Background

The Crisis Response Unit (CRU) is responsible for UNDP’s corporate crisis response strategy and capability. It develops and drives UNDP’s vision and priorities for crisis response, coordinates and facilitates UNDP’s crisis response with a whole-of-UNDP approach, provides oversight for all UNDP crisis response actions and ensures high quality engagement of the organization in crisis in general. The responsibility of CRU focuses primarily upon and is confined to the two specific typologies of crisis listed below, to which CRU provides support for limited duration:

• Sudden onset crisis: This would include countries that have been affected by natural disasters or sudden outbreak of armed conflicts;
• Complex protracted crisis: Examples include countries that are impacted by protracted conflicts, often with regional implications.

UNDP Country Offices (COs) respond on average each year to four to six mid-level to large-scale sudden onset disasters, in addition to ongoing protracted crises and lower intensity crises. At the same time, a number of COs are presented for the first time with the challenge of scaling up for a crisis response, often in close collaboration with the government.

Accountability for crisis response in UNDP lies with the Country Office, with the Regional Bureau providing oversight. According to UNDP’s Corporate Accountability Framework, the Regional Bureau is accountable for provision of corporate support to the Country Office in responding to a crisis, with support from the Crisis Response Unit and the Central Bureaus. The Crisis Response Unit is accountable for developing and maintaining the mechanisms, tools and capacity for UNDP’s crisis response. CRU’s is composed of a Directorate, Crisis Coordination, Rapid Response and Preparedness teams, based at New York HQs, and Crisis Response Interface with Humanitarian Actors and CGER team (in Geneva).

The current generic call aims to build CRU’s ExpRes roster capacity of consultants with relevant experience carrying out After Action Reviews in crisis response. The ??Experts Roster for Rapid Response (ExpRes) provides pre-selected and technically vetted consultants across 13 profiles and 60 sub-profiles to support the work of UNDP Country Offices/units and other UNDP partner agencies in the area of crisis prevention and recovery.

For 2016, UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit is planning five After Action Reviews: 1) for the UNDP’s Immediate Response to Iraq Crisis (2014), UNDP’s Crisis Response to the Earthquakes in Nepal (2015), UNDP’s Response to the Ebola Crisis (2014 and 2015), UNDP’s Response to the Burundi crisis (2015 -2016), and UNDP’s Response to the Ecuador Crisis (2016).

Specific ToRs will be developed for each After Action Review exercise. Please state in the cover letter your earliest availability date

UNDP’s Immediate Response

In the immediate aftermath of a crisis situation and in line with UNDP’s Standard Operating Procedures for crisis response, a SURGE planning team is deployed the country, as requested by the Crisis Board under a Level 2 or 3 organizational response and in agreement with the respective Country Office. The purpose of the SURGE mission is to develop an integrated programmatic and operational plan that both responded to the immediate needs of the crisis, but also assisted the CO in thinking through a core resilience-based approach to recovery that would support the CO in positioning UNDP in this agenda going forward.  

In early April 2015, UNDP had just adopted its new Crisis Response Strategy with the commitment to develop existing signature products for early recovery programming into comprehensive crisis response packages with elements that combine programme, operations, communications, deployable capacity and resource mobilization, among others. The crisis response packages concretely express UNDP commitment to step-up its capacity to be prepared and capable to respond to a crisis. When a crisis hits, UNDP will be more predictable and will quickly activate the packages adopting a whole UNDP approach geared towards supporting a country office to rapidly get to scale when engaging in crisis response and recovery. Nepal L2 crisis was the first and very initial testing ground for the crisis response packages approach and (by then) partially developed elements. The After Action Review (AAR) would offer useful insights in making the package as much as possible adherent to the needs of UNDP CO and key partners in the immediate aftermath of a similar disaster. Importantly, the AAR would make relevant recommendations for UNDP investment in country office crisis preparedness measures and tools.

In this context, it is expected that an AAR will provide a comprehensive assessment of UNDP’s response to a specific crisis. The AAR will aim to inform the continuous enhancements of UNDP’s crisis response systems, tools and processes by gathering facts and perceptions related to UNDP’s response and suggesting actionable recommendations to improve UNDP’s future response operations. The review will therefore hopefully contribute to the overall improvement of the timeliness and effectiveness of UNDP response to emergencies resulting from disasters due to natural hazards, conflict or health hazards.

The AAR is in line with corporate procedures corresponding to this magnitude of crisis, and will serve as an internal learning exercise. Key learnings from this review may be shared with partners as a part of collective learnings and experience sharing.

Duties and Responsibilities

The objective of the AAR is to examine the performance of UNDP with respect to the response to a specific crisis and highlight lessons learned that would help strengthen the functioning, performance and efficiency of UNDP response to disasters, including: UNDPs corporate and country level programmatic and operational response; UN and interagency coordination; contribution to PDNA/PCNA and other relevant needs assessments as well as recovery processes. The AAR will also draw recommendations for future crisis response situations.

The AAR will address the following:

Overall Response

• Analyze the corporate stance prior to the activation of the Crisis Board and Early Action/Early Warning;
• Examine the UNDP’s response in the context of an L2/L3 crisis with special emphasis on compliance with crisis response systems and processes (e.g corporate SOP) at global, regional and country level. This includes i) timeliness and effectiveness of strategic decisions and actions by decision makers and other key stakeholders in the organization in order to respond to the crisis; ii) internal communication and coordination flows within UNDP to support the CO’s efforts to respond to the crisis; iii) timeliness and effectiveness to quickly scale up UNDP CO’s capacity to undertake immediate crisis response activities and pose the foundations for recovery;
• Review UNDP’s overall preparedness for response [CO, Regional, and Global] including the decision-making processes and their efficiency in the context of corporate response - with the view to inform the finalization of the SOPs for UNDP’s immediate crisis response.
• Examine UNDP’s ability to take on a “whole of UNDP” approach to the response and recovery efforts;
• Produce a return on investment analysis on each process/mechanism (ERA, DST, SURGE, etc.);
• Assess how UNDP technical and programmatic expertise was leveraged during the crisis response;

Programmatic Response

• Review the effectiveness of the SURGE planning and implementation process, use of UNDP’s Crisis Response Packages’ approach and elements (if applicable);
• Review the pertinence of UNDP’s recovery programme formulation and the choices that were made in terms of programme priorities; the reasons why those choices were made; and overall programmatic performance;
• Examine whether adjustments were made to the existing country programme in response to the crisis (including the identification of new programmes);
• Draw lessons on the sustainability of UNDP Programmatic activities and function performed by SURGE Advisors and positioning in response of the crisis;
• Examine the role SURGE Advisors played in programme development and implementation, programme realignment and resources mobilization;
• Produce a return on investment analysis on the added value provided by the SURGE Advisors in the elaboration and delivery of programmes at the Country Office level;
• Examine the collaboration between the experts deployed under the SURGE modality and the Programmatic staff in country, at global level and in the Regional Hub;

Operational Response

• Review the timeliness and effectiveness of the overall response operation and the compliance and application of the SOPs and decision-making processes. This part of the review will focus on country, regional and HQ level responses, in addition to the interaction between these dimensions of the response;
• Review the efficiency and effectiveness of immediate crisis response standard operating procedures, as well as analyze their application in the context of the response. This includes but is not limited to the application of Fast Track procedures and rapid response processes (financing, deployments, recruitment, procurement, etc.);
• Review the relevance and timeliness of the SURGE work plan, and quality of SURGE deployments, including when relevant of UNDP Stand-by partners, and management of SURGE advisors in country;
• Examine whether recommendations tabled during previous After Action reviews were implemented in responding to the crisis;
• Examine the operational bottlenecks and constraints faced by the CO in terms of both operations and programme implementation;

UN and Interagency Coordination:

The effectiveness and adequacy of UNDP’s engagement with the broader humanitarian action. Including a review of:

1. The extent of UNDP’s coordination and cooperation with key humanitarian partners on the ground;
2. UNDP’s leadership of the Early Recovery Cluster on the ground in supporting recovery and UNDP capacity to attract partners and resources to the cluster;
3. Clarity of UNDP’s role and actions vis-à-vis  other partners, including but not limited to other clusters, IFIs, and NGOs;
4. UNDP’s ability to link immediate early recovery to longer term recovery efforts;
5. UNDP’s support to Government coordination capacities and UNDP’s engagement in the wider planning processes for recovery with the government, IFIs and other key stakeholders.

UNDP’s Engagement in and Influence on Assessment Processes

• UNDP’s ability to build synergies and mainstream the recovery agenda in  the needs assessment processes (such as MIRA and PDNA, PCNA, etc.) and humanitarian funding instruments;

Communication and Resource Mobilization:

• Examine the timeliness and effectiveness of communication, including relationship with media, and resource mobilization efforts;
• Review UNDP’s level of success in mobilizing funds from humanitarian funding sources, including but not limited to Flash Appeal and CERF Rapid Response Grant.
• Examine internal and external factors that impacted donor funding decisions, identifying areas for improvement.
• Assess donor response to the UNDP programme, identifying gaps and areas for improvement;
• Assess donor response to the overall ER agenda and UNDP leadership of the ER cluster.

Deliverables

The review will cover UNDP’s response to a specific crisis and will focus on the timeline of the SURGE period. The review cover UNDP HQ, the relevant regional offices and the Country Office affected by the crisis, as well as all aspects of UNDPs response and its role in the interagency arenas.

The recommendations will have a forward-looking view, with aim to identifying best practices and innovations that can be systematized, as well as practices that need to be avoided in the future. It will also define areas for further investment and improvement in the response. In addition the ARR will provide:

• A timeline with an overview of facts and events;
• An overview of recommendations implemented / not implemented from past AARs;
• An inception report on the initial findings to be delivered prior to the Country visits;
• A draft report on best practices, lessons learned and recommendations, focusing on key issues as highlighted in the objectives above;
• A forward looking Action Plan for implementing recommendations with a focus on operationalizing the new corporate SOP for immediate crisis response and relevant UNDP crisis response packages, and UNDP’s role in transcending the humanitarian-development divide in a post-disaster context;
• A final report on best practices, lessons learned and recommendations, focusing on key issues as highlighted in the objectives above;
• A two pager document summarizing the key findings and recommendations of the AAR exercise;
• A debriefing meeting as well as a multi-stakeholder sharing of the findings and recommendations, such as a presentation to key UNDP stakeholders from UNDP CO, Regional Hub and HQ.

The contract and payment will be done based on the above deliverables.

Methodology, Timeline and Team

 An independent consultant will be recruited to conduct the after action review. He/she will report to the Crisis Response Unit (CRU) Rapid Response and Preparedness Team who will oversee the day-to-day management of the team, with support from the Crisis Coordination Teams and the relevant Regional Bureau. The final report will be presented to Regional Bureau and CRU for final endorsement.

Information will be gathered from primary and secondary sources. This includes desk reviews, key informant interviews in headquarters with central and regional bureaus involved, the country office and deployed personnel. Meetings with partners and stakeholders, field visits, focus group meetings with stakeholders and surveys. 

 Description of Responsibilities :

 Under the direct supervision of the Program Specialist (CRU Rapid Response and Preparedness Team), and in coordination with CRU Crisis Coordination Teams as well as the Regional Bureau, the consultant for the AAR exercise will:

1. Lead the AAR exercise from preparation to final delivery in close collaboration with CRU, Regional Bureau and the Country Office.
2. Lead the development of questionnaire, methodology, mission schedule and work plan for the AAR.
3. Gather and review all the necessary documents related to the Global, Regional and Country level response, including relevant procedures and practices.
4. Draft an inception report on initial findings, including an overview of recommendations implemented / not implemented from past AARs, and an overview of the facts and events.
5. Lead the consultations processes related to the AAR, including preparatory meetings, surveys, in country visit, focus group discussions, debriefings and final report presentation by liaising and coordinating with all relevant stakeholders.
6. Lead a return on investment analysis on each process/deployment mechanism (ERA, DST, SURGE, etc) conducted during the response.
7. Produce a draft AAR report, compile and address comments that arise from the draft report internal circulation.
8. Produce a final and consolidated AAR report, a two pager document summarizing the key findings and recommendations, as well as a forward looking Action Plan for implementing recommendations for submission to the UNDP CRU and Regional Bureau.
9. Facilitate a multi- stakeholder sharing of the findings and recommendations.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

Ethics & Values:

• Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity;
• Demonstrates and promotes the highest standard of integrity, impartiality, fairness and incorruptibility in all matters affecting his/her work and status.

Functional Competencies:

Organizational Awareness:

• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment understands the structure and hierarchy of UN/UNDP, process flows throughout the organization, products and services, their measures of effectiveness, and perceptions of clients;
• Excellent knowledge of humanitarian and recovery issues and internationally-agreed humanitarian and recovery standards;

Working in Teams:

• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work;
• Works collaboratively with colleagues inside UN/UNDP as well as its partners and other stakeholders to pursue common goals.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

• Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
• Delivers verbal/written information in a timely, clear, organized and easily understood manner;
• Excellent oral and written skills to develop knowledge products in relevant areas;
• Strong communication skills and the ability to listen and take direction and leadership from others.

Self-Management & Emotional Intelligence:

• Creating synergies through self-control tolerates conditions of stress, uncertainty or ambiguity and continues to maintain a positive outlook and to work productively.

Knowledge Sharing & Continuous Learning:

• Ability to efficiently handle and share information and knowledge.
• Knowledge of emergency preparedness and  response, including  early recovery policies, and inter-agency mechanisms;

• Ability to adopt and apply methodology and tools for After Action Reviews (AAR) in emergency and crisis situations;
• Excellent drafting and report writing skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced University degree (Master’s Degree or equivalent) International Relations and/or Regional Studies, Project Management, Human Resources or Information Technology.

Experience :

• At least 10 years of professional experience providing advisory support and technical advice in the area of emergency and crisis response and recovery.
• Experience in conducting After Action Reviews (AAR) for emergency and humanitarian response. Proven record of producing AAR reports a strong asset.
• Experience in emergency preparedness and response planning, reporting and coordination;
• Exposure or relevant experience to develop and/or manage knowledge management systems and capacity development exercises;
• Field experience in emergency response and preparedness is an asset;
• Proven ability to work under pressure with quick turnaround deadlines, and to deliver in a timely manner within cost and quality standards;
• Computer proficient and well versed in the use of Microsoft Office and other relevant  Internet, Excel and Word;
• Proven ability to work in a multicultural setting.

Language:

• Proficiency in English is a must;
• Proficiency in one or several other working UN language(s) would be an added advantage.