UNDP Jobs - 52502- Consultant - Comparative Study on UNDP's Practice

Consultant - Comparative Study on UNDP's Practice in Disaster Risk Assessments

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

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

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

6 months

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

6 months

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

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2014-2017. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to UNDP Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risks and disasters are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge- and data-driven including in its programme support efforts.

The Cluster on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction leads the development and coordination of policy in climate change adaptation and mitigation, energy, climate risk management, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and disaster recovery. The Cluster will specifically incorporate risk management as a key element of strategies to pursue sustainable development, to anticipate conflict and crises and to strengthen resilience.

Disaster Risk Assessment (DRA) and Information Management (IM) are key integral components of UNDP’s country Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) programmes. Since 2005, UNDP has supported 122 countries (including 23 small island states) in disaster risk reduction and management by establishing and implementing 242 DRM programmes. Some 220 of these are country DRM/DRR programmes, 17 are regional initiatives and five are global efforts. According to the systematic review of the Programme Documents (ProDocs) of 160 country DRM programmes, 75% have DRA/IM components that can be divided into four groups that:

Develop evidence-based disaster risk profiles at national, subnational, urban and community levels. The risk profiling process engages all national stakeholders in order to increase risk awareness, produce country-specific solutions and ensure ownership of proposed recommendations;
Enhance disaster risk information and knowledge management to properly manage the large amounts of existing and newly generated disaster risk information, while ensuring this information is readily accessible to all potential users;
Develop country capacity to ensure these implemented activities are sustainable and incorporate the results and recommendations produced by the disaster risk assessments. By working with national institutions that already have a mandate to produce, manage or use risk information, UNDP promotes incorporating these initiatives into their regular activities.
Establish functioning national governance and coordination mechanisms for effective DRA/IM to be used in policy and decision making. This is an overarching pillar that makes all the others possible. It includes establishing legal, institutional, political and financial frameworks that make it possible to effectively generate, manage and use disaster risk information.

UNDP’s DRA/IM activities are generally implemented in phases in line with its country DRM/DRR programmes. They aim to help disaster-prone countries to establish a functioning national Disaster Risk Assessment and Monitoring (DRAM) system.

Duties and Responsibilities

This study will build on the comprehensive portfolio review of UNDP’s disaster risk assessment activities at different levels and associated outputs, which was undertaken between September 2012 to June 2013 and a number of case studies done for some countries to draw some lessons and experiences.

The overall objectives of this assignment are:

To provide insights and forward looking recommendations on the improvement of technical support and services in disaster risk assessment and utilization of risk information in UNDP’s programme countries; and
To assist UNDP to develop practice notes in this aspect that serves as a pragmatic guidance for programming DRA/IM activities within the framework of UNDP’s new Strategic Plan 2014-2017.

Under the direct supervision of Policy Advisor of BPPS’s Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Cluster and in close collaboration with BPPS’ Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Advisors, the incumbent will undertake the following tasks:

Reviewing the completed UNDP portfolio analysis of disaster risk assessment and designing a work plan for case studies;
Conducting 13-15 case studies where UNDP has supported within its country Disaster Risk Management (DRM) programmes, including what works, what doesn’t work, issues and pitfalls, challenges, etc.;
Analyzing the impacts of UNDP-supported DRA activities, i.e. improving development policy/decision making, capacity development, and other governance issues;
Identifying best practice and lessons learned that can be shared to other international practitioners; and
Making recommendations as to how to improve UNDP’s country DRM programming in terms of risk assessment and information management and preparing a synthesis report on the comparative study that systematically documents the methodology used and the key findings.

Competencies

Corporate competencies:

Promotes the mission and values of the UN;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity;
Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Functional competencies:

Ability to work under pressure and stressful situations;
Effective interpersonal and communication skills;
Strong analytical, research, reporting and writing abilities;
Strong organizational and process management competencies;
Self-motivated, good sense of humor combined with seriousness about quality and timeliness of work;
Team working competencies and ability to effectively work in teams;
Ability to assess complex situations in order to screen succinctly and clearly critical issues and draw forward-looking conclusions.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

A minimum of Masters degree or equivalent experience in a discipline relevant to Disaster Risk Management/Reduction; PhD is an asset.

Experience:

A minimum of 5 year experience in the design and implementation of risk assessments in support of disaster risk management functions and/or decision making processes;
Experience of working within the UN System preferred;
Experience in developing/applying risk information tools at different levels;
Experience in leading working groups in a multi-disciplinary environment;
Experience in working with data and information available in less developed countries;
Experience of working in multi-cultural environment.

Language:

Excellent analytical writing skills in English;
Language skills in other languages preferred but not mandatory.