UNDP Jobs - 55035- International Consultancy

International Consultancy –Training Facilitators on Community-based Theatre in the Maldives

Location :

Male', MALDIVES

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

13-Apr-2015

Application Deadline :

05-Apr-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

25 working days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

1 month

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

From the period of democratic reforms to the present day, the Maldivian political and economic system, institutions, and society have evolved in parallel with rapid changes in many areas of public life, and in the face of significant internal and external pressures. Uncertainty in the political sphere has been a defining feature since the country’s first-ever openly contested elections in 2008 and subsequent Presidential elections in 2013 and Local and Parliamentary elections in 2014. As in any society, these changes and pressures are accompanied by – and indeed are often the cause of – tensions, which must be managed in order to maintain stability, safeguard rights, promote peaceful coexistence and allow development to proceed.

Maldives has made significant progress towards improving representation and voice in the political, social and cultural spheres. The constitution of the Maldives revised in 2008 provides broader freedom of expression, association and media. However, while youth and young people constitute a third of the workforce, they continue to face barriers to meaningful participation. Youth engagement is seldom considered in development planning. At the same time, most young people lack the basic civic awareness necessary to make informed decisions regarding democratic processes including elections, or how to engage with their elected representatives and leaders and to participate in political and decision making processes.

Though we are going through a relatively stable period of time, social tensions, widespread polarization and a general absence of constructive dialogue within and between different communities and their elected representatives at national and local level remain as key challenges to development. Rapid resolution of the immediate issues is unlikely, and institutional capacities for inclusive, participatory processes, dialogue and exchange to address them over the long term are limited. Formal and informal mechanisms for the expression and redress of grievances are few and highly underdeveloped. There are few means through which communities can communicate, bridge differences between themselves, and proactively address the sources of potential disputes – to help de-escalate tension and prevent possible unrest. There is a need to support key institutions and actors at national and local level, including civil society, informal networks, media, and vulnerable groups such as women and youth to ensure credible electoral processes, promote inclusiveness and address the needs and aspirations of communities and individuals.

The Integrated Governance Programme (IGP) of UNDP promotes social cohesion as an overarching theme and aims to support institutions, communities and individuals to enable peaceful management of tensions. In this regard there is great emphasis placed in bringing key development and socio-political actors together to facilitate dialogue and consensus, and also to allow inclusive formulation of policies and development interventions at community level.

In this regard UNDP has identified the interactive methodology of Community-based Theatre (IGP) as an effective tool for dialogue – especially in engaging youth. Over the past 3 years, IGP has trained over a dozen CBT facilitators and held over 20 youth dialogues across the country using CBT. There is currently a pressing need to train a new batch of CBT facilitators in order to ensure sustainability of CBT as a tool for dialogue.

This assignment proposes to design and conduct a Training of Facilitators on Community-based Theatre with an emphasis on ensuring sustainability of the training and integration of key democratic values and rights-based principles into the training components.

Duties and Responsibilities

The training will be a part of UNDP’s broader community dialogue initiative aimed at increasing voice and participation of vulnerable groups to participate in democratic processes.

This would also support to:

Identify, share and discuss existing and innovating approaches for addressing the various institutional and policy challenges to successfully address issues of vulnerable groups, youth and women;
Raise awareness on the key social issues affecting Maldivians;
Gather evidence and formulate perspectives for national level policy discussion and formulations.

Individuals trained under this training program will be mobilized across selected areas of the country to conduct dialogues using forum theatre methodology. The dialogue forums will be strengthening capacities of local stakeholders, civil society, non-state actors and vulnerable groups to engage as mediators and intermediaries in support of national and local conflict prevention initiatives.

Expected Outputs/Deliverables

Under the guidance and supervision of the Project Coordinator for Results Area 3 – Social Cohesion, and in collaboration with local consultant:

Submit a detailed work plan and methodology for the Training of Facilitators (ToF);
Design and conduct a ToF on Community-based Theatre with an emphasis on ensuring sustainability of the training and integration of key democratic values and rights-based principles into the training components;
Monitor and assess learning and skills acquired by trainees throughout the training.

Submit a final report highlighting the following:

Methodology and work plan;
Key observations and assessments;
Key issues and concerns raised by participants;
Evaluation of the ToF capturing extent of change in participants’ skills and knowledge (both on CBT and on individual responsibility) as a result of the training;
Opportunities and challenges of CBT as a form of dialogue in the Maldives;
Sustainability of CBT as a form of dialogue (provide actionable recommendations and best practices).

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will report to the Project Co-ordinator – Social Cohesion. Weekly briefing meetings will be held with ARR Governance. A briefing and debriefing meeting will be organized with UNDP senior management at the beginning and end of assignment.

Duration of the work: The duration of this assignment will be 1 month, starting from mid-April 2015.

Duty station: The duty station will be Male’.

Scope of the financial proposal and schedule of payment: The consultancy fee will be in lump sum inclusive of DSA and most direct economy class ticket.

The fee will be paid in installments corresponding to the following deliverables:

10% upon completion of Methodology and Work plan;
50% upon completion of the CBT ToF workshop in Male’;
40% upon submission and approval of the final report.

Scope of the financial proposal and schedule of payment

The consultancy fee will be in a lump sum inclusive of travel and accommodation to be paid in installments corresponding to deliverables. You are required to submit a breakdown of the fees, DSA and Air ticket.

Required documents

The application must include a letter of interest to undertake this task, P-11, and a proposal for fees. To download P11, kindly please visit the link http://www.mv.undp.org/content/maldives/en/home/operations/jobs/.

Please combine all the documents into one single file and upload as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

Inter-personal skills;
Exceptional analytical skills, solution oriented program design skills;
Research and evaluation skills including ability to synthesize information;
Excellent oral, and effective presentation and report-writing skills;
Ability to work under with minimum supervision, while meeting deadlines;
Demonstrated ability of timely completion of assignments;
Excellent social and communication skills;
Strong facilitation skills;
Ability to work in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural settings;
Excellent computers skills required.

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.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

Postgraduate Degree in Conflict Resolution/Social Work/Development or related area.

Experience:

5 years experience in the field of community-based theatre, innovative youth dialogue techniques or similar field;
Extensive experience in conducting trainings on community based theatre or other interactive forms of dialogue and conflict resolution;
Prior experience working in the South Asian region or similar context;
Ability to work closely with UNDP in strategizing project activities.

Language:

Fluent in written and spoken English.