Procurement Notices

Terms of Reference for Individual Contractor

A.Project Title

100619 - Institutional Support to Statistics

B.Project Description 

Saudi Arabia has realised and sustained, for the last four decades, remarkable progress along the socio-economic development path. As a result of this, the Kingdom has been able to move to a high-income country. The ongoing transformation of Saudi Arabia beneath the Vision 2030 plan is unlocking new possibilities at an extraordinary pace. Quality concerns organisations, processes and products. The main goal of quality management within the statistical business process is to understand and manage the quality of the statistical products.

Means all activities that are done according to the cycle of “Plan Do Check Act (PDCA)”. To be specific, a goal is set and implemented in a reasonable and economical way in order to provide a certain quality that customers want and maintain it. To provide high quality, timely and independent statistical information by assuring the quality of our statistical data outputs and production processes and help integrate quality management into the business of the GASTAT

C.Scope of Work

According to transformation strategy for GASTAT, big data acquisition department has been established with an aim to implement the methodology in cuble of big data applications to support and validate Survey data.

In this context, this assignment aims at recruiting an international expert: big data applications to review/update/support the ongoing efforts within the big data acquisition.

The expert will work mainly on big data sources and acquisition to support HIES, MPD, water meter, etc ….

D.Duties and responsibilities:

•      To review the process, Application, and the quastionare to advance contribution of big data for Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES).

•      To provide some tangble use cases of Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) with some justification.

•      Analysing water meter data.

•      Analyse the data sets from alternative sources as per project, support the implementation, and advise on the application and data analysis using Python/R.

•      Assemble and examine original statistical material to ensure accuracy, clarity and validity; makes appropriate adjustments.

•      Update statistical series in established formats. Applies new data and derived statistics.

•      Prepare charts, graphs and other outputs for reporting and presentation of various data analysis.

•      Respond to internal/external requests on questions related to big data acquisition and any statistics and the operations  TNCs).

•      Assist in liaising with other entities to obtain necessary statistical and other relevant information.

•      Prepare data sets upon request, respond to queries/requests and maintains/updates web pages.

•      Perform any other relevant tasks requested by the supervisor.

•      In addition to delivering the abovementioned technical support, the BIG DATA ACQUISITION Expert will implement capacity building and knowledge transfer activities to national team to sustain the consultancy output.

•      To held two courses for R and Python programing GASTAT on principles and best practice in relation to BIG DATA ACQUISITION methodologies and frameworks.

•      To provide data management training for team members.

•      Providing coaching and on-the-job-training for the GASTAT staff  as needed

D.     Institutional Arrangement

The expert will be reporting to GSTAT and UNDP. A detailed work plan for the expert’s duties and responsibilities will be formulated by GSTAT.

E.     Duration of the Work

The expected duration of the assignment is to be up to 3 months with a possibility of extension subject to the availability of funding and performance.

F.      Duty Station

This assignment will be based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

• This assignment will be based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• UNDP will cover the around ticket to/from duty station 
• If unforeseen travel outside the consultant’s duty station city is requested by UNDP and not required by the Terms of References (ToR), such travel shall be covered by UNDP in line with applicable rules and regulations and upon prior written agreement. In such cases, the consultant shall receive living allowances not exceeding the United Nations (UN) Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) rate for such other location(s).

• Note: A written approval from UNDP and relevant authorities will be required to facilitate the consultant's travel to any locations than stated on this TOR on official missions where necessary.

H.Scope of Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments:

All proposals must be expressed in a lump sum amount. This amount must be “all-inclusive”. Please note that the terms “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, living allowances, communications, consumables, etc.) that could possibly be incurred are already factored into the final amounts submitted in the proposal.

Payments shall be made to the individual contractor upon successful completion and certification by UNDP that services have been satisfactorily performed, based upon the actual number of working days.

Payment shall be made as a deliverables-based lump upon the receipt of the deliverables and certification of satisfactory performance by CTA.

I.G.                     Qualifications of the Successful Individual Contractor:

1. Education:

•      Master degree or PhD (preferred PhD) in statistics or data management with an emphasis on big data acquisition

•      Certification of Training courses / workshops related to the field of big data Acquisition.

•      Certificates of data science.

1. Experience:

1. Language: 

• Proficiency in spoken and written English.

1. Competencies:

•            Ability to provide statistical technical advice on big data use for official statistics.

•            Professional skills on data management/data processing.

•            Ability to work on own initiative as well as a member of a team and to work under pressure.

•            Excellent interpersonal skills, including the ability to establish strong cooperative relationships with senior government officials.

•            Ability to work with Python/R and other statistical packages to analyze data.

•            Good understanding and practice of capacity development.

•            Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modelling UN values and ethical standards.

•            Demonstrates  professional competence and is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results.

•            Display cultural, gender, religion and age sensitivity and adaptability.

J.Recommended Presentation of Offer

For purposes of generating Offers whose contents are uniformly presented and to facilitate their comparative analysis, it is best to recommend the preferred contents and presentation of the Offer to be submitted, as well as the format/sequencing of their presentation.  The following documents may be requested:

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 and at least three (3) professional references;
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. A methodology is recommended for intellectual services, but maybe omitted for support services [Note: this is optional for support services]; 
4. Financial Proposal that indicates the all-inclusive total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per the template provided. The terms “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, travel costs, living allowances, communications, consumables, etc.) that could possibly be incurred are already factored into the final amounts submitted in the Proposal. If an Offeror is employed by an organization/company/institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under the Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial Proposal submitted to UNDP. 

K.Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies:

Step I: Screening and desk review:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Technical Criteria (CV review and Desk Review/Interview optional) – maximum 70 points. Only candidates who obtained at least 70% of points from the CV desk review (who will score at least 49 points) will be considered for the next evaluation stage, i.e., financial evaluation.

Applications will be first screened, and only candidates meeting the following minimum criteria will progress to the pool for shortlisting:

• Master degree or PhD (preferred PhD) in statistics or data management with an emphasis on big data acquisition

•            Certification of Training courses / workshops related to the field of big data Acquisition.

•            Certificates of data science.

•            Proofed 8 years direct experience on big data or related aspects.

•            Professional experience with national statistics offices, international organisation, ESCWA, GCC stat.

1. Technical Skills:

The qualified candidate should be fully autonomous in preparing policy papers and presentations, mastering office tools and strong project management skills

Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points)

The following formula will be used to evaluate the financial proposal:

p = y (µ/z), where

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal

µ = price of the lowest-priced proposal

z = price of the proposal being evaluated