Diagnostic Review – Social Protection Assessment in Fiji and Kiribati
Procurement Process
IC - Individual contractor
Office
Fiji - FIJI
Deadline
26-Jul-21
Published on
24-Jun-21
Reference Number
80000
Overview
Reference No. | PN/FJI/050/21 |
Consultancy Title | Diagnostic Review – Social Protection Assessment in Fiji and Kiribati |
Location | Fiji and Kiribati (Virtually) |
Application deadline | 26th July 2021 |
Type of Contract | Individual Contractor/Firm |
Post Level | International |
Languages required: | English |
Duration of Initial Contract: | 100 working days |
BACKGROUND
Governments in Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are increasingly realizing the need for formal social protection systems in the face of the crisis, including natural disasters and even pandemics, to help prevent deprivation, foster inclusive economic growth, create decent work and build resilience among their most vulnerable citizens. The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the economic conditions, bringing high rate of unemployment, gender inequality and a decline in remittances. Young people and women among others in the informal sector are the most vulnerable to job losses resulted from the crisis. With school closure, children challenged with limited access to education, particularly amongst those from disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, which tend to have no access to online learning. The growing number of initiatives launched in PICTs over the past decade suggests that social protection has taken a prominent place in the centre of the policy agenda in the Pacific region. However, since the PICTs have limited experience carrying out formal social protection activities, their capacity to design, implement, and monitor comprehensive social protection systems understandably is weak. In creating an inventory of non-contributory social protection programmes, UNICEF Pacific found that the scale and scope of social protection initiatives, which include cash grants, subsidies, free access to education and health services among others, vary widely across the Pacific region.
Social cash transfer activities are limited in coverage in the PICTs. Universal child allowance systems are in place in Cook Islands and Nauru while larger Pacific nations such as Fiji provide more complex proxy-means targeted programmes. An estimated 35 per cent of children in Fiji live in poverty; however, only about 2 per cent of Fiji’s children are benefiting from the country’s care and protection allowance and much of the budget for the programme is untouched. Coverage is poor due, in part, to limited capacity and weak delivery systems. The population is geographically dispersed in the Pacific, which makes service delivery challenging, particularly to rural and remote islands. However, technological developments provide opportunities to overcome some of these difficulties.
While governments in the Pacific have organized interventions to address vulnerability, ad hoc and fragmented social protection programmes are being implemented without an explicit and comprehensive social protection framework, leading to a lack of coverage and resulting in an increased burden on livelihoods.
Coordination of social protection policies is lacking with multiple agencies (Provident Funds, Ministries, Agencies and Departments) being involved in the implementation of social protection.
Social insurance spending is inadequate to support the majority of intended beneficiaries in countries with a large share of workers in informal employment. The existing social insurance schemes have only partial coverage and mostly support a small subsection of the population. These are mainly formally employed or salaried workers holding public sector jobs or working for particular industries or sizable private firms.
The key challenge to extending social insurance to workers in the informal economy consists of the difficulty to raise individual contributions toward social insurance schemes. Many informal workers have too low and/or unstable income to pay contributions; they may also be reluctant to pay due to the perceived cost of application and a lack of incentives. Other reasons for the lack of social insurance coverage include non-declaration of jobs, casual and temporary jobs, and jobs with hours of work or wages that fall below a required threshold.
Objectives: The objective of the research is to assist social dialogue by building evidence and engaging with constituents, in order to make recommendations to the Governments and social partners of Fiji and Kiribati regarding:
(Including herders and those affected by climate change)
The outcome is to conduct assessment and rapid costing of national social protection system, and to develop a project proposal for the development of national social protection strategies and action plans for the selected Pacific Islands countries. The project proposal will be key document to advance evidence-based advocacy for universal social protection system, advantage partnership and resources.
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DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
To help achieve that, the service provider’s diagnostic reviews, to be undertaken for each of the countries specified above, will include at least the following components:
Institutional arrangements: The Consultancy will work under the close guidance of the Inclusive Growth Deputy Team Leader throughout the assignment period.
Duty Station: The select will be home based.
Duration of work: The expected duration of this assignment is 80 days with a start date of 26th July and planned to be completed by 31 December 2021 November. The timeframe and expected deliverables are shown in the table below:
The methodology and tasks will include the following
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COMPETENCIES
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REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
The Service Provider should propose a team that combines at least an experienced lead international expert with the technical requirements needed to deliver the products according to the general parameters proposed under the ToR. The team should include at least:
The International Lead Expert, meeting the following qualifications:
Language requirement:
Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments Consultancy must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, travel costs, living allowance (if any work is to be done outside the IC´s duty station) and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:
In general, UNDP shall not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources
In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and the Consultancy, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.
Evaluation Method and Criteria Individual consultancy will be evaluated based on the following methodology Cumulative analysis The award of the contract shall be made to the consultancy whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of set of weighted technical criteria (70%). and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment.
Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points)
Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.
Shortlisted candidates shall be called for an interview which will be used to confirm and/or adjust the technical scores awarded based on documentation submitted.
Documentation required Interested consultancies 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:
Note: Successful individual will be required to provide proof of medical insurance coverage before commencement of contract for the duration of the assignment.
Incomplete and joint proposals may not be considered. Consultancies with whom there is further interest will be contacted. The successful consultancy shall opt to sign an Individual Contract or a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) through its company/employer with UNDP.
Annexes
For any clarification regarding this assignment please write to Mr. Dale Kacivi - procurement.fj@undp.org/dale.kacivi@undp.org
All applications must be clearly marked with the title of consultancy and submitted by 5:00pm, 26th July 2021 (Fiji Time) online via UN Jobs website https://jobs.undp.org/ or etenderbox.pacific@undp.org |