Consultant – Communications and Knowledge Management

UNDP has substantially re-conceptualized its delivery capacity to support through a single, unified policy bureau, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS). The Bureau brings together UNDP’s policy work across all regions. Within the BPPS, the Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Team (CDT) is responsible for practice development for UNDP’s work on DRR and Recovery, Climate Change, and Energy. The goal of the team is to provide support to strengthen national capacities for climate change and disaster risk reduction, energy, preparedness, recovery assessments, programmes and planning. The team provides high quality advice and programmatic support in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of activities.

The CDT has been engaging national governments, development sector ministries/agencies, civil society and other stakeholders in a number of countries to support integration of disaster and climate risk considerations into the development planning and programming process. The support entails strengthening disaster risk governance systems and capacities, developing tools and methodologies as well as providing technical inputs to facilitate the process. Countries are increasingly requesting support on shaping integrated climate and disaster risk management programmes and policies, and support is provided upon request based on best practices by UNDP’s global and regional support teams.

UNDP’s Integrated Climate Risk Management Programme (ICRMP) is a global programme that aims to strengthen the risk management practice by harmonizing risk reduction and adaptation to effect a holistic, positive impact on poverty reduction and development. The expected outcome is for “the evidence-base for climate risk management to be strengthened and expanded by assessing climatic risks to key development sectors, DRR-CCA frameworks formulated, institutional and community risk reduction and adaptive capacity built with a view to mainstream climate risk management and promote climate resilience.” The ICRMP currently spans six pilot countries (Honduras, Armenia, Kenya, Uganda, Nepal, and Indonesia), and it builds upon the climate risk assessment methodology and experience under past programmes, especially UNDP’s Climate Risk Management – Technical Assistance Support Project (CRM-TASP), among others.  Being a global / inter-regional programme, the six pilot countries are able to share tools, best practices, and expertise, and results from the programme are feeding back into building the evidence-base and developing the practice of integrated climate and disaster risk management.

Objective

It is the aim of this consultancy to help capture and convey the lessons learned, good practices and experiences, and to develop a broad and effective platform by which to communicate and report the advances of the ICRMP

Under the direct supervision of the Programme Coordinator of the ICRMP, the Consultant will provide effective communication strategies, tools and products working with national teams to capture compelling highlights and project wins.

Key tasks for the consultancy are listed below:

• Create a global communications strategy for ICRMP, in line with visibility guidelines of UNDP and donor countries.
• Solicit updates and stories from national teams and global support unit colleagues to develop regular stories/articles on ICRMP activities;
• Draft and disseminate ICRMP results announcements to increase programme visibility and knowledge sharing (for example through Climate-L);
• Draft programme results documents and text to be used for donor proposals, web-spaces, international events, etc. and contribute content to the UNDP CDT communications team, as needed (web-stories, blog support, op-eds, etc.);
• Contribute to UNDP corporate briefings and preparation as it relates to ICRMP activities.

Website and Social Media content development and updating:

• Develop suggested site architecture and oversee the full re-design of the CRM website so that it will act as the main platform for CRM knowledge sharing and visibility;
• Act as the main liaison with website design firm;
• Develop a list of suggested tweets to be shared with UNDP corporate on a weekly basis;
• Establish and frequently update ICRMP social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, in close collaboration with the relevant members of the team;
• Prepare and disseminate a monthly digital newsletter including pertinent information on global programme activities, national project achievements, and the latest academic thinking;
• Write/source a brief news item for the ICRMP website once every 2 weeks;
• Develop a national project wrap-up report template to gather and disseminate national project deliverables upon project completion;
• Create terminal report visibility products upon project completion.

Key Deliverables:

• Revamped climate risk management website, including repository of documents;
• A global communications strategy for ICRMP;
• Climate-L messages;
• ICRMP monthly digital newsletter;
• ICRMP-related UNDP corporate tweets;
• ICRMP brochure(s) catered to audience to communicate programme activities;
• National Project Wrap-Up Report template and individual country reports;
• Culminating Global Workshop Meeting Report;
• Additional visibility and outreach documents as needed.

Institutional Arrangements:

• The Consultant will work from the BPPS office in New York City. S/he will work with, report directly to, and will seek approval of outputs from the Programme Coordinator of the ICRMP;
• S/he will work closely with UNDP country office counterparts in partner countries;
• The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own laptop;
• Payments will be made upon submission of a detailed time sheet and certification of payment form, and approval and confirmation by the Programme Coordinator on days worked and outputs delivered.

Corporate Competencies

• Excellent communications and networking skills;
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team;
• Strong interpersonal and negotiating skills;
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment; and
• Sound judgment and discretion.

Functional Competencies:

• Communicates effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner;
• Understands basic climate and disaster risk concepts;
• Has demonstrable knowledge in the fundamental concepts of effective communication and visibility campaigns;
• Has applicable experience developing visibility products that communication complex dynamics in a compelling and digestible format.

Education:

• Master’s degree in climate change, communications, journalism, information management or other related field.

Experience:

• At least 2 years professional experience in the field of knowledge management, communications, journalism, or climate change (with policy writing / research experience), experience with website architecture and graphic design is an added asset (additional years of experience will be an advantage);
• Proven expertise in developing and implementing communication strategies;
• Previous experience working on communications and outreach that relate to sustainable development, environmental and/or climate issues;
• Experience developing, editing and overseeing layout of publications and content management for websites and social media
• Previous experience determining and analyzing lessons learned;
• Experience living and working in developing countries, particularly in the environment and/or international development fields, is a strong asset;
• Experience and proven network with the international media;
• Previous work experience with UNDP or a related organization and familiarity with their brand identity requirements would be an asset.

Languages:

• English is the working language for this assignment; therefore, excellent oral and written communications and presentation skills in English are required;
• Knowledge of Spanish and/or French is a strong asset.

Travel:

• Limited international travel might be required to partner countries, international workshops;
• Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries;
• Consultants are required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under https://dss.un.org/dssweb/;
• All mission-related travel expenses will be supported by the project’s travel fund and will be arranged for by UNDP in accordance with UNDP entitlements and travel policy.  Costs for mission travel should not be included in financial proposal.

Required Presentation of Offer

The application is a two-step process. Failing to comply with the submission process will result in disqualifying the applications.

Step 1

Please note that only 1 (one) file can be uploaded; therefore please include all documents in one file. Interested applicants must include the following documents when submitting the applications in UNDP Job Shop:

CV or Personal History Form (P11), indicating all relevant experience, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the candidate and at least three (3) professional references (the P11 template can be downloaded from this link: http://sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc). A completed P11 Form will be required at the time a selected applicant signs an Individual Contract (IC) or his/her employer, if employed, signs a Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA) for work associated with this assignment.

Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, including links to similar type communications/visibility products or strategies.

Step 2

The financial proposal template is available here: http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_file.cfm?doc_id=45780. Applicants must submit their financial proposals in US Dollars for this consultancy to bpps.procurement@undp.org, with the following subject heading: “Job-ID XXXXX: Financial Proposal for the Communications and Knowledge Management Consultant-ICRMP" by the deadline for this vacancy. Proposals received after the deadline will be rejected.

The price offer should indicate an ‘all-inclusive’ lump-sum amount. The daily rate should also be included in the breakdown. The term ‘all-inclusive’ implies that all costs (professional fees, non-mission travel related expenses, communications, utilities, consumables, insurance, etc.) that could possibly be incurred by the Contractor are already factored into the financial proposal.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer:

• Candidates will be compared using a combined scoring method with the qualifications weighted at 70% and the price offer weighted at 30%.  Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 (70%) points on the technical qualifications part will be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria for evaluation of qualifications (70 points maximum):

• Relevance of education to the position (Max: 10 points);
• Number of years of professional experience in the field (Max: 30 points);
• Proven expertise in developing communications strategies, user-friendly websites / tools / publications (Max: 20 points);
• Experience working with developing countries, particularly in the environment and/or international development fields, is a strong asset (5 points);
• Knowledge of Spanish and/or French is a strong asset (Max: 5 points).

Criteria for financial evaluation (30 points maximum):

The following formula will be used to evaluate 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.

Interviews and/or written test may also be conducted.

Annexes and References

UNDP’s Individual Consultant’s General Terms and Conditions are provided here: 

http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf