Consultancy: Communications Support to the UNDP Governance Portfolio, IC/PNG/064-2021

1. UNDP works in 170 countries and territories, helping to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, and build resilience so countries can sustain progress. As the UN’s development agency, UNDP plays a critical role in helping countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
2. The UNDP Papua New Guinea Country Office has a growing Governance portfolio covering a wide range of work and services to its partners and clients in line with the key priorities of the PNG Government and UNDP Country Programme Document. These include policy and advisory support on democratic governance and development issues, finance management, parliamentary strengthening, political party reforms, peacebuilding and conflict prevention, electoral support, private sector engagement and promotion of human rights and gender equality.
3. The UNDP Governance Portfolio has grown over the last five years, and is engaging in a number of critical areas in partnership with the Government of PNG. Programming includes:

• EU-UN Spotlight Initiative in PNG: The Spotlight Initiative is a global partnership between the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in support of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. The Spotlight Initiative in PNG is implemented through UNDP, UN Women, UNFPA and UNICEF, with a focus on addressing gender-based violence (GBV). The vision of the Spotlight Initiative in PNG is that women and girls enjoy their right to a life free of violence, within an inclusive and gender equitable PNG.  UNDP has been supporting three critical areas of work through the Spotlight Initiative:
  • National and provincial implementation of the National GBV Strategy (2016-2025): UNDP has been working closely with the Department for Community Development and Religion (DfCDR) to progress implementation of the National GBV Strategy, including by supporting budget development and institutional strengthening. DFCDR and UNDP have also been working to support 14 provinces covered by the Spotlight Intiaitive to develop their own provincial GBV Strategies and set up their own secretariats. UNDP is also developing a website for the National GBV Secretariat, to be launched in late 2021.
  • Coalition of Parliamentarians to End GBV: The Coaltion is a bipartisan collective of 20 Parliamentarians from across PNG which was esablished in August 2020 and subsequently organized the first ever national summit on gender-based violence in November 2020.  The Coalition is committed to take substantial strategic steps to address key policy failings and use their collective voice to demand change. The Coalition will again drive the 2021 National GBV Summit, which is anticipated to be held in late November to mark the 20 days of GBV activism which begins in PNG on 20 November.
  • Special Parliamentary Committee on GBV: The Committee was established in late 2020 and has mandated to examine GBV in PNG and to make recommendations to Paliament. The Committee held the first ever parliamentary public hearings on GBV in May 2021 and is scheduling a second set of hearings for November 2021. The Committee will then produce its final Report to Parliament and use it to advocate for change.
• Women Making the Change: To support women’s leadership roles in national and sub-national government, UNDP is partnering with UN Women to implement the Women Make the Change Project. UNDP has been working closely with the Registry of Political Parties (RPP) and PNG Election Commission to run regional trainings for aspiring women candidates since July 2021, and will bring this work together at a national Women in Leadership Meeting in late 2021. UNDP and the RPP will also likely partner on running a Practice Parliament for Women in early 2022 in advance of the 2022 National General Election.
• PNG Anti-Corruption Project: UNDP is partnering with UNODC, with support from the European Union to implement a new 3-year project designed to support GoPNG to implement the new Nationl Anti-Corruption Plan of Action (NACPA) and work with key national institutions to strengthen their capacities to investigate and prosecute corruption. Communicating to change behaviours is a key element of the Project.
• Bougainville Post Referendum Support Project: Following the successful conduct of the 2019 Bougainville Referendum, UNDP has designed a new two-year Project to assist the National Government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government with continued implementation of the Bougainville Peace Agreement. The Project has been designed in close consultation with the two governments and takes forward a range of decisions made by the Joint Ministerial Post Referendum Taskforce and the Joint Supervisory Body. The Project has three areas of focus, which are to support ongoing consultations, awareness raising and increasing participation of a range of processes and dialogues.
• COVID Rapid Financing Facility:  In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, there was a clear spike in GBV cases. Subsequently, the GoPNG requested UNDP’s support towards combating GBV and strengthening of GBV measures within the country especially during COVID-19 pandemic. This Project aims to assist the GoPNG and CSOs to maintain core services that support the victims of GBV during COVID-19 period until the Government can re-prioritize its resources in supporting its own immediate national COVID-19 preparedness plan.

     4. To support and raise the profile of the work of the UNDP Governance Portfolio, UNDP seeks an experienced consultant to suport the                   growing communication needs of the Projects described above, and to support the UNDP Governance team more generally to work with             national partners to develop a programme of “communications for change”.

Objectives:

   5. The objective of this consultancy is to support UNDP PNG’s investments in gender equality, women’s political leadership, GBV, anti-corruption, COVID19 response in PNG and Bougainville by providing high quality communication and outreach support to UNDP, which supports tranformative change broadly, and the objectives of the UNDP Governance Portfolio more specifically.

Supervision and Reporting:

  6. The Consultant will be supervised by the UNDP Assistant Resident Representative (ARR) and will provide weekly updates and other                    reporting as required. The Consultant will work closely with staff and advisors working on the governance projects described above.

Key deliverables, payments and approval

    7. The Consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables:

1. Support communication needs of the Governance Portlio with focus on the UNDP component of the (1) EU-UN Spotlight in PNG Project, (2) Women Make the Change project (3) COVID19 Rapid Financing Facility; (4) PNG Anti-Corruption Project and (5) Bougainville Post-Referendum Project.
2. Develop and implement a Communication, Adovcacy and Outreach Plan for the 2021 National GBV Summit for the Coalition and UNDP, as part of a broader Communication, Adovcacy and Outreach Plan for the Coalition of Parliamentarians to End GBV.
3. Priovide communications support to the Special Parliamentary Committee on GBV parliamentary public hearings on GBV in November 2021.
4. Develop and implement a Communication, Adovcacy and Outreach Plan for UNDP’s components of the Women Making the Change Project, in particular, in support of the 2021 National WIL Meeting and 2022 Practice Parliament for Women.
5. Review and implement the PNG Anti-Corruption Project Communications and Visibility Plan that has already been submitted to the European Union.
6. Supporting UNDP internal media monitoring and reporting, as directed by the ARR.

Key tasks and distribution of time

Payment schedule 

Payment on deliverables

Monthly payment based on submitted timesheet. A month is 22.71 days.

Resources Provided

The Consultant shall provide his/her own working equipment (hardware and software). UNDP will assist with a desk space.

Competencies

1. Strong communication skills, including a proven track record in writing high-quality reports, engaging in communication on social media, producing press releases / briefs for high-level officials / information papers, developing videos. Excellent written and oral communication skills in English, as demonstrated by writing examples. Ability to communicate in local PNG languages an advantage;
2. Demonstrated knowledge of development issues, in particular, gender equality, GBV, corruption and/or women in leadership.
3. Demonstrated examples of displaying sound judgement and strategic decision-making in relation to communicating on sensitive issues.

Education

1. University degree in journalism, public relations, public policy, politics, development studies or a related area is required. Masters degree is an advantage.

Experience

1. A minimum of ten (10) years of progressively responsible professional experience in communications, public relations, journalism or a related field.
2. Demonstrated experience delivering communications in support of high-level events, including coordinating media activies, press conferences, media releases, etc
3. Demonstrated experience engaging with senior government officals and/or elected leaders is am advantage.

Evaluation

The proposals will be evaluated using the cumulative analysis method with a split 70% technical and

30% financial scoring.  The proposal with the highest cumulative scoring will be awarded the contract. Applications will be evaluated technically, and points are attributed based on how well the proposal meets the requirements of the Terms of Reference using the guidelines detailed in the table below:

 When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract may be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

* Technical Criteria weighting; 70%=

* Financial Criteria weighting; 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the Technical Evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation. Interviews may be conducted as part of technical assessment for shortlisted proposals.

Documents to be included when submitting Consultancy Proposals

The following documents may be requested:

1. Duly executed Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP.
2. Signed P11, indicating all 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 may be omitted for support services.
4. 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 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 Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must stipulate that arrangement at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.  The financial proposal must be submitted separately from other documents. The P11 form and Template for confirming availability and interest are available under the procurement section of UNDP PNG website (www.pg.undp.org ).

Lump-sum contracts

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump-sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e., whether payments fall in instalments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e., upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR.  To assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump-sum amount (including travel, living expenses, and number of anticipated working days).

Travel

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. 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, they should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging, and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Submission Instructions

Completed proposals should be submitted to [email protected] with mandatory email subject:  Consultancy:  Communications Support to the UNDP Governance Portfolio, IC/PNG/064-2021 on or before 1st December 2021. For any clarification regarding this assignment please write to  [email protected]

Please be guided by the instructions provided in this document above while preparing your submission. Incomplete proposals and failure to comply with proposal submission instruction will not be considered or will result in disqualification of proposal. UNDP looks forward to receiving your Proposal and thank you in advance for your interest in UNDP procurement opportunities.