IC/PNG/056-2022 Consultancy for a Technical assistant to support a mobile money operator in PNG
Procurement Process
IC - Individual contractor
Office
UNCDF Papua New Guinea Country Office - PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Deadline
11-Oct-22
Published on
28-Sep-22
Reference Number
96066
Documents
Terms of ReferenceAnnex 2_General Conditions of Contract - IC
Annex 3_Offerors Letter & Financial Proposal
Annex 4_Statement of Good Health - IC
Annex 5_P11 ICs Form
Overview
Reference |
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Location | Combination of remote working and field mission to East and West Sepik (Papua New Guinea) | |
Application deadline | 11TH October 2022 | |
Type of Contract | Individual consultants or Reimbursable Loan Agreement (International) | |
Post Level | Individual consultants | |
Consultancy Title | Technical assistance to support a mobile money operator in PNG | |
Languages required: | English (Mandatory) and Tok Pisin (Desired) | |
Duration of Initial Contract: | 35 days (spread over four months) |
- BACKGROUND
Introduction – UNCDF UNCDF is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 46 Least Developed Countries (LDC). UNCDF uses its capital mandate to support LDCs pursue inclusive growth. UNCDF promotes financial inclusion, also through digital financial services (DFS), as a key enabler of poverty reduction and inclusive growth; and it demonstrates how localizing finance outside the capital cities can accelerate growth in local economies, promote sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructure development, and empower local communities. Using capital grants, loans and credit enhancements, UNCDF tests financial models in inclusive finance and local development finance; ‘de-risks’ the local investment space; and provides proofs of concept, paving the way for larger investors.
UNCDF’s objective is to develop inclusive financial systems in which a range of financial products are available to all segments of society, at a reasonable cost, and on a sustainable basis. UNCDF supports a wide range of providers (e.g. microfinance institutions, banks, cooperatives, money transfer companies) and a variety of financial products and services (e.g. savings, credit, insurance, pension, payments, and remittances). Background: The Support to Rural Entrepreneurship and Trade in Papua New Guinea (STREIT PNG) programme is the largest grant-funded programme of the European Union in the Pacific sub-region. The programme was developed under the 11th European Development Fund (2014-2020) and is being implemented as a United Nations joint programme under the leadership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). UNCDF is part of the STREIT project in Papua New Guinea and is responsible for the access to finance component of the project.
The programme focuses on the value chains of cocoa, vanilla, and fisheries in the Sepik region. The programmes overall objective is "To increase sustainable and inclusive economic development of rural areas". The approach of the program is to bring sustainable development to the three target value chains by working on the following two components:
The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) supports Component 2 of the programme by leading various efforts in financial inclusion focused on: 1) Policy and regulation 2) Value chain focused product and services 3) Improve and expand the distribution channel 4) Build capacities of financial service providers to cater needs of value chain actors.
As part of the project, UNCDF has partnered with multiple banks and mobile money operators in PNG. One of these partners is Digicel (PNG) Financial Services Limited (DFSL). DFSL is a Financial institution licensed by the Bank of Papua New Guinea to provide mobile money services in PNG. It is part of Digicel PNG, the country's largest Mobile Network Operator (MNO). DFSL offers its mobile money services under the brand Cellmoni. DFSL, with support from UNCDF, has been actively promoting Cellmoni services in East and West Sepik. Most notably, DFSL has increased its agent network, invested in customer awareness campaigns, and rolled out promotional activities. The results from these activities have been mixed with a good improvement in expansion of the delivery channel and customer base but without a commensurate increase in usage. As part of the technical assistance, the consultant will be expected to perform a supply and demand-side assessment of the situation and help DFSL identify solutions to improve the usage of their Cellmoni services in the Sepik region. The consultant will work closely with DFSL and UNCDF team to deliver this technical assistance. |
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- DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Scope of Work
The scope of this technical assistance project is divided into the following phases:
Phase 1: Demand side assessment Under phase 1 consultant will be required to conduct a demand-side assessment of existing Cellmoni customers with the following objectives:
The consultant will be expected to conduct exploratory action research using qualitative tools with a limited sample in the East and West Sepik region.
Phase 2: Supply-side assessment In this phase, the consultant is expected to conduct a detailed institutional assessment of Cellmoni, covering the product, customer service and delivery channel. The evaluation should also include a study of the long-term vision of DFSL for Cellmoni and alignment of their customer engagement and promotional activities to their vision.
Phase 3: Data analysis and roadmap for DFSL In this phase, the consultant will conduct a detailed root cause analysis of the problems preventing greater adoption of Cellmoni services in the Sepik region. The consultant will also be expected to perform a comparative analysis of Cellmoni with other successful mobile money service providers operating in different difficult geographies worldwide. The comparative analysis should be conducted to help DFSL prioritise its areas for improvement. Towards the end of the phase consultant will be expected to develop a roadmap for DFSL to improve the uptake of Cellmoni services in the region Sepik on a sustainable basis.
Phase 4: Support to DFSL in implementation of the roadmap In this phase consultant will provide remote assistance to DFSL for a period of 2 months. The assistance will be in form of periodic technical assistance sessions (indicative 8-hour sessions/month) to discuss the progress, problems, and plans for implementation of the roadmap.
Activities:
Deliverables:
Institutional Arrangement
Duty Station
Duration of Work: This is a 35 days assignment spread over 6-8 weeks (Phase 1 to 3) to be implemented in first and second month followed by limited engagement (Phase 4) for additional two months. |
- COMPETENCIES
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- REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
Educational Qualifications (For team lead[2] of individual consultant):
Experience
Language requirements
Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments The bidder must send a financial proposal based on a lump sum payment at the completion of the deliverables. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fees and any other applicable cost incurred by the successful bidder in completing the assignment. The contract price will be a fixed output-based price regardless of the extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:
Evaluation Method and Criteria Bids will be evaluated based on cumulative analysis. The award of the contract shall be made to the bidder whose offer has been evaluated and determined as a) responsive/compliant/acceptable; and b) having received the highest score out of a set of weighted technical criteria (70%) and financial criteria (30%). The financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced bid received by UNDP for the assignment.
Technical Proposal (70%)
Financial Proposal (30%) To be computed as a ratio of the Proposal’s offer to the lowest price among the proposals received by UNDP.
Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.
Documentation required Interested bidders 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 a maximum of one document:
Incomplete, joint proposals and proposals sent to the wrong mailing address will not be accepted, and only candidates for whom there is further interest will be contacted. Individuals interested in this consultancy should apply and will be reviewed based on their individual capacity. The successful individual may sign an Individual Contract with UNDP or request his/her employer to sign a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) on their behalf by indicating this in the Offerors letter to Confirming Interest and Availability using Annex II.
Annexes
Proposal Submission
Women applicants are encouraged to apply. |
[1] Tentative, to be proposed by the applicant within the overall timeframe suggested in the TOR
[2] For firms: The proposed team lead should spend considerable time in implementation of the project and must be budgeted for travel to PNG