Procurement Notices

Terms of Reference (ToR) for Individual Contractor

1. General background information relevant to the assignment:

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 GDP, for instance, increased from SR 156 billion in 1969 to SR 2,631 billion in 2018, putting the economy among the top 20 global economies in terms of size. Based on the annual ranking of the Human Development Index (HDI) of the Human Development Report, Saudi Arabia has steadily moved from the medium human development category in the 1990s to the very high human development category in 2018 at 0.857 value of HDI.

The Saudi Vision 2030 represents an ambitious resolve with long-term goals and expectations founded on the strengths and capabilities of the Kingdom. It covers the three themes of a vibrant society, a thriving economy and an ambitious nation. A thorough review of the three themes and their underlying issues of national concern would reveal a holistic approach to development that encompasses the three dimensions of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): the social, the economic and the environmental. Saudi Arabia recognises that achieving the SDGs requires rigorous, real-time and continuous monitoring for which quality statistics is a must.  The General Authority for Statistics (GaStat) has gone through a major revision of its corporate strategy and vision in alignment with the Saudi Vision 2030 and the SDGs. The revised strategy revolves around five pillars:

• Usage of statistics and information
• Production of statistics and information
• Application of advanced technologies in collecting and analyzing datasets
• Communications and awareness towards statistical knowledge
• Governance of the statistical sector

Under the framework of the Institutional Support to Statistics project, UNDP provides technical support to the GaStat to strengthen the institutional and human capacities of the national statistical system to support evidence-based development planning and policy-making.

Within this context, UNDP is seeking to recruit an Economist  to provide technical and advisory support to GaStat to enhance the management of financial accounts and support  the improvement of the statistical business registers in compliance with SNA 2008. 

1. Scope of Work:

This consultancy aims to review, update, and support the development of an integrated framework to develop survey questionnaire/application and related guidance on survey implementation, with a focus on the official statistics to enable the GASTAT to produce globally-comparable statistics and to become a global reference in the field of survey design and methodologies.

 In this context, The GASTAT/ survey design unit is seeking to recruit a survey methodologies expert to support the survey design work to be carried out by the unit. The survey methodologies expert will work on advance methodologies in terms of the design and piloting of survey methodologies, as well as on the compilation of guidance on data collection. The survey methodologies expert will provide technical assistance related to the design, re-engineer, test, evaluate, validate and analyse and implementation of the survey. 

The expert will also implement capacity-building and knowledge-transfer activities, including on-the-job training.

The responsibilities under this assignment include the following:

1. Technical  support

• Review and update the designing process for new surveys
• Benchmarking and reengineering existing surveys
• Optimizing questionnaire for a different type of respondents
• Optimizing questionnaire for a mode of data collection
• Improving an existing survey - same mode
• Improving an existing survey - changing mode
• Transforming CAPI surveys to CATI and CAWI modes
• Reviewing surveys
• Developing CAWI surveys
• Testing questionnaire (pre-field and field techniques)
• Field technique - UX- UI for testing – eye tracking and mouse tracking.
• Analyzing Para-data

• Capacity Development

• In addition to delivering the above-mentioned technical support, the expert will advise the survey unit team on the best practices in relation to methodologies, concepts and frameworks.
• Delivering training to the staff in designing, developing, and tesing the survey
• Training national team to plan and implement th survey
• Building ToT within Survey unit to lead to train other units staff
• Providing coaching and on-the-job-training for the staff as needed.

1. Expected Deliverables and Outputs

1. Institutional Arrangement:

The duty station for the Expert is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He/ She will be embedded within the Survey Unit at GASTAT. s/he will report to Director of Survey Unit

1. The duration of the assignment:

The expected duration of the assignment is expected to be up to 4 months

1. The duty station and expected places of travel, if any:

The duty station for the Survey Methodologies Expert is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

• a) UNDP will cover the cost of business class travel of the individual and his family to the duty station, as well as their return to their home upon completion of their services. Travel costs are covered only in the event that the function will be undertaken physically in the duty station and excludes working-from-home arrangements.
• b) Include any official travel expected to be associated with performing the functions.
• c) UNDP will cover the cost of VIP class health insurance for the individual and his family.

1. Reporting requirements, milestones, and payments:

All proposals must be expressed in a lump sum amount. This amount must be “all-inclusive”. Please note that the term “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 sum payment, to be paid in the following instalments. The schedule of payment will be distributed upon satisfactory submission of the deliverables listed in the table hereunder:

1. Required Skills and Experience:

• Functional competencies:

•  Proven technical and intellectual skills in understanding and interpreting regional, national, and local social science indices.
• Ability to understand and analyze and political dynamics in the region. Demonstrated ability for facilitation and coordination skills.
• Demonstrated entrepreneurial abilities and demonstrated ability to work in an independent manner.
• Background knowledge about the SDGs, United Nations and UNDP.
• Good teamwork and interpersonal skills.
• Flexibility and ability to handle multiple tasks and work under pressure. 
• Excellent drafting and formulation skills.
• Excellent computer skills especially Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. 

• Leadership:

• Demonstrated ability to think strategically and to provide credible leadership.
• Demonstrated intellectual leadership and ability to integrate green finance with broader strategic overview and corporate vision.
• Demonstrated flexibility in leadership by performing and/or overseeing the analysis/resolution of complex issues. Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development experience.
• Managing Relationships:
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain strategic.

• Partnerships:

• Demonstrated well developed people management and organizational management skills.
• Excellent negotiating and networking skills with strong partnerships in academia, technical
• organizations and as a recognized expert in the practice area.

• Managing Complexity:

• Ability to address global development issues.
• Demonstrated substantive leadership and ability to integrate knowledge with broader strategic, policy and operational objectives.

H.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. 

I.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:

• Advanced degree, preferably a master’s level in statistics or economics with an emphasis on statistics.

• At least eight years of relevant professional experience with national statistics offices and international organisations, with proven experience in applying statistical techniques to design NPI surveys, measuring volunteer work, and compiling NPISA.      
• Relevant working and practical experience in industry or government agencies regionally (GCC)
• Demonstrate good knowledge of economic indicators for national and local economic trends
• Excellent command of English, working knowledge of Arabic would be considered an asset.
• Excellent presentation, communication, and organizational 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

1. Instructions for on-line submissions

Step 1:  Please prepare all required documents electronically;

Step 2: Combine all documents in ONE SINGLE FILE (preferably in PDF; however, Word format can also be accepted) and upload to the UNDP Jobs links

Step 3: After that, you will receive an auto-reply from the UNDP jobs if your offer is received successfully.

Interested applicants are advised to carefully review this advertisement and ensure that they meet the requirements and qualifications described. 

Given the volume of applications that UNDP receives, only shortlisted offerors will be notified.

UNDP reserves the right to reject any incomplete applications.

Please be informed that we don’t accept applications submitted via email.

Interested Offerors are required to submit an application via UNDP Jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP Jobsite system. Please note that UNDP Jobsite system allows only one uploading of application documents, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your online application submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an email acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload a maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or sent to email mohammed.abbas@undp.org. While the Procurement Unit would endeavour to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 3 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain updates related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Interested applicants are advised to carefully review this advertisement and ensure that they meet the requirements and qualifications described. 

The interested offeror must read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=XXXXX  for more detailed information about terms of references, instructions to the offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer online.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.