Procurement Notices

Development of the Pacific Digital and Financial Literacy Survey Data Portal, and Support Dissemination through Knowledge Products and Stakeholder Engagement.

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF also adopts a gender lens approach in all of its initiatives and activities to ensure overall inclusion and participation in the digital economy.

In recent years across the Pacific significant investments have been made in core digital infrastructure, such as the various under-sea fiber optic cables, and national governments are prioritizing to increase the digital connectivity in the region. Whilst there is big potential for a rapidly developing digital economy to positively impact many lives in the Pacific, and though the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be a catalyst for digitization, the other side of the same coin is an increased risk of leaving behind the most vulnerable of Pacific societies.

It is against this background that the UN system, through a joint programme between UNCDF, UNDP and UNCTAD, and in close collaboration with key stakeholders from public and private sector aim to support the development of inclusive digital economies in the Pacific, more specifically in Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands, now known as the Pacific Digital Economy Programme (PDEP), one of the successor initiatives to Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP). PFIP played a leading role in bringing about profound changes at the ecosystem level, which took place over the past decade in the sector, from the development of policies, right down to various financial literacy initiatives in the Pacific, including the region’s first national level financial education initiative in Fiji. Curricula that are now expanded to vocational schools in other countries in the region.

Under financial literacy, in 2012 and 2013, financial competency surveys were undertaken by the PFIP in conjunction with the 4 central banks (the Reserve Bank of Fiji, the Bank of Papua New Guinea, the Central Bank of Samoa and the Central Bank of the Solomon Islands) in collaboration with the national statistics offices in these countries. The survey examined the financial competency of low-income households vis-à-vis the matrix of 13 core financial competencies identified across the Pacific and provided an important baseline against which progress in improving the financial behavior of financial decision makers in low-income households can be measured. A principal finding of the survey is that low-income households in the Pacific do not demonstrate financially competent behavior.

Since then, the market has evolved, emerging digital financial services have changed the financial inclusion landscape. Access to and usage of digital technologies and financial services have also transformed a lot. But limited data/ evidence has been generated in last 8 years to understand the status of digital and financial literacy in the region. COVID-19 also largely influenced the financial behavior of last mile segments in last three years, particularly for low-income groups and MSMEs.

To address this gap in data, PDEP launched the ‘Digital and Financial Literacy Survey (DFLS) 2022’ in July 2022 in the Pacific region, covering 7 countries- Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga, Timor-Leste and Solomon Islands. The objective of the survey is to address the existing data gap around digital and financial literacy, generate evidence to inform the policy makers about the status of digital and financial literacy across the target countries and design data driven programmatic interventions to promote digital and financial literacy under PDEP during 2023-25.

The survey instrument has been designed by UNCDF based on consultation with partner central banks in participating countries. Field data collection has been jointly conducted by UNCDF and Tebbutt Research Ltd. Minimum 1200-1500 respondents have been interviewed in all target countries, and the methodology deployed for the survey has been intended to make the data nationally representative. Data collection and finalization of the survey reports will be completed by December 2022 and UNCDF will arrange country level dissemination workshops on the survey findings during January- February 2023 with national stakeholders in 7 target countries.

Please indicate whether you intend to submit a bid by creating a draft response without submitting directly in the system. This will enable the system to send notifications in case of amendments of the tender requirements. Should you require further clarifications, kindly communicate using the messaging functionality in the system. Offers must be submitted directly in the system following this link: http://supplier.quantum.partneragencies.org  using the profile you may have in the portal. In case you have never registered before, you can register a profile using the registration link shared via the procurement notice and following the instructions in guides available in UNDP website: https://www.undp.org/procurement/business/resources-for-bidders.  Do not create a new profile if you already have one. Use the forgotten password feature in case you do not remember the password or the username from previous registration.

Search for the specific tender using search filters and subscribe to the tender in order to get notifications in case of amendments of the tender document. If you need support with the online system, you can contact the contact details of this tender as indicated in the solicitation document.

UNDP PACIFIC OFFICE

PROCUREMENT UNIT