UNDP Jobs - 66261- Individual Consultant - Drought Response Informati

Individual Consultant - Drought Response Information Management Officer

Location :

Harare, ZIMBABWE

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

01-Jun-2016

Application Deadline :

20-May-16 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

8 months

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

8 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

Early Recovery is a key component of humanitarian crisis response. Early Recovery addresses recovery needs during the humanitarian phase, using humanitarian mechanisms in accordance with development principles. It is an integrated, inclusive, and coordinated approach to gradually turn the dividends of humanitarian action into sustainable crisis recovery, resilience building and development opportunities. Emergency relief addresses peoples’ survival and basic well-being. Early Recovery restores people’s capacities and supports communities’ first steps to recover from the crisis. The Global Cluster on Early Recovery (GCER) formerly known as CWGER advocates for humanitarian actors to integrate approaches into their humanitarian work, where possible, that will mitigate the impact of a future crisis on a community. The Early Recovery approach presents important opportunities to promote gender equality. Failure to include gender perspectives in early decision-making processes can have long-lasting impacts on women, men, boys, and girls particularly in the context of governance structures, policies and practices, which can reinforce existing socio-economic disparities between men and women.

In the absence of Humanitarian Clusters in Zimbabwe, coordination of the drought response is undertaken via the existing sectoral coordination structures, with UNRCO providing inter-sectoral coordination support. UNDP is leading the inter-agency efforts in Early Recovery, as the convener of the Early Recovery sector. Given the non-resident status of OCHA, and in the interest of maximizing available resources, the IM support will encompass the entirety of the drought response including Early Recovery-focused IM, starting with the establishment of systems and processes needed for effective IM.

Information Management Officer works directly with UNRCO as well as working with UNDP and partners, including UN agencies, NGOs, national and local authorities (in particular the Food and Nutrition Council, Office of the President and Cabinet) to gather, analyze and format information to assist informed decision-making and enhance overall coherence in this field. IMO will also work closely with the Data for Development Working Group, OCHA Regional Office, UNDP Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund, as well as others, to coordinate and collect and gather information.

This consultancy is funded by UNDP TRAC 1.1.3., which has been allocated to UNDP CO in response to the ongoing drought situation. The funding is only available until end January2017.

Duties and Responsibilities

Develop and implement an information management system for the Drought Response. Map existing information management systems in-country to develop an understanding of information resources available and systems that already exist as a platform for developing information products, services and tools for planning, reporting, and accountability to strengthen Drought Response.

Develop information tools and products to support the information needs for the HCT and for planning of Early Recovery strategies and programmes:

Manage the inter-sector website as a hosting mechanism for meeting schedules, minutes, posting maps, providing standard forms, policy/technical guidance, datasets, and needs/gap analysis;
Manage the 3W database, already developed by OCHA Regional Office in South Africa, and GIS mapping mechanism to support programming and project coordination, planning and implementation;
Develop and maintain contact lists on the Humanitarian ID platform for Zimbabwe drought crisis to facilitate coordination;
Develop templates for standardised data collection if necessary.
Identify and prioritize objectives to address information needs;
Identify the most appropriate mechanisms for data/information collection, processing, analysis and dissemination to address early recovery coordination and information needs;
Develop and produce a workplan to implement an information management strategy;
Build IM capacity of the FNC, as required.

Specific Objectives of the Consultancy:

Identify information requirements to support coordination of drought response, including early recovery activities and early recovery decision making:

In cooperation with UNRCO and OCHA’s Regional IM staff, strengthen the capacity of UNDP to manage information.
Ensure that the information to support the IM needs and its coordination role is submitted/collected, organized, prioritized and made available to all stakeholders in-country, including national and local authorities.
Develop partnerships with other IMOs and agency partners, including national and local authorities, to strengthen information exchange.
Establish contacts to access available national statistics if possible, or statistical surveys carried out in country.
Ensure information will contribute to evidence-based communication and advocacy efforts.
Present data and information in an accessible and useful format (templates, maps, reports) for analysis to support strategic and operational decision making.

Identify data standards and key datasets pertinent to the early recovery process and promote the use of such standards:

Promote the use of global information management standards and data/information sharing protocols within, UN Country Team, UNDP Country Office and among development and humanitarian partners (including local authorities), such as SHARE standards, standardized metadata, as well as data standards (particularly P-codes).
In collaboration with OCHA Regional IM staff, contribute and support data collection, data entry and use of standardized information management systems and tools to support humanitarian operations, including early recovery. These standardized databases and systems include: Who does What Where, Contacts Directory (Humanitarian ID), Humanitarian Snapshot, and the Financial Tracking System.

Expected Outputs:

Workplan produced to develop an information management strategy.
Platform (web-based or alternative) for hosting information relevant to the drought response, UNDP and the broader ER agenda.
Templates produced for standardized information collection, or on-line system for partners’ reporting.
Standard Operating Procedure produced for information collection from all partners.
Standard Operating Procedure produced for the dissemination of information to partners.
Contact list of partners produced and maintained up to date.
Coordinate with the sector focal points in Zimbabwe to extract relevant information (for example 3W activities, assessment registry, severity ranking etc) for the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for Zimbabwe and help develop maps and infographics for these two products.
Provides support to sectors in Zimbabwe and ensure sector projects are added in OCHA Online Project System (OPS) during the response plan phase.
Maps (or infographics) of overall drought response needs, gaps and issues (updated periodically).
Maps (or infographics) of early recovery needs, gaps and issues (updated periodically).
Reports produced (occasionally) on early recovery issues as requested by (and for) the Resilience Advisor and/or the RC.
Debriefing report / handover note produced as relevant.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
Advocates and 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.

Functional Competencies:

Professionalism

Advanced knowledge of the use of information management in humanitarian response and recovery environments;
Highly developed conceptual, analytical and innovative ability to identify and articulate the information management requirements of complex situations requiring a coordinated response between disparate actors;
Demonstrated problem-solving skills and ability to use sound judgment to ensure the effective and timely completion of complex tasks;
Ability to work under extreme pressure, on occasion in a highly stressful environment (e.g. civil strife, natural disasters).

Communication

Excellent communication and training (spoken and written) skills including the ability to convey complex information management concepts and recommendations to staff at all levels, both orally and in writing, in a clear, concise style that can be readily understood by non-information management practitioners.

Teamwork

Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals;
Places team agenda before personal agenda; supports and acts in accordance with final group decision.

Planning and Organization

Develops clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies;
Identifies priority activities and assignments;
Adjusts priorities as required; foresees risks and allows for contingencies when planning;
Monitors and adjusts plans and actions as necessary; uses time efficiently.

Accountability

Takes ownership of all responsibilities and honours commitments;
Operates in compliance with organizational regulations and rules;
Supports subordinates and peers, provides oversight and takes responsibility for delegated assignments;
Takes personal responsibility for his/her own shortcomings and those of the work unit, where applicable.

Client Orientation

Considers all those to whom services are provided to be “clients” and seeks to see things from clients’ point of view; designs solutions and basis recommendations on the principles of usability;
Establishes and maintains productive partnerships with clients by gaining their trust and respect;
Monitors ongoing developments inside and outside the clients’ environment to keep informed and anticipate problems;
Keeps clients’ informed of progress or setbacks in projects;
Meets timeline for delivery of products or services to clients.

Judgment/Decision-making

Identifies the key issues in a complex situation, gathers relevant information before making a decision;
Considers positive and negative impacts of decisions prior to making them;
Proposes a course of action or makes a recommendation based on all available information;
Checks assumptions against facts; determines that the actions proposed will satisfy the expressed and underlying needs for the decision.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s Degree in Social Sciences (International Development, International Relations etc.), Business Administration (Information Management or Computer Science), Management (Information Management or Information Systems), Geographical Information Systems, Statistics, Social Science, or related field.

Experience:

Minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience in information management or a related field; experience both at the national level and international level in large organizations with dispersed operations and/or in the public and private sector preferred (seven years’ experience if candidate holds Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent).
Experience working within the UN system, preferably in an operational UN Agency or with OCHA where Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) was implemented is highly desirable. Experience in supporting the development of Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) is desirable.
Experience in response monitoring desirable.
Demonstrated and proven experience in the design and successful implementation of new processes and systems is desirable.
Demonstrated and proven experience in the application of standards to the development and use of information management systems is desirable.
Experience in the application of information management in humanitarian response and recovery operations (complex emergencies and/or natural disasters) is desirable.

Language:

Excellent verbal and written communication in English.

Timeline, Reporting & Quality Control for the Assignment:

The assignment is a full-time consultancy, to start as soon as possible until end January 2017. The assignment will involve direct engagement with UN Agencies, humanitarian partners, FNC and other stakeholders.

The Consultant will be a member of the RCO, under the day-to-day management of the Recovery and DRM Officer and the overall supervision of the Head of RCO.

Application procedure

Applicants are requested to upload a copy of their latest updated P11 Form which can be downloaded from this website - http://www.sas.undp.org/Documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc.

Incomplete applications will not be given consideration

Please group all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document;

Please note that only applicants who are short-listed will be contacted.

Evaluation:

The Consultant will be evaluated based on the qualifications and the years of experience, as outlined in the qualifications/requirements section of the ToR. In addition, the Consultant will also be evaluated on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis: When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the Consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
aving received the 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%.

The award of the contract shall be made to the Consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the ToR.

Selection Criteria:

Technical Evaluation: 70% of total evaluation (maximum 70 points):

Criteria A: Education (maximum 10 points);
Criteria B: Experience (maximum 50 points, divided into 40 points for substantive and technical expertise in the area of information management, in particular with specific knowledge and experience in IM for humanitarian response and early recovery; 10 points for experience within the UN system and/or inter-agency settings);
Criteria C: Language (maximum 10 points).

Final selection: only the candidate with the highest ranked will be selected.

Note:

Only the highest ranked candidates who have obtained a minimum of 49 points (70%) on the technical evaluation will be considered for the financial evaluation.