Background

The Government of Sierra Leone established a Disaster Management Department (DMD) in the Office of National Security (ONS) in 2004, with the mandate to prevent, manage and control disasters at the national, district, and local level. In 2008, Disaster Management Committees (DMCs) were established by DMD in order to play a key role in the prevention, management, mitigation and control of risks at the decentralised level. The DMCs have since functioned to some extent, but are hampered by insufficient capacity and absence of clear guidelines for effective responses to hazards and potential disasters. 

To guide DMCs in their roles as key disaster management and crisis prevention mechanisms at the district level, the Government proposed to develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The SOPs are expected to contribute to streamlining procedures at provincial, district and chiefdom levels, with a view to minimizing the impacts of disasters by ensuring timely and accurate responses by all relevant parties. The SOPs will do so by identifying the key stakeholders in disaster risk management, as well as clearly defining their roles, responsibilities, and reporting mechanisms.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the UNDP Team Leader Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Management, and in close collaboration with DMD, the consultant will be expected to accomplish the following tasks:

  • Review existing SOPs of relevant national, provincial and district institutions (including the NERC and DERCs);
  • Conduct consultations with key national, provincial and district level stakeholders including Government MDAs, UN Agencies, international organizations and NGOs;
  • Prepare draft SOPs in line with globally accepted minimum standards and adapted to the local institutional context;
  • Provide clear recommendations for DMC capacity enhancement to enable SOP implementation;
  • Organize stakeholder consultations on the draft SOPs (meetings, workshops), and integrate relevant feedback in the draft SOPs and recommendations;
  • Finalize the SOPs based upon stakeholder feedback and inputs.

The consultant will be expected to deliver the following outputs:

  • Workplan to be submitted to UNDP for approval within 3 working days upon contract signature.

Draft DMC SOPs and recommendations submitted to UNDP and DMD for review within three weeks upon contract signature, including:   

  • Overview of key stakeholders relevant for integration in SOPs;
  • Clearly defined functions, roles and responsibilities of each key stakeholderRecommendations for membership of committees;
  • Recommendations for how committees will operate (coordination mechanisms, frequency, location of meetings, planning);
  • Recommendations on information management (flow of information, reporting mechanisms, communication systems).

Situation Reporting Format.

  • Final draft documents submitted to UNDP and DMD for review within 35 working days upon contract signature.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modelling 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.

Functional Competencies:

  • Ability to identify needs and interventions for capacity building of counterparts, clients and potential partners.
  • Displays initiative, sets challenging outputs for him/herself and willingly accepts new work assignments.
  • Excellent time management skills.
  • Demonstrates initiative and self-motivation to work independently, as well as, cooperative and collaborative spirit to work in a team.
  • Identifies new approaches and promotes their use in other situations.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • University degree in Development Studies, Social Sciences, or other relevant discipline.

Experience:

  • At least 5 years of demonstrated experience in undertaking similar assignments.
  • Demonstrated experience in facilitation of stakeholder consultations.
  • Excellent drafting and formulation skills; proven record of drafting reports or technical papers.
  • Experience of working with government institutions and advising government officials.

Language:

  • Fluency in spoken and written English.

Remuneration:

  • Payment to the Consulting team will be made in three instalments upon satisfactory completion of the following deliverables:
  • 1st Instalment: 40% upon approval by UNDP of the consultant’s workplan.  
  • 2nd Instalment: 30% upon approval by UNDP of the draft SOPs.
  • 3rd Instalment: 30% upon approval by UNDP of the final documents

Evaluation:

  • The candidate will be evaluated against a combination of technical and financial criteria. Maximum score is 100% (70% for technical criteria and 30% for financial criteria). The technical evaluation will take into account the following as per the weightings provided:
  • Background and minimum educational qualification as defined above: 20%
  • Professional experience with respect to TOR: 30%
  • Methodology of approach in accomplishing the consultancy: 50% 

Application Procedures:

Required Documents:

  • Technical proposal (methodology of approach to the task), max. 2 pages.
  • Financial proposal (breakdown of consultancy fee exclusive of in-country travel but inclusive of all other consultancy-related costs).