National Consultant to Conduct Private Sector Partnership Landscape Assessment

Background

1. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic poses unprecedented challenges for the global community. The United Nations Sustainable Development Group has launched a coherent framework[1] for UN’s urgent socio-economic support to countries and societies in the face of COVID-19, putting in practice Secretary-General’s report on “Shared responsibility, global solidarity: Responding to the socio-economic impacts of COVID-19[2]”.Moving beyond the initial response phase, the Secretary-General underlines the need to “recover better”, and that any recovery strategy should ensure that we remain on track towards the longer-term objectives outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

    

2. The report also underlines the importance of mobilizing partnerships with all stakeholders to accelerate the global response to COVID-19 and recovery from its impact, including with local and regional authorities, researchers, scientists and innovators, civil society and community-based organizations, private sector and philanthropies. The Royal Government of Cambodia has adopted and localized Global SDGs into Cambodia SDG, and under Goal 17, the national framework has prioritized 8 targets and 10 indicators. The reference was made on mobilizing SDG financing, enhancing north-south, south-south and triangular regional and international cooperation, as well as access to technology, innovation and science, including promotion of multilateralism and effective public-private partnerships and capacity building.

    

3. In 2019, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), United Nations Office for Partnerships, United Nations Development Coordination Office, Global Compact, and The Partnering Initiative launched the 2030 Agenda Partnership Accelerator[3] - a project aimed at accelerating effective partnerships in support of the SDGs

4. The United Nations in Cambodia is implementing the UNSDCF for the duration of 2019 – 2023 and it is fully aligned with the 2030 Agenda and aligned with the recent SERF Cambodia.

5. The Framework, in addition to an extensive consultation process with the government, NGOs, the private sector and academia, applied foresight methodologies and identified several strategic areas for joint action to drive implementation of the SDGs in Cambodia:People, Prosperity, Planet, Peace and Urbanization. Social Protection, Youth, Nutrition and Data were emphasized as ‘accelerators’ to increase attaining one of several SDGs in line with the UNSDCF outcomes. The UNSDCF Cambodia emphasizes brokering new innovative partnerships, south-south collaboration for advancing the 2030 Agenda and SDG financing.

6. Furthermore, Cambodia’s Socioeconomic Response Plan to COVID-19 (2020), identifies five programmatic areas: i) Health first: protect health systems and services during the crisis; ii) Protect people: social protection and basic services; iii) Response and Economic recovery: protect employment, small and medium enterprises and informal sector workers; iv) Macroeconomic response and multilateral collaboration; iv) Social cohesion and Communitarian resilience.

7. However, advancing the partnership elements of 2030 Agenda for sustainable development requires a systemic vision to understand the current status quo, emerging trends and potential opportunities for strengthening issue-based partnerships with innovation, capacity, south-south collaboration and financing. As low middle-income country, which is still categorized as a least developed country (LDC), Cambodia requires a lot more development assistance by partnership initiatives that geared toward coordinating collective work toward common, clearly measurable goals and outcomes.

In support of these efforts, the UN Resident Coordinators Office in Cambodia, in collaboration with the 2030 Agenda Partnership Accelerator, will be engaging a broad range of stakeholders, particularly with private sector (SMSEs, institutional investors, commercial banks, etc), to better understand emerging trends, challenges and opportunities of advancing partnerships and SDG financing agenda.

[1] https://unsdg.un.org/resources/un-framework-immediate-socio-economic-response-covid-19

[2] https://unsdg.un.org/resources/shared-responsibility-global-solidarity-responding-socio-economic-impacts-covid-19

[3] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/PartnershipAccelerator

Duties and Responsibilities

• Undertake a partnership landscape assessment (through interviews, desk research, self-organized meetings), aligned with national priorities and UN Partnership Strategy, to identify:

• Thematic areas and issues where there is a strong need and potential for new partnerships across sectors in Cambodia, and with regional and global institutions and donors, with strong focus on private sector;

• Overview of existing key partnerships and actions that are taking place with private sector, government and development partners to advance the 2030 Agenda Existing mechanisms for engaging partners and sectors towards the Sustainable Development Goals in Cambodia;

• Overview of existing public-private partnership modalities and options for future engagement around integrated agenda of sustainable development.

• Analysis of trends and opportunities to leverage for multi-stakeholder/issue-based partnering and leveraging SDG financing in Cambodia.

• Understanding of the level of support from government and development partners towards partnership (evidenced by policies, high-level statements etc.) to engage with private sector.

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=81103 for more detail information about term of reference, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online.

Competencies

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

The expert should possess an advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent degree) in sustainable development, international relations, governance, public policy, public administration, international law, or related field. A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in partnerships with national stakeholders, private sector or sustainable development with demonstrated proven track record in private sector engagement in Southeast Asia, with in-depth knowledge of private sector in Cambodia is required.

• Exposure to capacity development activities and projects in sustainable development is preferable.

• Knowledge of public-private partnerships, communication and outreach experience with private sector and other stakeholders would be preferable.

Language Requirement:

• Knowledge and fluency of English (both written and oral) is required for this consultancy.

• Fluency in the national official language (Khmer) is required.

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

Interested individual offeror must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Proposal: Letter of explaining why they are most suitable for the work and sample English written report/document

2. Financial proposal (Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP)

3. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references  

Interested Offerors are required to submit 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 document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail 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 maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email chanpisey.ky@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 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. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice