Digitalization of Youth Portfolio International Consultant

More than half of the world’s young people alive today, live on this continent. At the moment, roughly 68 of every 100 people in Asia are of working age. It is a region facing up to the challenges of extreme poverty and climate change, but brimming with economic dynamism and a youthful workforce to deliver on unfulfilled potential. What’s more, nearly a billion people in Asia are below the age of 15; means by 2050 the region will have more working-age people, and fewer older and younger dependents than at any point in its history. This ‘youth bulge’ offers the region a unique opportunity which unity for economic progress, to lift millions more out of poverty, and ultimately close the gap with the developed world.

Young people in the region are 5-7 times more likely to be unemployed than their older counterparts at the same level of education. Women’s access to education and participation in the labour force remain stubbornly low across populous swathes of the region. The next wave of development gains as envisioned by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals must address the needs of those left behind. These are big issues and our solutions must be equally bold. UNDP’s Asia Pacific Human Development Report for 2016, examines these demographic trends and sets out clear policy directions that governments can harmonise with their national development plans and strategies.

UNDP and its partners believe that youth can make a real and positive difference and create their own opportunities by engaging with these challenges head on through social entrepreneurship and innovation, exploring dynamic approaches to mobilizing their peers and communities and creating adaptive solutions to addressing youth economic marginalisation. Against this backdrop, UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub together with its partners developed a regional project on Youth Economic Empowerment and Social Innovation. With the great majority of Asia’s peak-era workforce still in their early years, now is the time to invest in interventions that will harness their potential. In not doing enough to ride this wave, we risk losing the most potent inter-generational opportunity we have had in ensuring the well-being of one-half of humanity.

Youth Co:Lab

Co-created in 2017 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Citi Foundation, Youth Co:Lab aims to establish a common agenda for countries in the Asia-Pacific region to empower and invest in youth, so that they can accelerate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through leadership, social innovation and entrepreneurship. Youth Co:Lab has been implemented in 25 countries and territories across Asia Pacific: Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Fiji, Hong Kong (SAR), Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japan, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.

Movers Programme

The Movers Programme is a grassroots movement under Youth Co:Lab that aims to equip youth with the tools to take action in their community by raising awareness about the SDGs and Entrepreneurship. With our strong network of partners dedicated to youth empowerment, we are on a mission to leave no one behind: we aim to reach the most vulnerable groups and to empower them by using a training of trainers approach.

We envision youth to take ownership of the movement and train other youth in their respective communities, while developing leadership and other essential employable skills in the process. The Movers Programme is an ongoing learning experience: the most committed and impactful Movers will have access to additional learning opportunities in order to develop new skills and expand their network, in order to take their initiatives to the next level.

UNDP is seeking an experienced consultant to support the digitalization of BRH and country offices and support the management and implementation of digital projects.

SCOPE OF WORK

With overall guidance and supervision of Programme Specialist on Youth and Civil Society and Regional Youth Project Manager, the consultant is responsible for the following activities in completing the assignments:

Digitalization Coordination:

• Support the overall digitalization of UNDP Youth teams in Asia-Pacific by assessing their need, opportunities and bottlenecks;
• Support UNDP Youth programmes at both national and regional level in digitizing and digitalizing their process and operations
• Support UNDP country offices to localize BRH Youth’s digital offers (chatbot, LMS, etc.) and support the delivery of innovative digital events;
• Identify and keep track of innovative digital practices and projects in UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub and country offices in Asia-Pacific region into a structured database, and update it regularly;
• Foster knowledge exchange by writing training materials, toolkits and case studies to support UNDP country offices in their digitalization.

Project Development and Implementation:

• Create and develop an actionable database of digital tools for UNDP country offices to use to enhance and scale their Youth programmes;
• Enhance Youth Co:Lab’s Learning Management System’s (WordPress LMS) by adding new courses from existing or new content and supporting UNDP country offices to localize the LMS;
• Scale Youth Co:Lab’s Messenger and Instagram Chatbots (Chatfuel) by redesigning the user experience, adding new features, and supporting UNDP country offices to localize it, in order to reach mass youth groups in Asia-Pacific.
• Develop and update BRH Youth’s digital assets.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS AND DELIVERABLES

The Digitalization of Youth Portfolio Consultant is expected to work towards the following work plan, and timelines to achieve the stated outputs:

PROVISION OF MONITORING AND PROGRESS CONTROLS 

The Consultant will report to the Regional Youth Project Manager and Programme Specialist on Youth and Civil Society at UNDP BRH and work in close collaboration with the UNDP country offices, Regional Innovation Center and other key parties. The success of the project depends on the timely delivery of each component.  The Consultant should ensure timely identification of potential risks and signal any delays in deliverables. The contract will be effective immediately upon signature by UNDP.

UNDP BRH will have the following responsibilities: (i) Provide relevant documents; (ii) Discuss and agree on the methodologies of the assignment; and (iii) Monitor and evaluate the progress of the assignment. The contract and payments will be performance-based and regularly assessed by UNDP BRH. All travel expenses to and from the target area should be included in the financial proposal.

The present ToR may be subject to modification, without changing the overall objective and the scope of work, on the basis of mutual consultations. UNDP will hold the copyright of the assignment deliverables.

DURATION OF THE ASSIGNMENT, DUTY STATION AND EXPECTED PLACE OF TRAVEL

Duration of the Work: 3 January 2022 – 15 June 2022, with maximum of 100 days worked.

Duty Station:

Home-based with no travel required. 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 working station (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, specific software, etc.) and must have access to a reliable internet connection; Payments will be made upon submission of a certification of payment form and acceptance and confirmation by the Regional Youth Project Manager and Programme Specialist on Youth and Civil Society on days worked and outputs delivered.

UNDP Core Competencies:

• Innovation: Ability to make new and useful ideas work;
• Leadership: Ability to persuade others to follow;
• People Management: Ability to improve performance and satisfaction;
• Communication: Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform;
• Delivery: Ability to get things done while exercising good judgement;
• Initiative: Displays initiative, sets challenging outputs for her/himself and willingly accepts new work assignments.

Functional/Technical Competencies:

• Communications and social media skills;
• Ability to work with diverse teams;
• Excellent writing skills and the ability to work independently;
• Strong presentation skills;
• Ability to work under pressure and meet targets in a tight deadline.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCES

The consultant should possess the following expertise and qualifications:

Education

• At least Bachelor’s Degree in digital, ICT, education, innovation, communication, management or related fields;

Experience

• At least 2 years of relevant work experience on digitalization, digital learning or innovation;
• At least 1 year of work experience around education or youth empowerment;
• Understanding of youth work, digital tools and trends, innovation and user research methodologies is essential;
• At least 1 year of relevant work experience of developing, implementing and monitoring projects;
• Excellent writing and synthesis skills with experience producing diverse types of documents (curriculums, reports, presentations, case studies, articles, etc.);
• Previous experience managing a Learning Management System or developing learning pathways would be desirable;
• Able to participate effectively in team-based, information-sharing environment, collaborating and cooperating with others;
• At least 1 year of working experience in the Asia and the Pacific region;
• Previous assignment in a similar position would be desirable.

Additional Skills:

• Familiarity with the following digital tools or similar is preferred: Zapier, Chatfuel, MURAL, WordPress, or relevant no-code tools;
• Data analysis and visualization skills (Excel, Google Analytics, Tableau…).

SCOPE OF PRICE PROPOSAL AND SCHEDULE OF PAYMENTS

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, living allowance and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment. The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Please note that some of the deliverables may start in parallel and not necessarily in sequence. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages:

In general, UNDP shall not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the event of unforeseeable travel not anticipated in this TOR, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon between the respective business unit and the Individual Consultant prior to travel and will be reimbursed.

Travel costs shall be reimbursed at actual but not exceeding the quotation from UNDP approved travel agent.

REVIEW TIME REQUIRED

The review and approval of payments will be made by the assigned supervisor(s) within 14 days.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION OF THE BEST OFFER

Evaluation Method and Criteria

Cumulative Analysis: The candidates will be evaluated through Cumulative Analysis method. When using the weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of set of weighted combine technical evaluation of desk review and interview (70%), and financial criteria (30%). Financial score shall be computed as a ratio of the proposal being evaluated and the lowest priced proposal received by UNDP for the assignment.

Technical Criteria for Evaluation (70 points)

Proposed Methodology, Approach and Implementation Plan (30 points)

• Criteria 1: Brief description (maximum 250 words) on why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment; (5 points)
• Criteria 2: Sample proposal (maximum 750 words) around our Youth Co:Lab Learning Management System (https://www.youthcolab-learn.org/) OR Youth Co:Lab Chatbot (https://m.me/YouthCoLab), based on the content you see on the links provided. Please choose either the LMS or Chatbot to work on and then address the following questions: A) How you would disseminate it to reach mass youth groups in Asia-Pacific? B) How would you improve the user engagement and experience? C) How would you track the relevant data? D) Please list all the tools used, and your previous experience in using them, and key metrics you would measure. (25 points)

Qualification of IC (40 points)

1. Criteria 1: At least Bachelor’s Degree in digital, ICT, education, innovation, communication, management or related fields; (5 points)
2. Criteria 2: At least 2 years of relevant work experience on digitalization, digital learning or innovation; (10 points)
3. Criteria 3: At least 1 year of work experience around education or youth empowerment; (10 points)
4. Criteria 4: At least 1 year of relevant work experience of developing, implementing and monitoring projects; (10 points)
5. Criteria 5: At least 1 year working experience in Asia and the Pacific region. (5 points)

**Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 70% or above in the Technical evaluation would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Personal interview may be required.

Financial Evaluation (30%)

Financial proposals from all technically qualified candidates will be scored out of 30 marks based on the formula provided below. The maximum marks (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal.

All other proposals will receive points according to the following formula:

• 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.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTATION

Instructions to Applicants: Click on the “Apply now” button. Input your information in the appropriate Sections: personal information, language proficiency, education, resume and motivation. Upon completion of the first page, please hit “submit application” tab at the end of the page then the uploading option for the required document will be available.

Please group all your document into one (1) single PDF document as the application system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Candidates wishing to be considered for this assignment are required to submit the following documents (please group them into one (1) single PDF document):

1. Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability with Financial Proposal (in USD) using the template provided as Annex III 

[Financial proposal: Consultant shall quote an all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided for the entire assignment. The term “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, communications, consumables, etc.) that could be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment are already factored into the proposed fee 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 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.

2. P11 / Personal CV, indicating all past experiences 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 (1) why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment (maximum 250 words); (2) Sample proposal (maximum 750 words) around our Youth Co:Lab Learning Management System (https://www.youthcolab-learn.org/) OR Youth Co:Lab Chatbot (https://m.me/YouthCoLab), based on the content you see on the links provided. Please choose either the LMS or Chatbot to work on and then address the following questions: A) How you would disseminate it to reach mass youth groups in Asia-Pacific? B) How would you improve the user engagement and experience? C) How would you track the relevant data? D) Please list all the tools used, and your previous experience in using them, and key metrics you would measure.

**Failure to submit the above-mentioned documents or Incomplete proposals shall result in disqualification

**Please group all your document into one (1) single PDF document as the application system only allows to upload maximum one document.

The short-listed candidates may be contacted, and the successful candidate will be notified.

Supporting documents/websites for the ToR

• Youth Co:Lab Learning Management System: https://www.youthcolab-learn.org/.
• Youth Co:Lab Messenger Chatbot: https://m.me/YouthCoLab.
• Example of database: https://airtable.com/shr6JrnL3js23OANm/tblBh6t3A7HEnfC5K?backgroundColor=green&viewControls=on.
• Example of data visualization: https://www.youthcolab.org/covid-19-response.

ANNEXES

Annex I – TOR_ Digitalization of Youth Portfolio International Consultant 

Annex II – General_Terms_and_Conditions_for_Contracts_Individual_Consultants

Annex III – Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability and financial proposal

All documents can be downloaded at: https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=86310