Historique

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder for including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.

As the UN system's development programme and a GEF Implementing Agency since 1991, UNDP supports countries in addressing development, climate, and ecosystem sustainability in an integrated manner.

In its role as a GEF Implementing Agency, UNDP-GEF offers countries highly specialized technical services for eligibly assessment, programme/project formulation, due diligence, mobilization of required co-financing, project implementation oversight, results management and evaluation, performance-based payments and knowledge management. UNDP-GEF’s Green, Low-emission, Climate-resilient Development Strategies team works to support countries to attract and direct public and private investment towards catalyzing and supporting sustainable economic growth through initiatives focused on integrated Climate Change Strategies, Advancing Cross-sectoral Climate Resilient Livelihoods and Strengthening Climate Information and Early Warning Systems for Climate Resilient Development.

Recently, the UNDP-GEF, launched the Multi Country Programme to Strengthen Climate Information for Resilient Development and Adaptation to Climate Change in Africa (CIRDA). The programme has the objective of supporting with 11 countries in Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sao Tome and Principe, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia) to enhance national climate services in their efforts to collect, analyse and disseminate climate information as a key tool in long term planning and adaptation.

The CIRDA Programme is providing support by providing technical support and capacity building as well as by fostering knowledge sharing between experts, regional organizations and the countries’ themselves.

Devoirs et responsabilités

Objective

UNDP is seeking a Country Support Specialist on Hydrology who, under the guidance of the Chief Technical Advisor on Meteorology and Climate Monitoring, will support the Programme’s partner countries on issues relating to hydrological monitoring and information systems.

The incumbent will be expected to provide technical advice to participating countries on the identification, procurement, and installation of innovative information technologies that gather, process, and distribute hydrological data.  The incumbent will also advise country implementation partners on the operations and maintenance implications of the equipment for hydrological monitoring.

The Specialist will work under direct supervision of the CIRDA Project Manager with day to day guidance from the Chief Technical Advisor on Meteorology and Climate Monitoring and in close collaboration with the UNDP-GEF Regional Technical Advisor (based on Addis Ababa), the UNDP Country Office in each country and the national Implementation Partner (IP), as identified in each project document.

Scope of Work

The Specialist will be primarily home-based (Africa), with missions to regional/global meetings and CIRDA partner countries, namely Benin, Burkina-Faso, Liberia, Sao Tome & Principe, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.

The Specialist will work with the CIRDA Team, national project managers, UNDP country and regional offices, partner and donor country governments, other international/multi-lateral organizations, and contractors.

The duties to be undertaken by the Country Support Specialist are the following:

  • Provide advisory support to country teams on the identification and utilization of cost-effective, environmentally appropriate, innovative and sustainable hydrological technologies on both the local and national scales;
  • Support country teams to evaluate traditional and new technologies and operational strategies to enhance regional sharing of data and promote broader approaches to regional cooperation and collaboration to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of hydrological monitoring systems;
  • In collaboration with country teams, assess existing procedures and mechanisms in the country for the deployment, operation, and maintenance of hydrological observing equipment and the communication of data to central operational centers and national archiving facilities, and advise and provide technical support on how these procedures and mechanisms might be adjusted and enhanced so that these processes become sustainable;
  • Advise and provide technical support on assimilation, analysis, and visualization software used for monitoring the environment and generating of flood warnings;
  • Support country teams to ensure that sufficient quality assurance/quality control and maintenance/calibration procedures are in place; where necessary, help develop standard operating procedures for these areas;
  • Assist in the development of communication materials to share best practices and innovative approaches to monitoring hydrological information between project countries and with external projects and organizations;
  • Collaborate with country teams and other CIRDA project staff to ensure that hydrological data is shared in appropriate ways with national organizations, the local media, educational and research institutions, and those in the private sector that require the data for warnings, education, or research;
  • Provide continued support to the Chief Technical Advisor on Meteorology and Climate Monitoring.

Expected outputs and deliverables

The expected deliverables of the consultancy are as follow:

  • Participate in CIRDA training workshops as a presenter and trainer on hydrology;
  • Participate in CIRDA coordination meetings;
  • Missions to each of the CIRDA partner countries as requested by CIRDA project management; each visit may be one week or longer;
  • Travel reports on each country visit, to include list of individuals visited, gist’s of conversations or other communications, and discussion of receptiveness of individuals and organizations visited to innovative, sustainable approaches to hydrological monitoring;

Assist the Chief Technical Advisor in preparing:

  • Information notes on the cost effectiveness, appropriateness and sustainability of traditional and innovative technologies for hydrological monitoring;
  • Information notes on equipment and infrastructure that is to be rehabilitated/procured including operational implications;
  • Information notes on procedures and mechanisms for the deployment, operation, and maintenance of hydrological observing equipment and the communication of data to central operational centers and national archiving facilities;
  • The necessary training materials and train at least 20 technical officers per year from the national hydrometeorology services of the 11 countries participating in the CIRDA project.

Compétences

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 without favouritism.

Technical Competencies:

  • Ability to provide guidance on hydrological monitoring and flood warning systems;
  • Ability to assist countries to achieve project goals at the regional level;
  • Ability to work with multiple stakeholders across a wide range of disciplines;
  • Strong understanding of complex processes including science, technology and policies;
  • Ability to design of contracts and agreements with private sector in LDC countries.

Professionalism:

  • Capable of working in a high pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
  • Excellent analytical and organizational skills;
  • Exercise the highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner.

Communication:

  • Excellent writing and verbal communication skills;
  • Communicates effectively to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner, in writing, orally, and with PowerPoint slides

Teamwork:

  • Work well in a team to advance the priorities of the CIRDA Programme and UNDP as a whole;
  • Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
  • Focuses on results for the client;
  • Welcomes constructive feedback.

Qualifications et expériences requises

Education:

  • Master’s degree or higher in physical/natural/environmental sciences including hydrology, meteorology, climate information systems or other closely related field.

Experience:

  • At least 7 years of demonstrated experience working within the hydrology field;
  • At least 3 years of demonstrated experience with hydrological observation network design, implementation, and/or management;
  • At least 3 years of demonstrated project management experience;
  • Multinational and developing country experience would be desirable.

Language:

  • Excellent oral and written communication skills in English language;
  • Excellent oral and written communication skills in French language;
  • Proficiency in other UN languages an asset.

Residency (Location)

The Consultant must be a resident and/or in some way demonstrate a working base in an African country.

Institutional arrangement

The consultant will report directly to the CIRDA Project Manager with guidance from the Chief Technical Advisor on Meteorology and Climate Monitoring. UNDP COs and UNDP-GEF Regional Technical Advisor overseeing the CIRDA Programme will monitor quality of support provided to client country teams.

Key performance indicators:

  • Number of participating countries visited;
  • Number of technical officers trained.
  • Evaluation ratings from participants of CIRDA training workshops and technical officer training sessions;
  • Quality of training materials prepared for technical officer training.
  • Quality of travel reports and of contributions to information notes (1 - Excellent, 2 - Satisfactory,  3 - Poor);
  • Number of information notes to which significant contributions are made (>90% Completed: Excellent; 80-90% completed: Satisfactory; 3: less than 80% completed Poor).

Duration of work:

Information on Working Arrangements:

  • Estimated level of effort: 100 days as required by the Programme and approved by Supervisor;
  • The Consultant must be a citizen, resident and/or in some way demonstrate a working base in an African country;
  • The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
  • The Consultant will be responsible for providing her/his own working station (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, etc.) and must have access to a reliable internet connection;
  • Payments will be made upon submission of a detailed time sheet and certification of payment form, and acceptance and confirmation by the Supervisor on days worked and outputs delivered.

Travel:

  • Travel will be required to international workshops and CIRDA partner countries for training purposes;
  • Any necessary mission travel must be approved in advance and in writing by the Supervisor;
  • The Advanced and Basic Security in the Field II courses must be successfully completed prior to commencement of travel;
  • Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director;
  • Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives;
  • The consultant will be responsible for making his/her own mission travel arrangements in line with UNDP travel policies;
  • All related travel expenses will be supported by the project travel fund and will be reimbursed as per UNDP rules and regulations upon submission of an F-10 claim form and supporting documents;
  •  The incumbent will be required to travel. Destination shall be assigned and approved prior to travel.

Duty station

Home based (Africa residency). The incumbent will be required to travel. Destination shall be assigned and approved prior to travel.

Financial proposal and schedule of payment

Professional Fee

The contract will be based on daily fee

The financial proposal will specify the daily fee in USD. The payments will be made to the Individual Consultant based on approved timesheet on a monthly basis and upon completion of the deliverables.  To submit Financial Proposal, please use Template of Submission of Financial Proposal provided in Annex 2.

Review time required:

14 working days

Evaluation method and criteria

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

  • a) Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
  • b) Having 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%

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 350 technical points would be considered for the Financial Evaluation (30%; maximum 100 points

Technical criteria for evaluation (70% ; maximum 500 points):

  • Criteria 1 - Education- maximum 100 points;
  • Criteria 2 - Years of hands-on experience - maximum 300 points;
  • Criteria 3 - Excellent oral and written communication skills in English language- maximum 50 points;
  • Criteria 4 - Excellent oral and written communication skills in French language- maximum 50 points.

Documentation required

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload maximum one document:

  • Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided in Annex 2;
  • Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
  • Technical proposal, including a brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment;
  • Financial proposal, as per template provided in Annex 2.

Incomplete proposals may not be considered.

Annexes:

For any clarification regarding this assignment please write to brh.gef.procurement@undp.org