Jobs at UNDP in Uganda- General Support Consultant

Job Title: GENERAL SUPPORT CONSULTANT: PREPARATION OF UGANDA NATIONAL MDG PROGRESS REPORT 2013
Location :     Kampala, UGANDA
Application Deadline :    02-Jan-13
Additional Category    Millennium Development Goals
Type of Contract :    Individual Contract
Post Level :    International Consultant
Languages Required :
    English 
Starting Date :
(date when the selected candidate is expected to start)    20-Jan-2013
Duration of Initial Contract :    60 working days
Expected Duration of Assignment :    60 working days

Background

Since the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration in New York on September 8th 2000, Uganda has been working to achieve its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the set deadline of 2015. During this time, the country has made considerable progress towards meeting these goals, having achieved, among others, the target of cutting by halve (MDG1) the incidence of absolute poverty in the country, currently at 24.5%, down from the levels prevailing in the early 1990s. It is also on track to eliminate gender disparities in education, reduce the prevalence of underweight children under the age of five, ensure universal access to anti-retroviral drugs for people with advanced HIV, and provide access to safe drinking water to its population.

As part of these efforts, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, which is the government’s focal point for MDGs, has been regularly monitoring and reporting on progress made towards achieving key development indicators embedded in the MDG framework. Among others, the Ministry has produced threeNational MDG progress reports since 2000, one in 2005,another in 2007 and the latest in 2010, in addition to numerous studies covering various MDG-relevant topics, such as poverty, employment, pro-poor public investment, etc.

Purpose and justification:

Since the last National MDG progress report was produced in late 2010 a number of developments have taken place which warrant the production of an updated progress report in Uganda.

To start with, a number of new micro-datasets have become available as part of the Uganda Bureau of Statistics regular surveying activities. These include the 2009/10 Uganda National Household Survey, which constitutes the main source of socioeconomic data in the country, Ugandan Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) of 2011, the 2010 and 2011 Uganda National Panel Surveys (UNPS), or the 2011 Uganda AIDS Indicator Survey (UAIS), among the most prominent and relevant for the MDGs. Altogether, these surveys provide a rich source of new updated data and information on which to report on progress towards achieving the MDGs in Uganda.

In addition, as the world nears the 2015 MDG deadline, pressure has been mounting in Uganda to produce an updated National MDG progress report. The recently launched ‘Post 2015 Development Agenda’ global consultation process, which will culminate in September 2013 with a UN General Assembly High-Level meeting on the MDGs, has heightened the need to report on progress on the MDGs at a national level before that date. In this context, Uganda is planning to hold a number of Post 2015 national consultations in the course of the next few months, process which would greatly benefit from an updated, evidence-based analysis of progress in achieving the MDGs.

Scope of work:

The ensure consistency with previous work, the envisaged 2013 Uganda MDG progress report will follow a similar format to the one used for the 2010 MDG progress report. It will report, in this sense, on the latest official data available for the several indicators that define the Ugandan MDG monitoring framework and provide an evidence-based analysis of the situation of the MDGs for each of the eight MDG goals, drawing from both existing studies and primary research conducted for this report. It will include an informed consensus assessment of progress towards achieving the eight MDG goals in Uganda, using the traffic-light reporting method: On track/achieved goal (green), Slow/Stagnant progress (yellow) and Reversal on a specific goal (red).

Tentatively, the 2013 Uganda MDG progress report will be organized as follows:

    Executive summary: Summary of key findings presented in the report.
    Introduction: and introductory section presenting the objectives of the report, the data and indicators used, as well as other relevant methodological considerations.
    Development context: an overview of the general development context in which the findings presented in the report take place.
    Progress towards the MDGs: An analysis, goal by goal, on the status of each of the eight MDGs, together with an assessment of progress made towards achieving each of these goals.
    Thematic chapter: “Drivers of MDG Achievement in Uganda”. This thematic chapter will examine drivers of MDG progress in Uganda.
    Conclusion and way forward – Uganda and the Post 2015 International Development Agenda: Final section including concluding comments and some notes on the way forward. This section will include a summary of key messages coming out of the post 2015 National Consultation process on Uganda’s views for the ‘Post 2015 international development agenda’ global debate.

The work for the preparation of the 2013 Uganda MDG progress report will be led by the Economic Development Policy and Research (EDPR) department at the Ministry of Finance, in collaboration with other key partners. These will include the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) country office in Uganda, which will provide technical and financial support under the framework of the ‘Evidence-Based Analytical Studies’ (EBAS) project, which it is implementing as a National Implementation (NIM) modality project with the Ministry of Finance. It will also involve closely liaising with the MDG Data Sub-Committee, chaired by UBOS, which brings together relevant government institutions, including EDPR/MOFPED ‘to strengthen the coordination and harmonization of efforts aimed at collating and disseminating quality MDG related data’.

To support the work of the 2013 MDG progress report team, the EBAS project will contract the services of one (1) consultant to work on the areas outlined below.

Duties and Responsibilities

Timelines and key milestones:

The timelines for the production and launch of the 2013 Uganda MDG progress report will be determined by the MDG information and dissemination needs outlined above. Tentatively, these will entail the following:

    Compilation and production of all background material – by mid February 2013
    First internal draft of MDG progress report – By mid March 2013
    Draft MDG progress report for dissemination – end of March 2013
    Final draft for consideration and approval by MOFPED – end of May 2013
    National launch of MDG progress report – end of July 2013
    Global launch/dissemination of MDG progress report – UN GA meetings of September 2013 

Consultancy requirements:

As indicated above, the consultant will be hired under the MOFPED-UNDP EBAS project to provide general support to the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in the production of the 2013 Uganda National MDG Progress Report.

This ‘General Support' consultant will be hired for a total of sixty (60) person-days of work, to be undertaken during the time period outlined in the previous section: January-September 2013. In providing this support, the consultant will perform the following tasks:

    Bibliographic references (5 days): The consultant will compile a bibliography of documents relevant for the report, including, but not limited, to studies and reports examining for Uganda MDG relevant issues (e.g. poverty, child and material health, gender parity and women empowerment, etc.).
    Data collection (15 days): The consultant will work with the MDG progress report team, UBOS and other institutions represented in the MDG data Sub-committee to compile MDG relevant data for the report, in the agreed format.
    Production of MDG background notes (25 days): For each MDG, the consultant will produce a short (max. three pages) noted analyzing the situation in Uganda of that specific MDG goals, and describing the main (government) interventions undertaken in the past in that specific area .
    Editing tasks (15 days): Finally, the consultant will assist the MDG progress report team with editing tasks in the finalization of the 2013 MDG Progress report, including proof reading, table and graph editing as well as liaising with external editors and publishing companies.



How to Apply:
http://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=34579

Deadline: 2nd January 2012