International Consultant (Project Development Expert), Support to Payroll Management (SPM) Project

UNDP Global Mission Statement:

UNDP supports stabilization, state-building, governance, and development priorities in Afghanistan. UNDP support, in partnership with the Government, the United Nations system, the donor community and other development stakeholders, has contributed to institutional development efforts leading to positive impact on the lives of Afghan citizens. Over the years, UNDP support has spanned such milestone efforts as the adoption of the Constitution; Presidential, Parliamentary and Provincial Council elections; institutional development through capacity-building to the legislative, the judicial and executive arms of the state, and key ministries, Government agencies and commissions at the national and sub-national levels. UNDP has played a key role in the management of the Law-and-Order Trust Fund, which supports the Government in developing and maintaining the national police force and in efforts to stabilize the internal security environment. Major demobilization, disarmament and rehabilitation and area-based livelihoods and reconstruction programmes have taken place nationwide. UNDP Programmes in Afghanistan have benefited from the very active support of donors. UNDP Afghanistan is committed to the highest standards of transparency and accountability and works in close coordination with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the UN system as a whole, to maximize the impact of its development efforts on the ground.

Organizational context:

UNDP Afghanistan’s Peace Pillar supports the Afghan Government in implementing its strategies for Governance, Rule of Law, etc., developing its institutional capacity and providing services to the Afghan population. This includes supporting the Ministry of Interior Affairs (MOIA) through the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA) Multi-Partner Trust Fund for Afghanistan (MPTF).

Following wide consultations on the LOTFA Terms of Reference (TOR), UNDP, LOTFA Donors and the Government of Afghanistan (GIROA) agreed to revise the TOR to make it a Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF). The LOTFA Steering Committee meeting unanimously approved the TOR of the LOTFA on 25 November 2018. The new LOTFA TOR allows LOTFA funds to be channeled through the spectrum of the Rule of Law and Justice sectors via four distinct Windows: Police Payroll (SPM project), Justice Window, Security Window, and Anti-Corruption Window, making LOTFA more Flexible, Responsive, and Adaptable to serve the people of Afghanistan effectively and efficiently. 

Support to Payroll Management Project (SPM)

The SPM project is a dedicated support to payroll management project – operating as a stand-alone Window under the new LOTFA MPTF – providing support to the MOIA staff from the General Directorate of Budget & Finance, HR, and ICT departments to ensure timely payment of salaries and incentives to the Afghan National Police (ANP) and Central Prison Department (CPD) officers.  The project is staffed with approximately 20 national staff and 3 international staff. The expected outcome of the SPM project is GIROA’s (i.e., MOIA) ability to independently manage all non-fiduciary aspects of payroll for the ANP and CPD, including producing relevant reports for donors in their specified formats. MOIA should also be able to manage the full range of functions related to payroll, i.e., human resources, accounting, and information and communication technology in a seamless manner.

The project is divided into 6 outputs as follows:

1. Output 1 ensures that updated policies implemented, business processes developed and applied to support independent MOIA payroll management.
2. Output 2 entails building the capacity of MOIA personnel (in Payroll, Human Resources, Finance, ITC etc.) to undertake all payroll processes and tasks to agreed standards.
3. Output 3 covers MOIA’s payroll systems update and reconciliation to support independent assurance work of the Monitoring Agent on the MOIA payroll expenditure and personnel headcount, which will also facilitate data migration from the current payroll system to the upcoming one.
4. Output 4 covers the provisions of the necessary infrastructure to support the full functionality of MOIA payroll systems during and after the transition of payroll management from the SPM project to the MOIA.
5. Output 5 is the core function of the SPM project as it entails the transfer of funds, on a timely and regular basis, to MOF for Police Pay.
6. Output 6 is the SPM Project management component which is to ensure that the rest of the outputs get implemented in accordance with the project document and in a timely, efficient, accountable, and effective manner.

Due to the withdrawal of the U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan, the Ministerial Advisory Group-Interior (MAG-I) had to leave Afghanistan during early May. The departure of MAG-I has left some vacuum on the capacity support to the Ministry of Interior Affairs (MOIA), particularly in the directorates such as General Directorate of Finance and Budget (GD-F&B); General Directorate of Personnel (GDoP); General Directorate of Strategy and Planning (GD-Strat-Pol), etc. UNDP has been requested by the LOTFA Steering Committee to try to fill some of the gap left by the departure of MAG-I. As the next phase of the SPM project begins on 1st January 2022, UNDP plans to cause a substantive revision to the SPM project document so that a more focused support could be provided to the abovementioned directorate in line with the project’s mandate. The expected duration of the revised project is two (2) years (1st January 2022 – 31st December 2023).

SCOPE OF WORK AND DELIVERABLES 

Objective of the Assignment:
Under the overall guidance of the Assistant Resident Representative for the Peace Pillar (ARR-P), and direct supervision of SPM Project Manager, the Project Development Expert will be responsible for the development (to revise it) of SPM project document, updating it with the new focus areas to cover 1st January 2022 to 31 December 2023.  Specific deliverables will include:

1) A detailed inception report which should detail the consultant’s methodology and work plan.

2) A draft revised SPM project document which shows the design of appropriate outputs, including but not limited to:

• MOIA is supported to mainstream Human Rights-, Anticorruption-, and gender-related activities in their daily work, clearly linked to payroll
• MOIA’s GD-F&B is supported on financial management and reporting; planning and budgeting; etc. to be able to prepare credible and realistic financial and budgetary reports to stakeholders
• MOIA’s GDoP is supported on Human Resources management and reporting to be able to prepare credible and realistic human resources reports to stakeholders
•  MOIA’s the Inspector General’s (IG) Office is supported to be able to undertake payroll-related audits and share reports with stakeholders
• MOIA’s payroll management platforms are supported to ensure continued timely preparation of salaries and incentives to Afghan National Police and General Directorate of Prison and Detention Centres

Activities

Under the direction of the SPM project manager, work with partner institutions/agencies to develop the revised project covering the above outputs through the following activities:

• Conduct meetings with relevant directorates within the MOIA and Ministry of Finance (when necessary)—including senior leadership—to engage with them and make sure their inputs are fed into the whole process and to promote ownership
• Engage with project teams, UNDP Country Office—Peace Pillar programme staff, Development Effective Unit (DEU) in the revision of the results framework and risk log
• Engage with LOTFA donors and other stakeholders—UNDP Peace Pillar, UNDP Senior management, UNDP-Trust Fund Management Unit, etc., to gather insights and thoughts that can feed into the project revision process
• Meet in a session with LOTFA donors and other stakeholders—UNDP Peace Pillar, UNDP Senior management, UNDP-Trust Fund Management Unit, etc., to present the draft revised project document and gather feedback that can be included in the final version of the document

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

Payment Modality: 
Payments under the contract shall be delivery-based and be made on receipt of the specific milestone deliverables indicated above and including a timesheet according to UNDP procurement formats for individual contractors. The payments will be made upon the full completion and acceptance of contractual obligations.

Institutional Arrangements:

The Consultant will work under the overall guidance of the ARR for Peace Unit and direct supervision of the LOTFA SPM Project Manager. The Consultant shall work in close collaboration with the Programme and Project colleagues and TFMU staff.

UNDP will facilitate the consultant’s meetings, logistical and other support services including zoom/skype/web ex meetings with MOIA directorates, donors, programme staff, etc. The Consultant, however, is expected to bring his/her own laptop and mobile phone and meet communications costs. Costs to arrange meetings, workshops, travel costs to and DSA during field visits (if any), etc. shall be covered by UNDP SPM project.

Duration of the Work

The deliverables under this contract shall be completed within 1.5 months (with maximum 33 working days), after the signing of the contract, including all preparation/inception phase work.

Duty Station

The assignment is home-based, and the consultant will be available during working hours of Afghanistan. The consultant will follow the working hours and weekends as applicable to the LOTFA SPM project staff. The Consultant’s meetings and consultations shall be coordinated by the project.

Core competencies:

• Promotes ethics and integrity and creates organizational precedents.
• Builds support and political acumen.
• Builds staff competence and creates an environment of creativity and innovation.
• Builds and promotes effective teams.
• Creates and promotes environment for open communications.
• Leverages conflict in the interest of UNDP and sets standards.
• Shares knowledge across the organization and builds a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.

Functional Competencies:

Job knowledge/technical expertise:

• Possesses expert knowledge of advance concepts in primary discipline, a broad knowledge of related disciplines and in-depth knowledge of relevant organizational policies and procedures.
• Applies knowledge to support the Project´s objectives and to further the mandate of UNDP.
• Keeps abreast of new developments in professional discipline and job knowledge and seeks to develop him/herself.
• Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments.
• Demonstrates expert knowledge of the current programme guidelines and project management tools and manages the use of these regularly in work assignments.

Conceptual innovation in the provision of technical expertise:

• Conducts programme assessment to improve development of models and methodologies.
• Demonstrates the ability to engage development partners at all levels in conceptual and methodological innovation that is pertinent to the context.

Advancing a policy-oriented agenda:

• Advocates for inclusion of UNDP´s focus areas in the public policy agenda.
• Brings visibility and sensitizes decision makers to relevant emerging issues.
• Builds consensus concerning UNDP´s strategic agenda with partners on joint initiatives.
• Leverage UNDP´s multidisciplinary expertise to influence policies and programmes.
• Demonstrates political/cultural acumen in proposing technical sound, fact-based solutions/approaches.
• Dialogues with national counterparts and other stakeholders to strengthen advocacy efforts, incorporating country, regional and global perspectives.
• Demonstrates cultural sensitivity, political savvy, and intellectual capacity in handling; disagreements in order to promote and position UNDP in complex environments.

Academic Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Business Administration, Development, Public Administration, or related field.

Years of experience:

• Seven (7) years of relevant experience working on development projects at the national or international level, including in the areas of project management, monitoring and evaluation, project planning, design, operations, donor relations and coordination of development projects.   
• Familiarity with multi-donor funded projects is a distinct advantage.
• Experience working in Afghanistan or fragile state context required.
• Experience working on strategic planning, results-based management, monitoring and reporting of results is essential
• Experience with government, UN, donor agencies and NGOs in Afghanistan is an advantage; and
• Experience working in the area of democratic governance, rule of law, security sector public administration/civil service reform is an advantage.

Language:

• Excellent written and oral English skills a necessary requirement; knowledge of local language—Pashto and/or Dari, is an advantage.  

Shortlisted candidates (ONLY) will be requested to submit a Financial Proposal.  The consultant shall then submit a price proposal when requested by UNDP, in accordance with the below:

• Daily Fee – The Consultant shall propose a daily fee which should be inclusive of his/her professional fee, local communication cost, equipment, and other costs required for performance of the contract but excluding travel, visa and DSA. The number of working days for which the daily fee shall be payable under the contract is 33 working days over a contract duration of 1.5 months.
• The total professional fee shall be converted into a lump-sum contract and payments under the contract shall be made on submission and acceptance of deliverables under the contract in accordance with the schedule of payment linked with deliverables and at the end of assignment.

UNDP reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs is incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

EVALUATION METHOD AND CRITERIA
Individual consultant will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

The award of the contract shall 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 a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

* Technical Criteria weight 70%
* Financial Criteria weight 30%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Criteria 1:  Technical Proposal: Brief methodology and work plan on how the work will be completed (please see mandatory question on jobs site for inputting response) – 15 points.
Criteria 2: Level of proven experience of developing complex projects. – 20 points
Criteria 3: Strong analytical and attention to details skills. – 20 points
Criteria 4: Experience working with the UN and with multi-stakeholders: governments, NGOs, the UN/ multilateral/bilateral institutions, and donor entities; – 15 points

Financial Evaluation (30%):

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

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Interested international Consultant must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document:

1. 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.

All materials developed will remain the copyright of UNDP Afghanistan.  UNDP Afghanistan will be free to adapt and modify them in the future.

Annexes (click on the hyperlink to access the documents):

• Annex 1 – IC Contract Template (for information);
• Annex 2 –  Financial Proposal Template using the template provided by UNDP (to be completed at later stage upon request by UNDP);
• Annex 3 – IC General Terms and Conditions (for information);
• Annex 4 – RLA Template (if consultant wishes to be recruited through an employer) – (for information).

Incomplete application will not be considered, it will be disqualified automatically