Background

NOTE: Signed Offeror’s Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability - http://www.ba.undp.org/content/dam/bosnia_and_herzegovina/docs/Operations/Jobs/Offerors%20Letter%20to%20UNDP%20Confirming%20Interest%20and%20Availability.docx Letter to UNDP Confirming Interest and Availability.docx - to be sent to e-mail ba.shared.hr@undp.org with Subject: Job ID 90883.

Travel will be required to Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Doboj, Tešanj, Teslic, Bijeljina.

This is the Terms of Reference for the UNDP-GEF Midterm Review (MTR) of the full-sized project titled Catalyzing Environmental Finance for Low-Carbon Urban Development (PIMS5646) implemented through the Implementing Partner, which is to be undertaken in 2020. The project started on the December 1st, 2017 and is in its third year of implementation. In line with the UNDP-GEF Guidance on MTRs, this MTR process was initiated before the submission of the second Project Implementation Report (PIR). The MTR process must follow the guidance outlined in the document Guidance for Conducting Midterm Reviews of UNDP-Supported, GEF-Financed Projects (see Annex I of the ToR).

Short description of the Project background: Due to a long period of neglect and under-investment, urban infrastructure in BiH, public and residential buildings, energy systems and utilities, waste management, and transport, are now in need of expansion and modernization. From a global environmental standpoint, this situation contributes to a steady increase in GHG emissions, primarily associated with energy use in public facilities. Public facilities are also the largest energy users and GHG emission sources in municipalities in BiH. Modernization, upgrade and expansion of municipal buildings, infrastructure, and services in BiH will improve the quality of urban life and achieve a range of important local and global environmental and sustainable development benefits.

To achieve abovementioned, the “Catalyzing environmental finance for low-carbon urban development” Project (UrbanLED) strives to leverage investment for transformational shift towards low-carbon urban development (LCUD) in Bosnia and Herzegovina thereby promoting safer, cleaner, and healthier cities and reducing urban GHG emissions. To enable this transformational shift, the project provides technical support towards the implementation of technically and economically feasible low-carbon solutions in key urban sectors and promotes their wider uptake by municipalities and private sector via dedicated financial mechanisms. Project supports key environmental finance institutions (i.e. environmental funds) to establish innovative financial mechanisms for LCUD (Component 1). Under Component 2 and Component 3, the project works at the local level with relevant public authorities to help build their capacities to identify, carry out and monitor low-carbon projects in key urban GHG emitting sectors, public facilities and utilities (Component 2) and waste management and logistics/transport (Component 3). Under Component 4, project addresses gaps in the enabling environment for LCUD at state and entity levels by promoting the adoption and supporting enforcement of essential policies and regulations, institutional coordination (vertical and horizontal) among relevant public authorities and providing targeted capacity building and training support to relevant authorities. In addition, national awareness raising, and an advocacy campaign is conducted to secure public support and promote behavioral changes toward low-carbon urban living.

The project has been financed by Global Environment Facility (GEF) and is directly implemented by UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina Country Office. This is a five-years project (initiated in December 2017 with planned end date in December 2022). The amount of GEF trust fund is USD 2.37 mil. while parallel co-financing amounted to USD 44.42 mil.

The Project Board is comprised of the following institutions: Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH (this is also a senior beneficiary institution of the project), Ministry of Spatial Planning, Civil Engineering and Ecology of Republika Srpska, Ministry of Environment and Tourism of Federation of BiH, Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency of Republika Srpska and Fund for Environmental Protection of FBiH.

Support of the UrbanLED project is fully embedded in the regular operations of the Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency of RS and Fund for Environmental Protection of FBiH as two environmental finance institutions in BiH, thus ensuring sustainability of proposed financial mechanisms for infrastructural LCUD projects. Project also works with responsible ministries under Component 4, at the national and entity level; apart from the environmental funds. In particular, project works with: Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, as well as the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Civil Engineering and Ecology of RS,  the Ministry of Environment and Tourism of FBiH, Ministry of Industry and Energy of FBiH with harmonization of relevant state/entity level policies and regulations on low-carbon urban development, and institutional coordination within the environmental sector across relevant authorities.

At the level of local self-governments, project provide support to the 15 local self-governments in the preparation of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs). Municipalities are further supported to collect and monitor data on urban energy use and GHG emissions through scaling up and institutionalizing the Energy Management Information System (EMIS). Apart from the energy efficiency measures, technical assistance of the project at the level of local self-governments is also devoted to the waste management sector, mostly through design and pilot of municipal green logistic schemes for waste recycling. 

Duties and Responsibilities

The MTR team will consist of two independent consultants that will conduct the MTR - one team leader (i.e. international consultant with experience and exposure to projects and evaluations in other regions globally) and one local team expert, from the country of the project. 

The MTR team will first conduct a document review of project documents (i.e. PIF, UNDP Initiation Plan, Project Document, ESSP, Project Inception Report, PIRs, Finalized GEF focal area Tracking Tools, Project Appraisal Committee meeting minutes, Financial and Administration guidelines used by Project Team, project operational guidelines, manuals and systems, etc.) provided by the Project Team and Commissioning Unit. Then, they will participate in MTR inception workshop to clarify their understanding of the objectives and methods of the MTR, producing the MTR inception report thereafter.

The MTR mission will then consist of interviews, including but not limited to the representatives of following institutions: Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ministry of Spatial Planning, Civil Engineering and Ecology of Republika Srpska, Ministry of Environment and Tourism of Federation of BiH, Fund for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency of Republika Srpska and Fund for Environmental Protection of Federation of BiH ; executing agencies, senior officials and task team/ component leaders, key experts and consultants in the subject area, Project Board, project stakeholders, academia, local government and CSOs, etc. and site visits to Doboj, Tešanj and Teslic as selected municipalities for which the technical assistance for development of SECAPs have been provided and Banja Luka and Bijeljina as two of five selected municipalities in Republika Srpska for which waste management plans along with feasibility studies for environmentally friendly transportation and waste management will be developed. The exact project site will be known in forthcoming period.

The MTR team will assess the following four categories of project progress and produce a draft and final MTR report. See the Guidance for Conducting Midterm Reviews of UNDP-Supported, GEF-Financed Projects for requirements on ratings. No overall rating is required.

Project Strategy

Project Design:

  • Review the problem addressed by the project and the underlying assumptions.  Review the effect of any incorrect assumptions or changes to the context to achieving the project results as outlined in the Project Document.
  • Review the relevance of the project strategy and assess whether it provides the most effective route towards expected/intended results. 
  • Review how the project addresses country priorities.
  • Review decision-making processes.

Results Framework/Logframe:

  • Undertake a critical analysis of the project’s logframe indicators and targets, assess how “SMART” the midterm and end-of-project targets are (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound), and suggest specific amendments/revisions to the targets and indicators as necessary.
  • Examine if progress so far has led to or could in the future catalyse beneficial development effects (i.e. income generation, gender equality and women’s empowerment, improved governance etc...) that should be included in the project results framework and monitored on an annual basis.

Progress Towards Results

  • Review the logframe indicators against progress made towards the end-of-project targets; populate the Progress Towards Results Matrix, as described in the Guidance For Conducting Midterm Reviews of UNDP-Supported, GEF-Financed Projects; colour code progress in a “traffic light system” based on the level of progress achieved; assign a rating on progress for the project objective and each outcome; make recommendations from the areas marked as “not on target to be achieved” (red).
  • Compare and analyse the GEF Tracking Tool at the Baseline with the one completed right before the Midterm Review.
  • Identify remaining barriers to achieving the project objective.
  • By reviewing the aspects of the project that have already been successful, identify ways in which the project can further expand these benefits.

Project Implementation and Adaptive Management

Using the Guidance for Conducting Midterm Reviews of UNDP-Supported, GEF-Financed Projects; assess the following categories of project progress:

  • Management Arrangements
  • Work Planning
  • Finance and co-finance
  • Project-level monitoring and evaluation systems
  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Reporting
  • Communications

Sustainability

Assess overall risks to sustainability factors of the project in terms of the following four categories:

  • Financial risks to sustainability;
  • Socio-economic risks to sustainability;
  • Institutional framework and governance risks to sustainability;
  • Environmental risks to sustainability.

The MTR consultant/team will include a section in the MTR report setting out the MTR’s evidence-based conclusions, in light of the findings.

Additionally, the MTR consultant/team is expected to make recommendations to the Project Team. Recommendations should be succinct suggestions for critical intervention that are specific, measurable, achievable, and relevant. A recommendation table should be put in the report’s executive summary. The MTR consultant/team should make no more than 15 recommendations total.

Together with Guidance for Conducting Midterm Reviews of UNDP-Supported, GEF-Financed Projects (Annex I), following documents can be found on this link http://documents.undp.ba/procurement/UNDP-GEF-TOR-Annexes.zip:

  • Annex II: Progress Towards Results Matrix (Achievement of outcomes against End-of-project Targets);
  • Annex III: MTR Ratings & Achievement Summary Table for UrbanLED project and Midterm Review Evaluative Matrix Template;
  • Annex IV: List of Documents to be reviewed by the MTR Consultant; and Guidelines on Contents for the Midterm Review Report.
  • Details on UrbanLED project can be found on following web links:  https://bit.ly/2Uacd7s & https://bit.ly/3d8cMaG  

The total duration of the engagement will be approximately 27 days over a period of 23 weeks starting April 24th, 2020 and shall not exceed five months from when the consultant(s) are hired. The tentative MTR timeframe is as follows:

  • 24th of April, 2020: Selection of the MTR Team;
  • 28th of April, 2020: Handover of project documents to the MTR team;
  • May 11th, 2020: Document review and preparation of the MTR Inception Report;
  • May 25th, 2020: Finalization and Validation of MTR Inception Report;
  • 8th – 19th of June, 2020: MTR mission: stakeholder meetings, interviews, field visits;
  • June 19th, 2020: Mission wrap-up meeting & presentation of initial findings- earliest end of MTR mission;
  • 22nd of June – 2nd of July, 2020): Preparation of draft report;
  • September 15th, 2020: Incorporating audit trail on draft report/Finalization of MTR report (note: accommodate time delay in dates for circulation and review of the draft report);
  • September 23rd, 2020: Preparation & Issue of Management Response;
  •  September 30th, 2020: Expected date of full MTR completion.

The assignment will require partial presence in the UNDP premises (UNDP offices located in the UN House in Sarajevo). The assignment include field visits to the project partners (located in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Doboj, Tešanj, Teslic and Bjeljina), within two months of the start of the assignment. Local and international consultant will jointly visit project partners during the field visits, organized during the MTR mission of the international consultant.

Deliverables/outputs

#

Deliverables / Outputs

# of Days per Task

Due Date

Percentage

1. 

MTR Inception Report:
MTR team clarifies objectives and methods of the Midterm Review no later than 2 weeks before the MTR mission.

6

25th of May, 2020

22%

2. 

Presentation:
Initial findings presented to project management and the Commissioning Unit at the end of the MTR mission.

1

19th of June, 2020

4%

3. 

Draft Final Report
Full report with annexes within 3 weeks of the MTR mission.

7

July 2nd, 2020

26%

4. 

Final Report
Revised report with annexed audit trail detailing how all received comments have (and have not) been addressed in the final MTR report. To be sent to the Commissioning Unit within 1 week of receiving UNDP comments on draft.
*The final MTR report must be in English.

13

September 15th, 2020

48%

Competencies

Corporate competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modelling 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 favouritism;
  • Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment

Functional competencies:

  • Strong interpersonal skills, communication and diplomatic skills, ability to work in a team;
  • Openness to change and ability to receive/integrate feedback;
  • Ability to work under pressure and stressful situations;
  • Strong analytical, reporting and writing abilities;
  • Excellent public speaking and presentation skills;
Required Skills and Experience

Academic Qualifications/Education:

  • Relevant Degree of Masters’ Level of higher in engineering or environment or business or climate change or international relations.

Experience:

  • Seven years of climate change and/or energy efficiency experience;
  • Experience with evaluations for international organizations (UNDP or other international organization), experience with UNDP GEF evaluations preferred;
  • Specific experience with the private sector and energy efficiency and with ESCO;
  • Experience working in BiH and the Western Balkan region.

Consultant Independence: The consultants cannot have participated in the project preparation, formulation, and/or implementation (including the writing of the Project Document) and should not have a conflict of interest with project’s related activities.

Languages Requirements:

  • Excellent writing, editing and communication skills on local languages and English.

Other Requirements:

  • Excellent computer skills (MS Office applications) and ability to use information technologies as a tool and resource.

Longlisting/Shortlisting Criteria

Qualifications as stated in the ToR

Criteria:

Points

Relevant Education                                  Masters Level of higher in engineering or environment or business or climate change or international relations – 10 points – 8 points at Masters Level, 10 points at PhD level

max 20 points
15 points allocated for Master’s Level;

20 points for PhD level 

Relevant professional experience        Seven years of climate change and/or energy efficiency experience – max 30 points; Experience with evaluations for international organizations (UNDP or other international organization), experience with UNDP GEF evaluations preferred – max 30 points              

max 60 points 

Prior work experience with UNDP/UN Agencies

max 10 points 

Knowledge of local languages and English

max 10 points - will be assessed as:
10 points for fluency and the points decrease as per the level mentioned in the CV:
good - 8 points;
fair/upper intermediate – 5 points;
intermediate - 2 points;
beginner - 1 point. 

Technical Evaluation Criteria

Criteria:

Points

Rating based on Qualifications

30%

Experience working in BiH and the Western Balkan region – max 15 points;                                                                                                                    Specific experience with the private sector and energy efficiency and with ESCO – max 15 points

30%

Submitted methodology

40%

Financial                                                                                                                       Price offer from candidate (lump sum offers in BAM, calculated using prevailing UN exchange rate)

30%

Evaluation

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:
a) responsive/compliant/acceptable, and
b) 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%

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

  • Proposal:
    • Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;

    • Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work.

  • Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;

  • Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work.

Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;

Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work.

Please scan all above mentioned documents and upload as one attachment only online through this website.

Note:

  • For an assignment requiring travel, consultants of 65 years or more require full medical examination and statement of fitness to work to engage in the consultancy.
  • Due to large number of potential applicants, only competitively selected candidates will be contacted for remaining steps of the service procurement process.


This vacancy is archived.

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