UNDP Jobs - 45906- Early Recovery National Officer (Open to Myanmar N

Early Recovery National Officer (Open to Myanmar Nationals only)

Location :

Myintkyina, Kachin State, MYANMAR

Type of Contract :

FTA Local

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

21-May-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

NO-A

Duration of Initial Contract :

1 year

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Myanmar is at a historic stage in its development. A new Constitution was adopted in May 2008 and elections were held in November 2010 with bi-elections in April 2012. Parliament and governments have been formed at the national and region/state levels and a number of reforms focusing on good governance, human rights and reaching cease-fire agreements in a number of conflict areas are on-going. These reforms are seen as positive steps which have led to increase in engagement with the international community and allowed the Executive Board of UNDP to lift mandate restrictions resulting in the formulation of Country Programme Action Plan (CPAP) that was signed by the Union Government of Myanmar in April 2013. Widespread sectarian conflict, prolonged displacement and inability to find durable solutions for the displaced shadowed the reform agenda.

In Kachin State, around 95000 persons were displaced in camps across Kachin and Northern Shan State. 85,000 live in camps and 10000 in host communities. The number of host communities is estimated at 20,000 people who are supplemented by 20,000 isolated/inaccessible conflict-affected communities and around 5,000 unregistered IDPs. The length of displacements and the unlikely short term prospects for return, the humanitarian situation in Kachin has progressively evolved toward protracted displacements. This has been translated into planning assumptions retained by the humanitarian community. Early Recovery in the context of Kachin is largely dependent on the peace process. The agreement on a return and resettlement program in 4 pilot villages offers concrete steps for early recovery for conflict affected communities in these villages once they are selected.

In the context of protracted displacement and ongoing tensions between communities, early recovery efforts are integral to bridging the gap between humanitarian and development activities, encouraging self-reliance, supporting fragile local economies and building resilience. A shift from humanitarian to recovery is a priority across all programming that builds on coordination and partnership established with clusters/sectors, government and local authorities and experiences of partners in supporting livelihoods such as provision of conditional cash grants for small businesses, income-generation activities (such as livestock breeding programmes, small scale farming), and vocational training for income-generating activities.

In Kachin, food insecurity remains one of the greatest challenges for the people affected by conflict in both Government areas and areas beyond government control. Due to insecurity, mine contamination or other restrictions on movements, many people - especially in areas beyond government control - have limited or no access to livelihood and income-generating opportunities. Early Recovery Sector partners will implement cash or food for work projects to support livelihoods programs including communal gardens or livestock, provide trainings on farming skills and, where appropriate, provide conditional business cash grants w to encourage self-sufficiency and inject cash into local economies.

Given the situation of protracted displacement and prolonged humanitarian situation early recovery takes on a crisis prevention and recovery approach in Rakhine and Kachin. While economic recovery remains the building block of recovery, the ER sector in Rakhine and Kachin will take on an increasing conflict prevention approach focusing on creating an enabling environment, and building local governance capacities (government and local NGOs). The approach is supported by the new programme structure of UNDP that allows better coordination of its functions as global ER cluster lead and bringing Rakhine and Kachin under Early Recovery framework where UNDP programming, design and implementation and management of programmes in Rakhine and Kachin will come under the ER framework.

UNDP has a global mandate for ER cluster coordination. Although no formal ER cluster has been activated in Myanmar, ER interventions are coordinated through an ER sector led by UNDP (the situation is similar for other sectors, where coordination is done through sector groups than through formal clusters. Clusters have only been activated recently for Shelter, WASH and Health). In Rakhine and Kachin, the ER sector includes Government, UN Agencies and NGOs while in Yangon it includes UN agencies and NGO representatives.

The Early Recovery Officer will report to and be directly supervised by Early Recovery Manager (international) based in the duty station. In the absence of the ER Manager s/he will report directly to the ER Specialist based in Yangon. The position will support the roll out of ER coordination in Rakhine and Kachin, the development and implementation of ER response in these locations and development and strengthening of government relationships to further the ER agenda in both locations. This position is expected to develop and maintain strategic relationship with government, local authorities and humanitarian agencies.

Duties and Responsibilities

ER Sector Coordination:

Support the integration of early recovery into Township level planning;
Facilitate communication among and between UN agencies, I/NGOs, local governments and civil society to facilitate a coherent response to and implementation of Early Recovery strategies and plans;
Organize coordination meetings and ensure appropriate follow up to decisions and actions;
Support the preparation of meeting materials;
Follow up on the outcomes of the meeting;
Maintain database of all relevant assessments and organizations, who is doing what where (3W) matrixes and regularly update such information;
Lead ER sector coordination, as and when required.

Information Management:

Support the analysis and decision making through ensuring collection, processing, interpretation and dissemination of information across sectors and clusters and roll-out of ER township coordination;
Support coordination, complementation of information and developing baseline data for ER Planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting;
Support the conduct of ER assessments, data collection and analysis;
Liaise and communicate with humanitarian partners, government and local authorities, between ER and other Sectors/clusters, providing technical assistance on data collection, analysis, and reporting of ER data;
Maintain contact data base of ER Sector partners and clients using agreed format and updating project information through 4W and project data base and producing derivative products such as tables, graphs, maps for presentation and reporting;

Mainstreaming of ER into Humanitarian Efforts and Cross Pillar Coordination:

Represent ER in humanitarian cluster/ sector meetings and coordination mechanisms when required;
Organize workshops and meetings on ER as and when required;
Conduct field visits/ joint missions with other agencies to assess needs, identify entry points for ER or general monitoring of situation.

Strategy Formulation at Local Level ER Planning Processes:

Working closely with the ER Manager to develop ER Sector strategies, local level planning processes and response plans through;
Conducting desk reviews and research;
Advising and liaising with the government counterparts to ensure that the overall process is coordinated government stakeholders, and aligned with national processes and priorities;
Facilitating consultations at the State and local level;
Providing quality assurance to the translation of existing government plans to English and any other materials required to be translated to support the process;
While most of the translation will be done by professional translators, it is expected that this position will provide quality assurance to the translations;
There will be expectation on this position to provide translation in times of urgency and interpret during meetings with government officials;
Organize workshops and meetings to generate information that feeds into the strategies as and when required
Maintain relationship with government officials and liaise as necessary.

Management of Field Office (Myitkyina):

Under the supervision of ER Managers, support Area Office Coordinators and field staff in delivery of results in a timely manner as agreed upon in the AWP. Helping to ensure field reporting is strengthened and managed;
Support the development of AWPs and QWPs of the field office and when necessary lead periodical monitoring missions to the field with the aim to:
Facilitate programme delivery and implementation;
Monitoring of programme activities;
Better understand the operating environment so that bottlenecks impeding programme delivery are effectively addressed at the Country Office level;
Strengthen relationship with state level government officials and local NGOs;
Perform any other duty as reasonably requested by the ER Manager.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity and fairness, by modelling the UN/UNDP’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.

Functional Competencies:

Demonstrated capacity to integrate principles of aid effectiveness, accountability, human rights, and gender equality in policy making and programming;
Capacity to interact with senior officials;
Strong analytical, negotiation and communication skills, including ability to produce high quality practical specialized reports and knowledge products.

Managing Relationships:

Demonstrated well developed people management and organizational skills;
Excellent negotiation and networking skills;
Outstanding and effective communication and interpersonal skills;
Ability to identify and develop partnerships and maintain good relations with government institutions and other relevant parties.

Judgment/Decision-making:

Mature judgment and initiative;
Proven ability to provide strategic direction in practice area;
Independent judgment and discretion in advising on handling major policy issues and challenges.

Coordination, Communication and Organization Skills:

Outstanding and effective coordination ability;
Ability to write clear, concise and effective correspondence;
Ability to identify and analyse trends, opportunities and threats to the implementation of the project;
Ability to articulate and communicate ideas effectively, efficiently and accurately among all parties;
Attention to details and ability to prioritize;
Ability to multi-task and work under pressure to keep with tight deadlines;
Solution-oriented, driven and practical.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Bachelors degree in Conflict studies/peace building, international relations, law and other relevant areas.

Experience:

2 years experience of working in transitional/ conflict/recovery/disaster context;
Demonstrated experience of working in the application of conflict sensitive and peacebuilding approaches;
Demonstrated experience in engaging state governments and authorities with high degree of professional success;
Experience with data collection and research;
Proven representational skills;
Ability to use MS Office (especially Word, power point, excel) with ease;
Experience in management of projects/programmes.

Language:

Fluency (written and spoken) English and the local language of the post location is a must.

Note:

Candidates must apply on-line through UNDP job website together with complete duly filled and signed UN-P11 form, academic qualification certificates.

P11 can be downloaded here:
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/jobs.html