Empanelment of NGOs/CSOs – UNDP Inclusive Growth

UNDP works in about 170 countries and territories, helping to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, and build resilience so countries can sustain progress. As the UN’s development agency, UNDP plays a critical role in helping countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

During the last 15 years, India has made extraordinary progress in terms of economic growth, with more than 271 Million people having been lifted out of poverty. However, high growth rates have not translated into equitable development, particularly for the most marginalised and disadvantaged communities. The COVID‐ 19 pandemic has further exacerbated the gender and economic disparity.

UNDP leverages its comparative advantage as a catalyst and knowledge leader to strengthen institutional linkages between enterprise and skills‐training providers, identify synergies between national programmes and missions, and support the government’s efforts to assist marginalised groups access skills, jobs, livelihoods and productive assets. UNDP focuses on addressing institutional, societal, and economic barriers that preclude the realization of inclusive growth through:

• Creating scalable integrated development solutions to support the poor in their moving beyond subsistence, and towards sustainable livelihoods.
• Confronting the significant barriers and stigma faced by women and girls.
• Replicating the enabling conditions by which women are better able to become active agents in
  development, through education, training opportunities, counselling, and advice.
• Research, analysis, and policy advocacy.
  The ultimate goals of the programme are to a) enhance agency, capacity, and access to decent jobs ‐ create sustainable livelihood opportunities for women, youth and tribal populations through innovative and scalable solutions to reduce socio‐economic inequalities; and b) promote inclusive development that leads to transformational change in people’s lives and leaves no one behind.

Objective

This is a Request for Information (RFI) from national and/or international CSOs/NGOs/CBOs, referred to as Service Growth Provider (SP), for potential partnership with UNDP to carry out activities under UNDP’s Inclusive unit with expertise and experience in the following thematic areas:

1. Facilitating Education to Work Transition and Enhancing Access to Employment Opportunities
2. Inclusive and Sustainable Livelihoods Promotion
3. Social Protection
4. Advocacy and Policy Research
5. Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

Organizations can apply for one or more of these thematic areas. The geography chosen under this RFI is Pan‐ India. 

Scope of Work

The selected service provider is expected to support UNDP in across the broad thematic areas mentioned below. This support will be at three levels, depending on the requirement – a) Micro Level‐ Support for implementation of project activities on the ground directly with communities; b) Meso Level‐ Support to build capacities of other agencies, collectives of farmers/artisans, government bodies, etc.; and c) Macro Level‐ Support to provide technical assistance to state and central government departments.

1. Facilitating Education to Work Transition and Enhancing Access to Employment Opportunities 

UNDP’s work in this area focuses on provision of career guidance and counseling to enable young people to make informed career decisions, enabling access to technical skills, provision of employability skills, exposure to the world of work, liaising with industry to ensure market‐aligned skilling, placement in jobs/apprenticeships/internships as well as post‐placement support. 

Under this component, the service provider will be expected to have expertise in and support UNDP in Career Guidance and Counselling (CG&C) including capacity building of faculties of educational institutions (schools/colleges/ITIs, etc.) and roll out of psychometric assessments, provision of employability skills (preferably using UNDP’s 100‐hour module but not limited to) and/or facilitating access to technical skills, exposure to the world of work and industry connect by facilitating guest lectures from employers, industry associations as well as exposure visits to help beneficiaries understand the world of work, linking beneficiaries to jobs/internships/apprenticeships and provision of post‐placement support. The service provider should be able to think out of the box on the employment related challenges faced by employers as well as job seekers from poor, marginalized and excluded communities and should be able to support UNDP with innovative solutions for strengthening the whole employment ecosystem.

2. Inclusive and Sustainable Livelihoods Promotion 

UNDP’s work in this area focuses on promotion of inclusive and sustainable livelihoods mainly with women and youth but also includes communities from marginalized and vulnerable communities like people with disabilities, people living with HIV, transgenders, tribal populations and ultra‐poor communities. UNDP works on creation and acceleration of sustainable nano/micro enterprises as well as MSMEs and connects collectives of primary producers such as farmers and artisans with finance as well as the market and leveraging government schemes to create public infrastructure to support value additions for farm and non‐farm segments UNDP has created innovative knowledge products like Biz Sakhi, Women Business Manager and Women Sourcing Manager curricula to strengthen capabilities of both farm and non‐farm sectors. 

2.1 Entrepreneurship Promotion

Training, mentoring, and hand holding aspiring and existing nano and micro‐entrepreneurs, MSMEs and youth innovators to start/scale their enterprises are UNDP’s focus in this area. UNDP uses its Biz Sakhi curriculum which covers aspects related to leadership, business management and psychosocial support is used to train local community members as business mentors. Through Entrepreneurship Awareness as well as Entrepreneurship Development Programmes, UNDP reaches out to potential and existing entrepreneurs and helps them set‐up/scale‐up their enterprises. 

Under this component, the service provider will be expected to have expertise in and support UNDP in enterprise creation and enterprise acceleration, including provision of business advisory support (including but not limited to business planning, credit linkages, market linkages and linkages with govt schemes) for nano, micro, small and medium enterprises. The service provider should be able to support the UNDP implementation of entrepreneurship promotion programs ranging from supporting subsistence enterprises to growth enterprises in different contexts and geographies. 

2.2 Youth Innovation 

One of the key focus areas under livelihoods promotion for UNDP is the creation of an enabling ecosystem for youth led social innovation and entrepreneurship to place young people front and centre to tackle society’s most pressing problems through innovation, moving away from being a job seeker to a job creator. 

Here, the service provider will be expected to have expertise in and support UNDP in identification of youth innovation related themes by conducting research followed by conducting challenges/ competitions/ innovative outreach events on these identified themes. This will include but not limited to maximizing outreach of the call for applications, maintenance of a microsite, facilitating the application assessment procedure by identifying and onboarding of independent experts and jury members, implementing a three‐ month incubation (springboard) programme for shortlisted innovators, and organizing the final event. Development of knowledge products and communication collaterals throughout the challenge will be an important area of work here. In addition to this, broader research and consultations on youth innovation and social entrepreneurship and ways and means to promote this will also be included. 

2.3 Value Chain Development 

As a part of its work with primary producers such as farmers and artisans, UNDP focuses on enhancing gender equality in the value chain and strengthening linkages, particularly market linkages, for farm and nonfarm collectives. UNDP builds the capacities of women as managerial cadre for collectives by leveraging its Women Sourcing Managers and/or Women Business Managers curriculum. It also creates/strengthens farmer and artisan collectives through capacity building of their board members and key functionaries on governance, leadership, management, operations, credit and market linkages, etc. 

In this area, the service provider will be expected to have expertise in and support UNDP in linking farmers, artisans and their collectives with finance and govt schemes through provision of handholding support and guidance to access finance for working capital requirements as well as applying for and accessing relevant govt schemes. Secondly, support for linking farmers, artisans and their collectives with the market through provision of handholding support and guidance to link beneficiaries with market players such as institutional buyers, online platforms, social commerce, etc. This will include supporting operational requirements such as GST registration, other legal documentation, photography and listing for online platforms. The service provider should be able to support UNDP to strengthen the farm and non‐farm sector with digital stack/ solutions integrated with dashboard with relevant nodal ministries and department. 

3. Social Protection 

UNDP’s aim is to ensure social safety nets are accessible for vulnerable populations in times of crisis by focusing on strengthening systems of social protection, creating awareness and facilitating linkages to government schemes. The service provider should be able to map the critical schemes operational in the state and local area with an approach of maximising access to benefits at household level. 

Here, the service provider will be expected to have expertise in and support UNDP in understanding local social protection systems through secondary data and networks, and enhance awareness of and access to network to social entitlements and government schemes such as DBTs, access to ration cards, PDS, labor cards, credit linkages, access to government training and education facilities, etc. Working in collaboration with local government departments is critical to this intervention area. The service provider can use the GIS Enabled Entitlement Tracking System (GEET) platform (but not limited to) developed by UNDP in partnership with the CSOs to monitor the access of social protection schemes to the end beneficiary and support the local administration through innovative GIS based dashboard inbuild in GEET. 

4. Advocacy and Policy Research 

UNDP constantly conducts policy advocacy and research based on its on‐ground experience as well as current and long‐term national priorities. This includes evaluation and impact analysis of government schemes, consultations bringing policy makers and other key stakeholders together on important developmental issues, development of research papers and policy notes, etc. 

The service provider should have the ability to collect data and evidence around flagship policies and schemes through different tools so that advocacy is based on sound underlying data and evidence. The service provider should be able to support UNDP in research on flagship schemes of government departments like skills, entrepreneurship, agriculture, rural development, textiles, urban development, MSME, Women & Child Development, etc., conducting policy analysis and creating briefs and reports on flagship policies and schemes of government, conducting events, workshops, seminars, webinars, round tables and other events for consultation, dissemination of knowledge products around flagship policies and schemes of state and central government. 

5. Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning 

UNDP believes in robust monitoring, evaluation and learning through baseline, mid‐term and end‐term assessments. 

Under this thematic area, the service provider will be expected to have expertise in and support UNDP in baseline, mid‐term, end‐term and impact evaluations to document project/programme impact through quantitative as well as qualitative methods, including documentation of case studies as well as creation of dashboards and IT solutions around inclusive growth themes in partnership with government and private sector partners. 

Experience

The NGO/CSO is expected to have the following experience: 

• Experience of work in the State for which the NGO/CSO is interested to apply.
• Experience of working with government, UN and donor agencies.
• Experience in nurturing and capacity building of women and vulnerable communities in individual/ small groups/ large collectives’ approach for implementation of development activities (eg. SHGs, village/panchayat level committees/ municipal areas/ wards/ slums).
• The service provider should be in operation for a minimum of 5 years from the date of registration (Registration Certificate with organization profile to be submitted).
• The service provider should have an average annual turnover of Rs. 1 Crore or above in the recent 2 completed financial years (Audited statements of accounts; including Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Account to be submitted).
• The service provider should have experience of working with private sector or have established partnerships with private sector in their domain area of expertise.
• The service provider should have proven domain expertise in thematic area selected in RFI.

Information Requested

Interested CSOs/NGOs are requested to fill out the questionnaire enclosed as Annexure‐1, attaching all supporting documentation where specifically requested. If you are an international NGO, please provide information and documentation relating to your permits and licenses for your local presence in this country. 

Please note that attachments should be provided to support each answer to the questions. All questions must be answered directly and clearly. Extraneous information that are not directly responding to the questions will only constrain the ability of UNDP to positively assess the CSO/NGO’s alignment with UNDP requirements. 

All CSOs/NGOs are requested to provide information and supporting document as per Capacity Assessment Checklist (CACHE) form enclosed as Annexure‐2, to enable UNDP to conduct a Capacity Assessment. Based on the results of this Capacity Assessment Checklist (CACHE), UNDP will determine if the CSO/NGO may be placed on a roster for a period of three years, for rapid engagement when required. 

In Annexure‐3, the organization should specifically mention the thematic area in which they have expertise and are applying for under this RFI. Interested organizations can select more than one thematic area. 

Documents to be Submitted

A completed RFI must be submitted along with following documents: 

1. Annexure – 1 (duly filled)
2. Annexure – 2 (duly filled)
3. Annexure – 3 (duly filled)
4. Supporting documents for Annexures 1 and 2 

Submission of RFI and Closing Date

RFI must be submitted in the online e‐tendering system: https://etendering.partneragencies.org by the closing date indicated on the portal, using your username and password. If you have not registered in the system, you can register, using below mentioned generic User ID and password: 

Username: event.guest

Password: why2change 

You are kindly requested to indicate whether your organization intends to submit RFI by clicking on “Accept Invitation”. 

It shall remain your responsibility to ensure that RFI is submitted into the system by the deadline. RFI submission deadline appearing on e‐Tendering portal will be FINAL and prevail on the ones appearing on any other website/s. Kindly ensure that documents uploaded are in the .pdf format (preferably), and free from any virus or corrupted files. 

Who can Apply

RFI are invited from CSO/NGO only. RFI submitted by “for profit” organizations will not be accepted.