UNDP Jobs - 57544- International Consultant for Weather Monitoring an

International Consultant for Weather Monitoring and Early Warning System Designing

Location :

Pyongyang, KOREA (DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF)

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

08-Jul-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

21 days in total

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

Contract is expected to start asap.

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

DPRK is prone to frequent natural disasters especially the extreme weather conditions e.g. floods and droughts that are impacting negatively on people’s lives. Meanwhile due to lack of alternative energy and livelihood opportunities human activities are exacerbating the situation, for instance the severe deforestation resulted from the tree cut on forest land (at upper part of mountains) for cooking, heating, and shipment (charcoal fueled trucks), and sloping land conversion to farming land (at lower part of mountains), are causing more land slides, soil erosion, etc. leading to a vicious cycle between human and nature.

Strengthening Ecosystem Resilience and Community Adaptive Capacity in Climate Affected River Basins in DPRK (SERCARB) is a new comprehensive disaster reduction project signed in June 2013, aiming to minimize the negative impacts of climate change and environmental degradation on the livelihoods of local community on one hand, and to improve community awareness and community for environment protection, sustainable management and utilization of natural resources, as well as disaster risk management and climate change adaptation on the other, to build a virtuous cycle.

Strengthening weather monitoring and early warning system in the pilot watersheds is an important component of the project, aiming to provide the data and information required for an effective disaster reduction system. Building on the existing hydro-meteorological monitoring stations, the project will provide the additional systems required to generate basic local weather and agro-meteorological forecasts, which will also include a locally based early warning system for flood warnings, to furnish warnings to village and county officials in flood prone downstream project areas.

The SERCARB project will introduce pilots in the first site i.e. the lower Chongchon River Basin covering Pakchon County (population approximately 100,000) of North Pyongan Province, and Kaechon City (population approximately 300,000), South Pyongan Province. County and Ri level technical staff will be the key counterparts for the pilots.

Note:

Geographical Information System (GIS) application is not possible in the country context.

Duties and Responsibilities

Main Objective of the Assignment:

Conduct field needs assessment of weather monitoring and early warning system at Ri and county levels in the project’s pilot counties; and
Design weather monitoring and early warning system at Ri and county levels in the project’s pilot counties.

Scope of Work:

Review existing information and practices of weather monitoring and early warning;
Prepare work plan and methodology for the assignment especially field needs assessment;
Conduct field assessment for needed data collection and analysis with support from local partners;
Present initial findings and recommendations to UNDP country office and national counterpart(s), including suggested design of the weather monitoring and early warning system;
Draft, revise, finalize and submit the assignment report, with the weather monitoring and early warning system designed at local level.

Deliverables

The final product of the assignment will be a report with the detailed design of the weather monitoring and early warning system, including detailed specifications of proposed equipment, hardware and software, if any:

By the 1st week after signing of the contract: a work plan with field assessment design submitted and approved by UNDP;
By the end of 8-day field work in DPRK: Present findings and recommendations for the designing of the weather monitoring and early warning system;
By the 1st week after field work in DPRK: submission of draft assignment report with weather monitoring and early warning system design;
By the 3rd week after field work in DPRK: submission of final report and certification by UNDP on the satisfactory provision of services.

Monitoring/Reporting requirements

The consultant will be under day-to-day supervision of UNDP country office, and works closely with SERCARB Project Manager.

Duration of assignment

21 days in total, of which 5 days for desk study and work plan preparation, 8 days for field work in DPRK, and 8 days for drafting and finalizing the assignment report with the weather monitoring and early warning system designed. Given the need for the soonest SERCARB project activities on ground, the consultant is expected to assume the assignment at the earliest possibility.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

Ability to produce deliverables on time;
Computer literacy and skills in presentation, report writing and maps development.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

At least master’s degree in hydrology, meteorology, development or related fields.

Experience:

At least 8 years of demonstrable experience in developing methodologies for field assessment and designing weather monitoring and early warning system for similar projects;
Experience in dealing with government agencies at different levels, international organizations, and community people;
Prior work experience with international organizations in DPRK or other countries in Asia Pacific region is desirable.

Language:

Excellent communications, presentation and writing skills in English.

Payment arrangements

Lump Sum (payments linked to deliverables)

Administrative arrangements

The consultant will be provided with visa issuance, airport pick up and drop off, local transport and office space in DPRK.

Important thing you need to know before your submission:

Please be guided by the template Offeror's Letter (download link: http://pan.baidu.com/s/1eQfGmky, click (35KB), and then save to your computer), in which you'll be asked:

To confirm your interest and availability for the assignment;
To provide your CV;
To provide financial proposal/quotation including detailed cost breakdown that you can foresee;
To provide brief methodology on how you will conduct or approach the work.

So, you only need to submit the Offeror's Letter downloaded from the link, and attach to your application.

Below for your information:

Financial Proposal

Lump sum contract

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including professional consultancy fee, international travel, etc.)

Travel costs

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket for the most direct and economical route. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using his/her own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between UNDP DPRK and Individual Consultant, prior to travel.

Living costs

Per Diem will be paid during his / her mission period in DPRK to the international consultant at the prevailing rate for the duty station approved by the International Civil Service Commission/UN.

Selection method

Desk review.

Evaluation criteria:

Educational background: 10 points max (max 10 pts – PhD degree; 5 pts –Master’s degree);
Relevant professional experience: 30 points max (30 pts – above 12 years; 20 pts – 8-12 years);
Language skills: 5 points max (5pts - native English speaker);
Knowledge and experience about DPRK: 10 points max. (10 pts - work or consultancy experience in DPRK; 5 pts- experience in other Asia Pacific countries);
Methodology: 15 points max. (15 pts – fully understand the task, logical and reachable; 10 pts-get sense of the task, basically meeting the requirement;5 pts- rough and unclear).

Maximum available technical score - 70 points.

Evaluation method

Cumulative analysis

Contract award shall be made to the incumbent whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
Having received the cumulative highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.Technical Criteria weight: 70%, Financial Criteria weight: 30%.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70% from the maximum available technical score (49 points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

The maximum number of points assigned to the financial proposal is allocated to the lowest price proposal and will equal to 30. All other price proposals will be evaluated and assigned points, as per below formula:

30 points [max points available for financial part] x [lowest of all evaluated offered prices among responsive offers] / [evaluated price].

The proposal obtaining the overall cumulatively highest score after adding the score of the technical proposal and the financial proposal will be considered as the most compliant offer and will be awarded a contract.