CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (EOI) for Parliamentary Technical Advisor (International)

1. BACKGROUND

The Strengthening Capacity and Effectiveness of the People’s Assemblies System in Laos (STEPS) project is a five-year initiative (2022-2026) implemented by UNDP together with the National and Provincial People’s Assemblies (NA and PPA), with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development.
The overall goal of STEPS is to strengthen capacity of the Legislature in Laos to effectively represent, engage and respond to citizen’s needs. The project will support the national and provincial assemblies (members, technical committees and staff) in enhancing their mandates and ability to revise and approve legislation, monitor implementation of the country socio-economic development plan and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), better analyse societal concerns and communicate with citizens, and enhance the overall accountability and transparency system.
The STEPs project provides support in three broad areas:
1. To enable the NA and PPA members to fully exercise their responsibilities as envisaged by the Constitution and laws of the Lao PDR:
Members will have a clear understanding of their legislative and oversight responsibilities, establish feedback practices to effectively and regularly communicate with their constituents so as to be better able to respond to their needs. Procedures and systems will be clearly defined and firmly established within each PPA.
2. To enable the technical committees, staff and members of both the national and provincial assemblies to fully discharge the roles assigned to them by the Constitution and laws of the Lao PDR:
STEPS will provide technical assistance to the plenary and committees, including staff, in conducting budgetary oversight, research, and fact-finding missions.
3. To increase understanding and integration of gender sensitive approaches within the NA and PPAs practices:
Support mainstreaming GESI across the activities of the NA and PPAs, including in budget review, legislative review and oversight activities by committees. Leadership capacities of women members and staff

2. OBJECTIVES AND OUTPUTS

The STEPS project is seeking to engage a number of Parliamentary Technical Advisors as consultants to provide long term support for the work of the STEPS project in the following technical fields:
1. Leadership, planning, strategy and development of parliamentary services.
2. Procedural reform and legislative drafting.
3. Committee development.
4. Budget literacy and public financial management, including gender budgeting.
5. Gender equality and social inclusion.
6. Parliamentary outreach and civil society engagement
7. Research for parliaments.
8. ICT for parliament.
9. Human resources, training and adult education.
The objective of this Call for Expressions of Interest is to establish a pool of pre-selected consultants in the above fields. When technical assignments are agreed with the NA and PPAs, terms of reference for the assignment will be shared with the pre-selected consultants in the relevant field and they will be invited to submit their financial offer, and if selected for the assignment an IC contract is issued directly. An individual consultant may be contracted under more than one technical area and may hold more than one contract at the same time. See Section 6 below for further details.
The advantage of this process is to enable the project to engage technical consultants to support the NA and PPAs with minimal delay, while reducing administrative burden for both UNDP and the consultants.
Please note: if you are already registered on a UN roster as a parliamentary expert you do not need to apply here. When assignments arise we will solicit CVs from the roster managers and your experience and fee will be compared with other pre-selected Technical Advisors. See additional note in Section 7.