Procurement Notices

Background Information

UNDP Philippines’ work as defined in the Country Programme Document (CPD) 2019-2023 is structured around three outcome areas that are aligned with and contribute to the achievement of the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, the UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021, and the United Nations – Philippines Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development 2019-2023. The three integrated programme work areas are the following:

1. strengthening capacity to plan, manage and deliver quality social and economic services for the most marginalized and at-risk people;

2. supporting the effective transition towards low carbon and climate-resilient development; and

3. supporting towards addressing the key drivers of conflict and risks to stability.

While building on the gaps from the Country Office’s wealth of experience in the above-mentioned programme areas, it would need to revolutionize the way it works and break from the past. It has become clear that transformational changes are necessary for the Philippines to tackle critical challenges and ultimately realize its national development goals and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to support the Philippines in this transformation, the Country Office has identified five inter-related, cross-cutting approaches to underpin its work. These are: focusing on financing and not funding to deliver results, applying innovations to provide new solutions to old development problems, deepening partnerships to ensure no one is left behind, re-conceptualizing the human rights-based approach and providing platforms for SDGs integration and acceleration.

In order to effectively implement the portfolio of programs and achieve the above objectives, UNDP Philippines is engaging a Gender Mainstreaming Advisor to support the CO’s implementation of the UNDP Gender Equality strategy, the CO gender action plan, as well as measures to promote gender equality at the workplace and contribute to the country programme, through its projects, to gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Gender Mainstreaming Advisor will help improve the gender markers of pipeline and ongoing projects through direct support in developing gender mainstreaming action plans and by providing capacity building to CO staff that would enable them to elevate and integrate gender equality into all aspects of UNDP’s work.

Expected Deliverables and timelines

Institutional Arrangement

The Consultants will work under the primary supervision of the Deputy Resident Representative. S/he will work in close collaboration with the CO gender focal team and the Results and Quality Team of the Country Office, as well as engage with the Operations Team, Procurement Team, and Programme Teams as and when required.

The Consultant’s deliverables will be reviewed and approved by the Deputy Resident Representative.

UNDP Philippines will not provide a workstation, transportation, or ICT equipment for the consultant.

Considering the COVID-19 pandemic and declaration of State of Public Health Emergency in the Philippines, all work of the Individual consultant shall be done within the guidelines and protocols set by the local and national government. During the entire duration of the assignment, this consultancy shall be performed remotely and will be a home-based assignment. The Consultant is expected to have her/his own equipment, office space, and internet connectivity. The Consultant shall not engage in any meetings or activities outside their homes. Coordination/meetings shall be done through phone or online communication until such time that the quarantine is lifted.

Duration of assignment

The contract will be issued for 8 months with an estimated level of effort of 40 days spread over 8 months. An estimated 5 working days is required for UNDP to review outputs, provide comments, and certify acceptance of outputs.

Duty station

The Consultant shall be performed remotely and this will be a home-based assignment. S/he is expected to organize regular updates meetings with the Resident Representative, the Deputy Resident Representative, have regular coordination meeting with the Results and Quality Team, and participate in Management Team meetings upon invitation. No travel is required for this assignment.

Financial Proposal and Schedule of Payments

The financial proposal should specify an all-inclusive fee In PHP currency (all-inclusive of communications, utilities and consumables; life, health and any other insurance; risks and inconveniences related to work (e.g., personal security needs, etc.), when applicable; and any other relevant expenses related to the performance of services under the contract.

Interested applicants to note that personal Medical/Health insurance (to be purchased by the individual at his/her own expense) is mandatory for the issuance of contracts. Upon award of the contract, the consultant must be ready to submit proof of insurance valid during the contract duration.

In the case of unforeseeable travel requested by UNDP, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed. In general, UNDP should 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.

The IC will be paid based on the following tranches:

Scope of Work

Under the overall supervision of the Resident Representative and direct supervision of the Deputy Resident Representative (DRR), the consultant will support the Country Office in strengthening the integration of gender equality and women’s empowerment in UNDP’s work on institutions building, environment and climate change, and peacebuilding; better aligning UNDP programming with the 

dimensions of gender equality; and building institutional mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in the Country Office such as through the Gender Equality Seal and Gender Markers.

Specifically, s/he will be required to support:

1. Support to the CO’s participation in the Gender Equality Seal certification process
   • Conduct training needs assessment, training sessions, and consultations on the Gender Equality Seal certification process and benchmarks;
   • Support the development and monitoring of the CO’s Gender Equality Seal action plan to ensure standards met in the following seven areas: Management systems, in-house capacities, enabling environment, communications and knowledge management, programmes. Partnerships, and gender equality impact/results
   • Contribute to the development of CO policies and trainings on preventing sexual harassment, work/life balance, and other policies that would contribute to instilling gender equality in the CO’s culture;
   • Contribute to the development of the country programme (2019-2023) Gender Equality Strategy and Action Plan

2) Technical support to improve contributions of ongoing and pipeline projects to gender equalities and women’s empowerment

• Support the quality assurance of project proposals, project initiation plans, and project documents by working with the programme teams to conduct gender analysis during project design;
• Review Gender Action Plans developed for the Project Documents prepared, ensuring that project designs integrate concrete measures to address gender inequalities and women's empowerment in the project strategy ;
• Review project results framework, especially in ensuring that indicators are gender sensitive and are sex-disaggregated where applicable;
• Review social and environmental impacts and risks of projects, especially those related to gender, and ensure that appropriate risk mitigation measures are identified and planned;
• Coordinate with programme and project managers on the implementation of Gender Action Plans of projects and ensuring that these are included in the Annual Work Plans of Projects with the goal of improving gender markers;
• Support programme and project managers in ensuring that projects are able to systematically gather data and evidence through project monitoring on the relevance of the measures (through outputs, activities, indicators) to address gender inequalities and women’s empowerment;
• Provide advice and support to staff on how to improve reporting on gender in their projects’ quarter and annual progress reports vis-a vis the Gender Action Plan of the Project;
• Identify areas of collaboration with national government and with other UN agencies on gender equality and women’s empowerment;

3) Gender mainstreaming embedded in Country Office Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting

• Contribute to gender reporting in the UNDP Results Oriented Annual Report.
• Contribute to the review of evaluation products commissioned by the CO to ensure that gender mainstreaming is achieved in the evaluation design and that gender results surface in the reports;
• Provide advice and support to staff on how to improve reporting on gender in project progress reports

4) Facilitate training and knowledge management activities

• Provide mentoring to the CO’s gender focal points and gender focal team;
• Develop and facilitate gender mainstreaming capacity building activities for programme and project staff and partners;
• Support the development of gender-related knowledge products to project team and CO staff

Corporate competencies

• Must have strong leadership and project management skills
• Must have an extensive background and understanding of the Philippine DRR, recovery, and resilience policies, programmes, and activities
• Must be detail-oriented
• Has excellent analytic skills especially in understanding complex information to produce evidence-based comparisons and conclusions.
• Excellent written and spoken English is required.

• 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

Offers will be evaluated based on the combined scoring method :

• Technical qualifications = 70%
• Financial Proposal = 30%

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

Only applications that will obtain a minimum of 49 out of 70 obtainable points will be qualified for the financial evaluation.

Recommended Presentation of Offer

Interested applicants must submit the following documents/information at https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=100016 to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload of a maximum of one document.

1. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
2. Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experiences from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; and,
3. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided. If an Offeror is employed by a national or local government entity, he/she must submit a duly certified leave of absence to avoid double compensation and/or workload conflict.

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

Interested applicants to note that personal Medical/health insurance (to be purchased by the individual at his/her own expense) is mandatory for the issuance of contracts. Upon award of the contract, the consultant must be ready to submit proof of insurance valid during the contract duration.

The following templates / Annexes and IC General Terms & Conditions can be downloaded from http://gofile.me/6xdJm/bE9TCw8fU:

• General Terms and Conditions for Individual Contract
• Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability
• P-11 form

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