from a human rights perspective
  • Knowledge of policies and plans concerning climate change and disaster risk reductions (from a national and international perspective)
  • Ability to articulate the nexus between disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation in the country context
  • Demonstrable success in developing projects, with conceptually coherent narratives and log frames, and successfully mobilizing resources
• Knowledge and experience with Adaptation Fund terminology and approach is an advantage.

Evaluation Method and Criteria

Offers will be evaluated based on combined scoring method – where the Technical Proposal will be evaluated based on qualifications in the CV. The Technical evaluation is weighted a max. of 70%.

The Financial Proposal that will be evaluated through submission of the Offeror's Letter to UNDP Confirming Insterest and Availability for the IC including Financial Proposal Template and combined with the price offer will be weighted a max of 30%;

For the evaluation of the Technical Proposal, the selection of the successful consultant must be based in the following qualifications (with the appropriate obtainable points):

Recommended Presentation of Offer

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload maximum one document at https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=86664.

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;

2. Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate

3. Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, if applicable, on how they will approach and complete the assignment.

4. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided. 

You may download the editable version of the Offeror's Letter to UNDP Confirming Insterest and Availability for the IC by clicking on this link: http://gofile.me/6xdJm/bE9TCw8fU

In view of the volume of applications UNDP receives, only shortlisted offerors will be notified.