Background

The UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021 embraces the complexity of development and commits the organization to helping countries find faster, more durable solutions to achieve Agenda 2030.? In line with this, the organization has begun incubating?a number of?strategic initiatives aimed at ensuring UNDP is ‘fit for purpose’ to deliver a new generation of solutions in line with the challenges the world faces.??

One such key strategic initiative is the Accelerator Lab Network.? The initiative is a recognition that increasingly interrelated development challenges require going beyond business as usual and single point, linear and silver bullet responses in development.? Instead, they call for interdisciplinary approaches and non-linear solutions that crowd in the collective efforts of a wide variety of partners and tap into local insights and contextual, sticky knowledge of citizens.?? The initiative is also a recognition and an investment in the emerging momentum among a growing number of UNDP Country Offices for marrying disruptive, cutting edge methodologies with contextual, country-based insights and expertise to accelerate learning, progress and impact toward the SDGs.?

With this in mind, the?UNDP intends to build the largest and fastest learning global network of Accelerator Labs (initially setting up 60 labs in 82 countries) embedded within UNDP’s global architecture and country platforms that embody the new organizational offering to transform the collective approach to development.?

The network will surface and reinforce locally sourced solutions at scale while mobilizing a wide and dynamic partnership of actors contributing knowledge, resources and experience.? The initiative is meant to transform our collective approach by introducing new protocols, backed by evidence and practice, which accelerate the testing and dissemination of solutions within and across countries. This will enable the global community to collectively learn from local knowledge and ingenuity at a speed and at a scale that our societies and planet require. This will be achieved by:??

• Building on locally-sourced solutions, finding things that work and expanding on them;?
• Rapid testing and iteration to implement what works and go beyond the obvious solutions;?
• Combining the best understanding, ideas and expertise to generate collective knowledge;?
• Accelerating progress by bringing expertise, creativity and collective intelligence to bear.?

SUDAN

UNDP in Sudan has consistently promoted innovative initiatives since 2014 as an enabler to doing development efficiently and tackle barriers to development pathways. In partnership with the government, private sector, incubators and civil society organizations, Country Office (CO) has undertaken initiatives that applied design thinking, human centered approach, to create solutions on better citizen engagement towards building peace and social cohesion; behavioral insights to understand pathways of radicalization and determine programme response to prevent violent extremism, telecom big data to measure proxy multi- dimensional poverty, crowd sourcing through radios to obtain perceptions on public service delivery, as well as promotion and capacity building of youth on social innovation. These initiatives were conducted within ongoing projects or as test pilots facilitated by the CO Innovation Task Force.

Sudan is one of the selected country offices amongst 60 countries for the launch of UNDP’s global network of Accelerator Lab in 2019, embedded within UNDP’s global architecture and country platforms. The establishment of the lab will support CO’s objectives and ongoing efforts in applying up to date social and policy innovation concepts, tools and approaches to address most complex and emerging development challenges in the country. Social and policy innovation for UNDP Sudan means

pursuing new approaches, ideas and solutions combining multiple disciplines, types of actors and sectors, to put effective capacity and processes at the core of public service delivery and social progress right from initial nudge through scale and systemic change.

In particular, Sudan CO envisions the Accelerator Lab to build on the latest thinking from the fields of complexity science, lead user innovation, collective intelligence and data innovation to co-create solutions and accelerate development impact through improved, efficient and inclusive responses in support of UNDP’s current and upcoming priorities on local governance, economic stabilization and sustainable livelihoods amongst others.

Objectives of the Assignment   

To be able to facilitate and affect change during the transitional period in Sudan, large-scale horizon scanning system is key. Because it serves the following purposes of exploration:

• Generate continues stream of baseline data.
• To identify and make sense of emerging issues.
• Asses impact on interventions concerning the priorities of the transitional period.
• Identify new sources of evidence and insights.
• Provide data for modeling and simulation for better decision making and resource mobilization.
• Contribute to the formulation of the Accelerator Lab service lines to the UNDP Country Programme based on findings from horizon scanning, systems’ mapping, and local knowledge.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Identify the horizon’s ecosystem, sensing tools and indicators.

The business intelligence specialist under supervision of the Head of Exploration and the will scan and identify the horizon’s ecosystem and indicators based on the priority areas adopted by the lab during the transitional period. The analyst will provide a breakdown of what indicators to consider, why, and how to best monitor them for emerging issues capturing.

• Desk research, Data collection and information management tasks.

The business intelligence analyst is expected to collect data on indicators and potential collaborators, explicit knowledge and data from desk research and available data sources. They are also expected to apply the tools and innovations of market intelligence in data collection.

• Support in building Sudan Horizon Scanners community’s virtual space.

The business intelligence specialist under supervision of the Head of Exploration will help in setting up the Sudan Horizon Scanners community’s virtual space. The consultant will be responsible for choosing the right tools to gather, analyze, store, and visualize data. The consultant will support the head of exploration to take the role of the data engineer and the scientist in this task as the consultant will structure and make sense of an unstructured continuous streams of data for predictions.  The consultant will also help in develop Sudan Horizon Scanner App.

• Coordination and facilitation for workshops and training for horizon scanners.

The consultant will help in designing and, if need be, delivering TOT workshops for horizon scanners on what is Sudan Horizon Scanner is and how to use it.

• Day to day management of Sudan Horizon Scanner related communications and activities. And help in data analysis tasks related to other activities led by the Head of Exploration.

The consultant will be responsible for building a contacts directory and manage relationships with Sudan Horizon Scanners community. And help in statistical data analysis and visualization for data for different exploration activities the Head of Exploration is leading.

Institutional Arrangement

The market intelligences specialist will work under the direct supervision of the Accelerator Lab Sudan’s Head of Exploration and in close liaison with UNDP Sudan staff.

Duration of the WorK

The total duration of this activity is from 1st December 2019 until November 30th, 2020. The total numbers of working days required are 230 working days.

Duty Station

Khartoum, Sudan. The Contractor is expected to work at the UNDP office with frequent meetings outside of the office but no need to travel to the field locations outside Khartoum.

Criteria for Longlisting

• Sudanese National
• Master’s degree

The IC modality is expected to be used only for short-term consultancy engagements.  If the duration of the IC for the same TOR exceeds twelve (12) months, the duration must be justified and be subjected to the approval of the Director of the Regional Bureau, or a different contract modality must be considered.  This policy applies regardless of the delegated procurement authority of the Head of the Business Unit. 

Evaluation Criteria and selection of the consultant

The offers received from the candidates will be evaluated using combined scoring method. The combined scoring method assesses the offers with technical merits of the proposals – where the qualifications and methodology will be weighted a maximum of 70%, and later combined with the price offer which will be weighted a max of 30%. Only offers received minimum 70% of technical weightage (49 points) will be invited to submit the financial offer.

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Ability to work with a multi-cultural and diverse team.

Required Skills and Experience

• Minimum 2 years of work experience in data analysis and visualization.
•  Minimum a master’s degree in Business intelligence, Statistics, Mathematics, Quantitative Research Methodology, Computer Science or related fields.
• Minimum of 1 years of work experience in statistical analysis.
•  Ability to liaise and communicate with a range of national and international partners;
• Ability to analyze large amounts of data to identify key messages and indicators for easy visualization and clear communication of complex analyses.
• Experience in working in social data and/or data for development related issues.
• Previous experience in coordination or program management is an asset.
• Excellent spoken and written communication skills.
• Proven record of working individually and in teams
• Being comfortable around ambiguity and have a grasp on topics entertaining complexity science and system thinking

For full details regarding the TOR and Offerors Letter please see the below links: - https://www.dropbox.com/s/onpmklino57jh9r/ToR%20Business%20Intelligent%20Specialist.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fu9nckf090o4une/Offerors%20Letter%20-Intelligent%20Specialist.docx?dl=0