UNDP Jobs - 52495- Individual Consultant Procurement Notice: Provisio

Individual Consultant Procurement Notice: Provision of Individual Services of Water and Sanitation Expert under Framework Basis - LEB/CO IC/142 /14

Location :

Beirut, LEBANON

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

07-Jan-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

The contract will be valid on a retainer basis from date of signature until the end of December 2015

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

The contract will be valid on a retainer basis from date of signature until the end of December 2015

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

This TOR falls under the UNDP project “Improving Living Conditions in Palestinian Gatherings Host Communities”, which aims at enhancing access to Basic Urban Services BUS (water, sewerage, solid waste management, electricity, roads) and shelter conditions. In addition to the 12 official Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon, a total of 42 Palestinian Gatherings are distributed along the regions of Lebanon, housing Palestinian refugees in the South (Tyr and Saida), North, Beirut and Beqaa (refer to the map at the end of the document). Palestinian Gatherings are informal settlements ‘constituting relatively homogenous refugee communities, such as smaller villages or households living in the same multi-story residential buildings” (fafo, 2003).

Being informal areas, Palestinian gatherings remain excluded from national strategies or local development plans, thus increasing poverty and marginalization of the local refugee communities and the deterioration of the living environment. The forty-two gatherings fall under the municipal domain of twenty-five municipalities; however, municipalities in general do not intervene to provide basic urban services or improve the physical environment in these areas. The lack of municipal intervention is attributed to a number of reasons mainly: lack of financial resources; the security situation in the gatherings mainly adjacent to camps; and most importantly misconceptions that the gatherings are served by UNRWA. In fact, as per UNRWA’s mandate, the Agency’s services targeting refugees living in the gatherings are restricted to education and health coverage. UNRWA’s interventions in terms of basic urban services, including WASH, and shelter self-help programmes are restricted to the boundaries of the 12 official camps. Due to the lack of service providers, refugees living in the gatherings resort to a number of informal self-help initiatives to access and maintain basic urban services. While these informal practices that are affordable to dwellers ensure their access to some services, the services themselves are inadequate, insufficient and characterized by huge gaps and shortfalls. In addition, they are ultimately connected in an ad-hoc manner to the surrounding municipal networks or to the camps’ networks in the case of gatherings that are adjacent to camps; however no coordination mechanisms exist between the actors.

Since 2012 and with the increased influx of Palestinian and Syrian refugees from Syria, the conditions of the living environment in the gatherings have been dramatically worsening. In April 2013, UNDP and UN-Habitat completed a Rapid Needs Assessment (RNA) that covered all forty-two Palestinian Gatherings in Lebanon. Of the 53,000 Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria into Lebanon (UNRWA, 2013), an estimated 26,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria in addition to some 4,000 Syrian refugees are living in Palestinian gatherings. This has raised the number of dwellers in Palestinian gatherings from 110,000 to an estimated 140,000, more than 90% of whom are Palestinian refugees (PRL & PRS), exerting unprecedented pressure on the already insufficient and deteriorating basic urban services and infrastructure networks. New refugees are either renting shelters or hosted by the original refugees, bringing to bear additional burdens on the already poor original host refugee communities. This situation has led to the worsening of living conditions and the increase of environmental and health risks in the gatherings and their surroundings. Furthermore, the worsening of living conditions and the competition on the limited resources and work opportunities have contributed to rising tensions within the gatherings as well as with the surrounding areas also hosting refugees from Syria.

After responding to the urgent needs increased by the displacement of new refugees in the gatherings, the need arises today for a more strategic approach that would link emergency response to longer-term sustainable solutions in these host refugee communities. Such an approach will present more enduring solutions for adequate and efficient access to water and sanitation (WATSAN) services, which would serve the longer-term development needs of the original refugee communities. These solutions will mainly aim at: a) ensuring efficient and sustainable water distribution system and water conservation; and b) ensure proper disposal and treatment (when applicable) of sewage and waste water. An overarching objective is to promote environmentally sustainable, economic viable and more organic solutions that are tailored to the particular context of each project.

Duties and Responsibilities

In order to investigate and design effective and sustainable water and sewage systems in selected Palestinian gatherings, the services of a Water and Sanitation Expert are required. On a retainer basis, and under the supervision of the Project Manager of the “Improving Living Conditions in Palestinian Gatherings Host Communities” Project, the Individual Consultant (IC) will recommend and assess the feasibility of environmentally sustainable solutions to access water and sanitation services in Palestinian Gatherings based on his/her experience as well as the particular context of the selected areas of implementation.

Water:

Water provision in the gatherings is mainly achieved through collectively and individually implemented networks that were installed with little attention to environmental and engineering standards, compromising the efficiency and sustainability of water supply. In general, water is provided from community wells either through tanks or directly to the pipes; the pumping systems used depend on electricity as well as generators. With the recurrent electricity cut offs in Lebanon, popular and local committees in the gatherings rely on fuel to operate generators to pump water to the networks. However, due to limited resources of the committees, it is becoming increasingly challenging to sustain the costs of fuel and maintenance. On the other hand, water pumping and collection methods at household level are not always appropriate causing leakages and over-consumption. As such, the main tasks of the IC will include:

Technical assessment and analysis of the current situation and needs, including but not limited to water source development, water distribution, storage, and treatment;
Supervise water quality analysis when undertaken by the project;
Designing water distribution systems networks and storage, including adequate water distribution, storage, treatment and conservation options and follow-up on implementation of interventions.

Wastewater:

Some gatherings still lack an appropriate method of sewage disposal and treatment. For example, in the four gatherings of Jim Jim, Wasta, Itanieh and Kfarbadda in Tyre area, sewage networks that were implemented by NGOs are not ultimately connected to the municipal public networks, mainly due to technical reasons such as difference in levels. As a result, refugees are not able to connect their houses to the systems in place and still rely on the use of non-septic tanks. UNDP is interested in investigating new solutions for sewage disposal and treatment, which are self-sufficient and environmentally friendly and which require minimum maintenance. These solutions could include small stand-alone wastewater treatment systems. The services of the Individual Consultant will include:

Technical assessment and analysis of the current situation and needs, including but not limited to sewage disposal and treatment;
Designing and follow-up on the wastewater systems and facilities including viable sustainable options, implementation and maintenance requirements and costs, areas and recommended suppliers in Lebanon.

For detailed information, please Refer to Annex I – Terms of Reference.

Competencies

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

Functional Competencies:

Detailed knowledge of the Lebanese context and market;
Familiarity with relevant technical standards, norms, and current best practices and technologies;
Strong communications skills in Arabic and English.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Degree in Civil Engineering with specialization in water and sanitation, hydraulic engineering or relevant degree.

Experience:

Minimum of 8 years of relevant experience.

Languages:

Proficiency in Arabic and English.

Application:

Kindly refer to the Individual Consultant Procurement Notice and all related Annexes by visiting the below link:

http://www.lb.undp.org/content/lebanon/en/home/operations/procurement/

Please make sure to submit all the requested documents/information; otherwise, your application will be considered incomplete. Please group all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.