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Call for UNDP GPN ExpRes ONE Roster – UNDP SDG Finance Experts

Multiple locations

  • Organization: UNDP - United Nations Development Programme
  • Location: Multiple locations
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Development Cooperation and Sustainable Development Goals
    • Banking and Finance
    • Environment
    • Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction
    • Crisis Response
  • Closing Date: Closed

Background

 

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a global organization with 17,000 staff working in approximately 170 offices globally towards supporting governments in developing strong policies, institutions and partnerships to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

 

UNDP's policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan. Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP's Strategic Plan.

 

In order to streamline its financial and investment engagement, UNDP launched the Finance Sector Hub, a finance and innovation platform, that draws on a critical mass of UNDP expertise, initiatives, and partnerships to support the mobilization and leveraging of resources for the SDGs and lead the implementation of the new UNDP private sector strategy and other initiatives. The Hub is an integral part of both the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) and the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA), as well as part of the GPN.

 

To address the challenges of sustainable development financing, countries will need to develop new, more effective and integrated approaches to manage public and attract private finance.  The changing landscape of finance and governments’ demand for integrated solutions to financing national priorities are opportunities for UNDP.  Having been identified to support country platforms for SDG integration, UNDP country offices are now uniquely placed to offer strategic services based on an integrated and holistic approach to mapping, managing, mobilizing and channeling financing for SDGs in the public and private sectors. UNDP country offices provide these services tailored to diverse development contexts including middle- and low-income context, crisis affected contexts, disaster prone and Small Island Development States and Landlocked Countries for examples.

 

The purpose of this procurement exercise is to establish a pool of pre-vetted experts on SDG Finance who may be called to support UNDP’s work in this area. Successful candidates will be invited to join UNDP’s GPN ExpRes ONE Roster under one or more of the SDG Finance profiles and may be considered for future assignments with UNDP.

The GPN ExpRes Roster is a recruitment and deployment mechanism which maintains pre-vetted consultants and offers the ability to contract them quickly for support by UNDP offices worldwide. It currently provides pre-selected and technically vetted consultants across 28 profiles and 144 sub-profiles across all technical areas supported by the Global Policy Network of UNDP. Following the successful review for the roster, candidates may be considered for various short-term assignments with UNDP in this technical area. Retention on the Roster of selected experts will be contingent on continuous delivery of satisfactory services. 

Duties and Responsibilities

To support governments in the region to take initial steps and plan sequenced strategies for mobilizing and aligning public and private resources to the 2030 Agenda, UNDP has established the Finance Sector Hub, which brings together a corporate approach to offering services across public and private finance to countries around the world and to support countries to finance the SDGs.

The consultants recruited to the GPN ExpRes roster will be recruited to provide services in 11 associated areas:

  1. Integrated National Financing Frameworks and Development Finance Assessments
  2. Budget / Public Financial Management
  3. Costing of public sector investments
  4. SDG Tax policy and research
  5. SDG aligned private sector investment
  6. SDG aligned business models
  7. Risk Insurance 
  8. Innovative Financial instruments including Sovereign and corporate Bonds; Debt Swaps and Guarantees
  9. Financial sector regulation
  10. Remittances
  11. ODA management, vertical funds and south-south cooperation

Applicants can apply to one or more options from the above expert list. They should also indicate for any further specific expertise in these cross-cutting areas related to:

  1. Digital finance;
  2. Islamic finance;
  3. Climate change/green financing;
  4. Financing gender equality and social policy;
  5. Governance of finance
  6. The role of International Finance Institutions in financing

Successful applicants will join the UNDP’s GPN ExpRes roster of experts and be contacted based on arising country needs.

Competencies

Corporate 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.

Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Functional competencies

  • Strategic vision, strong technical and analytical capabilities on development finance
  • Field experience with UNDP/UN an asset;
  • Strong research, reporting, communications and writing abilities. Ability to effectively summarize and present information.
  • Strong interpersonal and communication skills, resourcefulness, initiative, maturity of judgment, tact, and negotiating skills, and the ability to cope with situations which may pose conflict;
  • Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback;
  • Ability to accommodate additional demands on short notice; 
  • Ability to work under pressure and stressful situations;
  • Ability to manage heavy workload and solve complex problems.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • A Master’s degree or higher in the field of Finance, Economics, Business Studies, Development Studies or related field

Work experience:

  • At least eight years of relevant professional experience in one or more associated area
  • Demonstrated experience of five years working directly with or in support of governments in the area of development finance and public institutional governance improvement and capacity building OR Demonstrated experience of five years working directly with or in support of the private sector in the area of sustainable development and capacity building.
  • Field experience with UNDP or other development organizations is an asset.

Languages:

Fluency in English. Please indicate in your proposal your fluency level in other UN languages

Additional thematic work experience in different areas of finance 

Integrated National Finance Frameworks

  • Research including compiling and analyzing data and policy literature to build an understanding of financing trends and the policy and institutional landscape for financing the SDGs and national development priorities
  • Operationalizing integrated national financing frameworks, including support for the development of national SDG financing strategies links to national development plans and strategies as well as monitoring frameworks to link financial flows and sustainable development outcomes
  • Facilitating public – private dialogues across government and private sector stakeholders as well as civil society organisations
  • Capacity development support to governments to strengthen their policy and institutional frameworks for financing national development priorities and the SDGs

2. Budget reform/ Public Financial Management

  • Integrating SDGs into medium term and/or annual budget policies (Fiscal space analysisMTEF and budget formulation; policy-budget mapping; budget prioritization; fiscal transfers; budget circulars/templates
  • Strengthening SDG budget expenditure monitoring and reporting systems (budget coding and tagging; expenditure reporting and monitoring)
  • Strengthening accountability for SDG-aligned budgets (Citizen’s Budget and independent expenditure reviews; budget briefs; parliamentary budget committees)
  • Analyses of impact of budgets on SDG targets Results-based budgetingstudies;  Public Expenditure reviews and public expenditure tracking surveys; Cost Benefit Analysis)

3. Costing of public sector investments

  • Development of top-down financing needs assessment at the macro-level to inform discussions with planning and finance authorities to identify the financing envelope;
  • Bottom-up costing of programming for the budget as a whole or for certain sector or thematic strategies (SDG costing for the public sector), or costing of individual projects by governments or other actors (costing for SDG projects) to develop more granular estimates complemented by the use of integrated modelling to refine them;
  • Modelling of alternative forward-looking scenarios for the scale of financing needs, depending on policy choices, exogenous shocks or other factors, to inform dialogue and prioritise SDG investment.

4. SDG Tax policy and research

  • Using quantitative and econometric methods, along with strong skills in the use of common statistical and econometric packages.
  • Experience in conducting research and preparing empirical and/or modeling-related analytical reports. This includes carrying out surveys and/ or conducting Randomized Controlled trials, collecting and analyzing data, conducting econometric regressions and analysis, interpreting the results, summarizing the main findings, drafting and presenting reports to the policymakers.
  • Experience in analyzing the impact of different tax policy instruments on economic, social, environmental amongst other outcomes. This can include experience in analyzing the fiscal incidence of tax policies and its impact on inequality; calculating revenue foregone and impact of different types of tax exemptions; analyzing the impact of behavioral interventions in tax systems; analyzing the impact of taxes on sugary, alcohol and tobacco products on revenue, behavior and consumption choices; analyzing the impact of environmental policy tools and Carbon taxes and investigating linkages between environment and tax; experience in creating/ working on tax simulation models and analyzing the impact of tax policy choices, exogenous shocks or other factors on revenue modelling

5. SDG aligned private sector investment

  • Supporting policy and regulatory reforms to enable private sector capital to flow to SDG related investment
  • Working with the private sector to educate investors in sustainable development impacts and convening private sector investors with development actors
  • Identifying investment opportunities with sustainable development impacts and designing projects and putting together project pipelines to leverage private capital for sustainable development
  • Supporting to measuring, reporting of impacts of private equity, bonds and or enterprise impacts on sustainable development and the SDGs
  • Supporting to developing impact management framework for enterprises and investors which includes the design of the framework, monitoring and reporting processes 
  • Support for MSME development and establishing access to credit

6. SDG aligned business models and SME support

  • Supporting businesses to adjust their business models to integrate a calculation of sustainable development returns into their balance sheets.
  • Support for innovation in business practices, as well as for reform to government policy and regulation that enables business to have sustainable development impacts including in respect to human rights, gender equality and good governance.
  • Encouraging the growth of SDG relevant businesses and growing value chains through technical advice and catalytic funding
  • Supporting businesses to become more resilient in disaster risk management, including in the context of COVID 19

7. Risk Insurance

  • Providing inclusive insurance to ensure communities and households and individuals, especially the most marginalized, access the protection and related benefits of the insurance sector.
  • Supporting sovereign risk financing by providing technical assistance to deliver risk-finance solutions (across development, recovery and humanitarian settings) working from deploying the risk modelling expertise of the insurance industry through to supporting governments to develop appropriate solutions for the transfer of risk. 
  • Valuing natural capital as a protective asset with the financial potential of strengthening resilience and the decreasing of community vulnerability through investments in and protection of livelihoods.
  • Engaging the investment potential of the insurance industry for sustainable development as well as mixing and matching of investment and risk transfer in the insurance initiatives
  • Integrating insurance and risk financing into development and integrating industry expertise into development planning and frameworks, from rural development to investment planning, from post-disaster needs assessments to Paris commitments, from community risk assessments to public financial management.

8. Sovereign and corporate Bonds

  • Designing SDG related and/or green bond frameworks as well as monitoring, reporting and measuring impact of proceed uses to be included within annual reports for investors over the bond tenure.
  • Support in developing the pipeline of projects for financing for SDG related bonds
  • Facilitating SDG Programmatic Bonds (SPB) as an innovative sovereign instrument for debt swap designed to generate funding for high impact social projects.
  • Expertise on both public and private sector issuance of debt with specific support around monitoring frameworks
  • Support for countries to link debt restructuring to SDG specific indicators
  • Develop specific impact indicators for creditors who are considering debt-to-health swaps for enhancing social investments and addressing the impact of COVID-19. 
  • Support in the development and issuance of municipal bonds

9. Financial sector regulation

  • Knowledge of conduct-related tools and prudential-related regulatory tools that can be deployed to realign the financial system to deliver on the objectives set forth by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and support financial stability, market efficiency, transparency, integrity and consumer protection. In particular:
  • Protection of financial consumers: Emerging standards to label financial products and services as ESG/Sustainable.
  • Micro-prudential regulation that promotes the integration of emerging, sustainability-related, sources of risk that affect individual financial system participants (i.e. Understanding how capital, solvency, liquidity, leverage requirements, corporate governance remuneration and risk management rules among others can be used as tools to align finance to the 2030 Agenda)
  • Macro-prudential supervision & international financial architecture (i.e. Capital buffers, IFI Governance and regulation).
  • Materiality of non-financial indicators and disclosure regulations as foundational market tools to reduce information asymmetries.
  • Financial market infrastructures such as stock exchanges and central clearing counterparties and their role in ESG market creation,
  • Emerging regulation in the financial innovation arena (i.e. wealth, insuretech, paytech, etc.) and in the shadow banking space.

10. Remittances

  • Conduct research analysis of the remittance prices, interoperability, opening of markets and new technologies, as well as policies and regulations impacting remittances (taxes, AML/CFT)
  • Provide strategic advice to inform country and regional diaspora/remittances strategies aiming at achieving the SDG 10.c.1 reducing remittance costs, with a special focus on regulatory sandboxes targeting unserved populations (women, youth, refugees and migrants), as well as concrete incentives for engaging diaspora including (dual citizenship and voting rights, improvement of contacts with origin communities, easing land ownership for diaspora members, and other measures to facilitate return.
  • Provide direct technical and financial support to financial institutions and payment service providers, especially money transfer operators, to develop new migrant-centric financial products, including insurance base remittance services.
  • Facilitate the mobilization of remittance and diaspora resources for development efforts including such as remittance-backed bond financing for SME (through venture capital funds, start-ups, incubators, and accelerators in both host and home countries) or infrastructure funding,  Facilitate the engagement of the diaspora to support entrepreneurship

11. Official Development Assistance, vertical funds and international public finance

  • Support the policy design and institutional strengthening for coordinating, managing and aligning development cooperation with national/sector development strategies and plans, including undertaking the institutional and functional analysis and the review of in-country development cooperation architecture.
  • Support the review, design, and establishment of an Aid Information Management Systems (AIMS), including the needs assessment, data analysis and development of technical specification.
  • Support policy and programme development and institutionalization of south-south cooperation, including through advisory and technical support and knowledge sharing on Results-Based Management, M&E, strategic partnership and communication as well as reporting on SSC.
  • Designing vertical funds programming that leverage other public and private financed         

Additional areas of cross cutting expertise applicable to different areas of finance to be highlighted may include:

a. Digital finance

  • Digital payments network and infrastructure. Expertise in the enterprise back office to architect and scale effective payments systems, with familiarity with standards, security and interoperability.  
  • Digital finance products and services. Expertise in mobile money and wallets, bill payments and transfers, mobile and online banking, pay-as-you-go, personal finance, micro insurance, savings and investments.  
  • Emerging digital finance offerings, technology and business models. Expertise in marketplace and direct lending, alternative and crypto currencies, peer to peer insurance, sharing economy, on demand services, robo-advisers, crowd funding, equity raising and smart contracts. 
  • Digital finance platforms, policies and regulation. Expertise in designing and supporting ecosystems in rapidly growing digital and mobile networks, sometimes with new legal/regulatory precedence. Managing financial data privacy and protection. Expanding customer’s access and providers’ reach with the mobile.

b. Islamic finance;

  • Identify strategies to maximize development impact by tapping into the potential of Islamic finance, specially in the context of SDGs and impact investing.
  • Undertake research and analysis of the role of private sector in Islamic finance, as well as the opportunity and demand for engagement, and support the development and roll-out of projects incorporating Islamic Finance elements.
  • Support the development and implementation of Islamic finance activities, including capacity development and outreach activities.
  • Undertake the preparation of high-quality policy and programme guidance materials for innovative Islamic financing mechanisms and the Islamic finance ecosystem.

c. Climate change/green financing;

  • Articulating financing strategy and frameworks for biodiversity and climate change plans including in support of Nationally Determined Contributions
  • Designing financing instruments across public and private finance to deliver environmental and climate related outcomes
  • Design of environmental and climate-related vertical fund programming to leverage other sources of public and private finance
  • Articulating the Return on Investment (RoI) for climate and environmental public and private expenditures and finance, including inputs to National Investment (and recovery) Plans
  • Developing  bankable projects in areas including land restoration and reforestation
  • Support for developing markets  for Nature-Based Solutions including at global level
  • Support financial analysis of and inputs to the viability and return on investment to Nature, Climate and Energy services.

d. Gender equality and financing social policy. Including:

  • Undertake gender analyses of macroeconomic policies, including taxation, public expenditure, investment and finances, and translate them into planning;
  • Develop and implement gender-responsive measures on national financing such as: 1) The women’s economic empowerment index to measure the gender-responsiveness of investments; 2) Incorporate gender-responsive conditionalities or incentives, and 4) Implement measures to ensure gender-equitable governance structures in national planning and financing.
  • Conduct gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) for national and local governments, and conduct GRB as part of SDG budgeting when needed.
  • Support governments in calculating the hidden costs of social reproduction and support budgeting to reduce unpaid care and its related time poverty
  • Develop financial instruments to mobilize capital towards women’s economic empowerment, such as gender equality bonds, crowdfunding initiatives or gender-lens investing tools.
  • Facilitate public private conversations and platforms on financing for gender equality.
  • Develop and implement strategies for women’s financial inclusion, especially for women-led MSMEs, as well as the development of gender-equitable value chains.
  • Develop fintech initiatives to increase women’s financial inclusion as well as women’s access to social protection and public subsidies / incentives.

e. Governance of Finance;

  • Support financing at the sub-national level through fiscal transfers, sub national planning and budgeting as well as promoting private sector investments
  • Promoting transparency and accountability of public and private financing for example through engagements with parliaments, media and civil society as well through direct support to public and private accounting practices that incorporate SDG reporting.

f. The role of International Finance Institutions in financing, including for example:

  • Analysis of opportunities and needs in respect to IFI financing portfolios in different country context including Middle- and Low-Income Countries, as well as Small Island Development States or Conflict affected countries for example
  • Support development and application of IFI financing instruments including lending facilities or special mechanisms, blended finance as well as support for the private sector investment
  • Support for project development, appraisal, implementation and monitoring including conducting pre-feasibility and feasibility studies; Ex-ante impact assessments, environmental and social screening and assessments; Offer risk assessment and de-risking investment projects; develop concept notes, project proposals and bankable projects for financing by IFIs

Thematic area(s) for which you would like to apply (candidates to be able to select from the options below): 

  • Integrated National Financing Frameworks / Development Finance Assessments
  • Budget / Public Financial Management
  • Costing of public sector investments
  • SDG Tax policy and research
  • SDG oriented private investment
  • SDG aligned business models
  • Risk Insurance 
  • Sovereign and corporate Bonds
  • Financial sector regulation
  • Remittances
  • ODA management, vertical funds and south- south cooperation

Additional areas of cross cutting expertise applicable to different areas of finance to be highlighted include:

  • Digital finance;
  • Islamic finance;
  • Climate change/green financing;
  • Gender equality and financing social policy
  • Governance of finance
  • The role of International Finance Institutions in financing

Recommended presentation of the offer:

Qualified candidates are requested to apply online via this website. The application should contain the TWO following documents, ALL IN ONE FILE:

  • 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.
  • DOCUMENT 2: Brief description of why the individual considers her/himself suitable for the assignment. Please submit this information in the same file as Document 1.
  • All the information requested above must be submitted in the same file. Candidates who fail to submit all the information requested above will be disqualified.
  • Please do not include your financial proposal at this stage. Only shortlisted candidates (technically qualified) will be invited to register onto the ExpRes roster platform and indicate a tentative daily fee.
  • Once the successful candidates have been invited to join the GPN ExpRes and registered on the dedicated platform, they are considered vetted and may be proposed for assignments with UNDP offices for which specific ToRs will be developed.

Due to the large number of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.

Review of technical criteria as evident in the submitted application:

  • Criterion 1. Relevant professional experience: 35 points
  • Criterion 2. Research and policy development experience on SDG Finance issues: 20 points
  • Criterion 3. Field experience with UNDP or other development organizations: 30 points
  • Criterion 4. Fluency in English with excellent drafting skills: 10 points
  • Criterion 5. Written and spoken knowledge of an additional UN language is desirable: 5 points
UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
This vacancy is now closed.
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