Background

It is undeniable that climate change is real and its increasing impacts significantly affect Asia Pacific region, and Cambodia is consistently regarded as one of the most vulnerable countries in the region. Cambodia’s draft Second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) indicates that the country’s mean surface temperature has increased by 0.8 degree Celsius since 1960 and it is predicted that the temperature will continue to increase annually by 2099. Changing climate conditions will increasingly put agriculture, infrastructure, water supply, forest ecosystems, coastal zone and human health and safety at risk. People who subsist below the poverty line and other groups such as women-headed households, children, the elderly, the disabled and indigenous communities, are particularly vulnerable.

Cambodia’s vulnerability to climate change is due not only to climate risks however, but also to its still relatively limited capacity to adapt.  Around 80% of the population lives in rural areas, mainly engaged in agriculture activities, with poor adaptive capacity and infrastructure. Nearly 50% of communes in Cambodia are categorized as between either vulnerable or extremely vulnerable to climate variability according to the Ministry of Environment’s Vulnerability and Assessment to Climate Change report. A national public perception survey on climate change conducted in 2010 found that more than 50% of respondents indicated that they lack of information related to climate change and 60% of the respondents do not know how to respond to climate change.

Cambodia's high vulnerability to climate change has attracted a large number of donor-assisted adaptation programmes and initiatives to date. The Cambodia Climate Change Alliance hasestablished itself as an effective single-platform that brings together not only different ministries but also bilateral and multilateral donors for coordinated national-level policy and institutional support. This support includes the formulation of Cambodia Climate Change Strategic Plan, technical assistance to the cross-ministerial National Climate Change Committee and Climate Change Technical Team, and capacity development support for the Climate Change Department within MoE which acts as the secretariat to the National Climate Change Committee.

A majority of ongoing adaptation projects assisted/financed by bilateral and multilateral donors are working directly with technical line ministries focusing primarily on water resources, agriculture, infrastructure, fisheries, forestry and coastal areas, and hence, adaptation finance is directly channeled through off-budget sectoral allocations. Three GEF-designated agencies (UNDP, UNEP, and FAO) are currently supporting the implementation of three NAPA follow-up projects working under this modality. The upcoming PPCR phase2 will also channel a large part of its $86m (and potentially about $400m in SPCR) through sectoral allocation of resources, which are channeled from the relevant ministry to the provincial department. They also envisage in supporting revising sectoral strategies to integrate climate risks. Bilateral donors working under this modality include EU, Sweden, JICA, and USAID.

Support provided to NGOs is less well-coordinated but various financial and technical support mechanisms exist. UNDP-led Cambodia Community Based Adaptation Programme (CCBAP) and CCCA Trust Fund facility both provide small grants to promote grass-roots level adaptation actions. PPCR phase2/SPCR also has potential provision for this purpose. SIDA has the Joint Climate Change Initiative that supports a group of NGOs. 

On the other hand, a structured mechanism to support sub-national administrations (SNAs) in developing their financial, institutional and technical capacity for climate change adaptation is presently non-existent in Cambodia despite the RGC’s vision in NP-SNDD for creating a national ‘adaptation system’. There are only two initiatives in Cambodia that support SNAs at a very small scale. One is the CCCA Trust Fund that can potentially extend small grants to SNAs (however, no grants have been disbursed to date) and the other is the NCDDS’s pilot programme, also financed by CCCA Trust Fund and SIDA, to deliver additional adaptation grants to SNAs. At the same time, there are several long-standing support structures, many of which have been assisted by UNDP, that support SNAs in the context of the D&D reform without any focus on addressing climate risks in its support. Against this backdrop, the RGC recognizes that it is critical to use resources from LDCF to capitalize on the ongoing assistance programmes for SNAs and to develop capacity of SNAs for climate resilient planning, budgeting, execution, and M&E, supplemented by a network of NGOs, while addressing urgent and immediate adaptation priorities identified in the Cambodia NAPA. As it will be described in the following sections, this will be critical in Cambodia as most of adaptation actions in the future will take place at sub-national levels and there has to be sufficient capacity within SNAs to guide this process.

The LDCF Council has recently approved a concept for the initiative (the Project Identification Form (PIF) for the project titled “Strengthening the resilience of Cambodian rural livelihoods and sub-national government system to climate risks and variability”, and UNDP is now commencing a detailed design phase, expected to last no longer than 12 months. At the end of the design phase, UNDP will finalize a UNDP-GEF/LDCF compliant full-sized project document for final approval by the GEF CEO.

Consistent with priority adaptation strategies identified by the Cambodia NAPA, the proposed project will aim at:

  • Strengthening capacity of sub-national administrations for climate sensitive planning, budgeting and execution
  • Promoting resilience of livelihoods for the most vulnerable to increasing variability in rainfall
  • Nurturing an enabling environment at the sub-national level for attracting and managing greater volume of adaptation finance for building resilience of rural livelihoods

During this design or preparatory phase, several experts will be recruited to conduct the baseline assessments to inform the design of the project. The preparatory phase will be led by UNDP in close collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, NCDD and other key stakeholders identified in the approved PIF.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work:

UNDP is seeking to recruit a Gender Specialist to perform the following tasks as part of the baseline assessments to inform the design of the project as follows:

  • Collaborate with other experts in assessing the existing gender disparity, if any, in “baseline development” activities. The baseline development in the context of this proposed project can be divided into the following categories: a) women’s participation in sub-national decision making process (as part of elected commune or district council); b) women’s participation in sub-national development planning process (as a community member); and 3) women’s participation in livelihood activities (as an economic agent within the household or society). All of these aspects of gender should be verified and substantiated by field visits and consultations with relevant stakeholders.
  • Facilitate discussions among the project development team and with government partners as to what specific activities can be undertaken in the project to minimize differentiated impacts of climate change on women.
  • Review the UNDP Environmental and Social Screening Process guideline and identify specific ways to ensure that women’s views and concerns are addressed and reflected in project activities.
  • Draft a section on Gender Strategy in Section 2 of the Project Document and contribute inputs with regards to proposing gender-sensitive indicators into the project logframe and specific activities that have gender-focus.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

  • Inception Report laid out the workplan of the consultants to deliver the assignment
  • Report on assessment of existing gender disparity in the “baseline development” activities
  • Review the UNDP Environmental and Social Screening Process guideline and identify specific ways to ensure that women’s views and concerns are addressed and reflected in project activities
  • Gender Strategy Section for the Project Document
  • End of consultancy report capturing process and lessons of the assignment

Institutional Arrangement:

The Gender Specialist will report and work under the direct supervision of the Team Leader of the UNDP Environment and Energy Unit in Cambodia. The Gender Specialist will work in a team of several other experts, in particular in collaboration and guidance by the Team Leader (Project Development Specialist – to be also recruited under this Project Preparatory Phase) in order to perform the above tasks. During the assignment, the Gender Specialist will also liaise and work in close cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, NCDDS, and relevant government officials from national to local level, development partners and civil society organizations.

Duration of the Work:

The proposed duration of this assignment is 20 working days spreading over the period of February to June 2014.

Duty Station:

The Gender Specialist will be based in Phnom Penh and travel to project sites visit in Cambodia.

The Gender Specialist is expected to spend at least 10 working days out of the total 20 working days travel to selected provinces to meet with the local authorities and beneficiaries. All Travelling costs including in Phnom Penh and to provinces will be borne by the consultant.

Competencies

Functional competencies:

  • Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
  • Excellent English written communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize project outputs and relevant findings for the preparation of quality project reports;
  • Ability to speak, read and write technical and conversational English;
  • Ability to understand new terminology and concepts easily and to synthesize information from different sources into a coherent project document;
  • Skill in negotiating effectively in sensitive situations;
  • Skill in achieving results through persuading, influencing and working with others;
  • Skill in facilitating meetings effectively and efficiently and to resolve conflicts as they arise;
  • Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high-ranking members of international, regional and national institutions;
  • Displays sensitivity and adaptability to different cultures, genders, religions, races, nationalities and age groups;
  • Good oral communication skills and conflict resolution competency to manage inter-group dynamics and mediate conflicting interests of varied actors;
  • Good team player, self-starter, has ability to work under minimum supervision and maintain good relationships.

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 favouritism;
  • Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree (Master’s degree preferable) in a relevant area such social studies, development studies, gender empowerment and other related field.

Experience:

  • At least 7 years of practical working experience in gender mainstreaming, women empowerment and participation in development projects in Cambodia;
  • Proven experience in conducting assessment and analysis of gender issues in Cambodia, experience on gender and climate change/environment/ is an asset.
  • Strong knowledge of climate change and gender and understanding sub-national institutional contexts in Cambodia is an advantage

Language Requirements: 

  • Fluency in both spoken and written Khmer and English

Important note:

Interested offeror is strongly advised to read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, wich can be viewed at http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=14069 for more detail about term of references, instructions to offeror, and documents to be included when submitting offer.

Documents to be included when submitting the application:

Interested offeror/individual must submit the following documents/information:

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested candidate is required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system, because the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email vannara.chea@undp.org and/or procurement.kh@undp.org. While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice.