UNDP Jobs - 13566- Consultant: Project Manager

Consultant: Project Manager

Location :

Home Base

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

01-Jan-2010

Application Deadline :

02-Dec-09 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

One Year

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

168 working days

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

In the context of its efforts to develop the rule of law and to improve the legislative process in Iraq, UNDP’s Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (“UNDP-POGAR”) is currently implementing a project to create an Iraqi Legal Database (the “ILD Project”). The Project as originally conceived was designed to be implemented in three phases, the first two of which are virtually completed. The ILD Project’s First and second Phases consisted in archiving the Iraq’s Official Gazette, which includes every legal text that has been passed since the establishment of the Iraqi State, followed by updating the existent corpus, and documenting three Iraqi Codes (criminal code, criminal procedural code, and commercial code), each of which incorporate the relevant laws, regulations and case law.

UNDP is currently preparing to launch Phase III of the ILD Project. A number of activities will be implemented in that context, firstly with a view to completing the database and incorporating all relevant sources that have not already been added, secondly with a view to ensuring that the benefits of the ILD are shared by as many practitioners and court users as possible, and thirdly with a view to ensuring the Project’s long term sustainability.

Once completed, the ILD will be the most sophisticated and comprehensive legal database in the entire Arab region and will make an immeasurable contribution to strengthening the rule of law in Iraq. The ILD will impact the Iraqi legal profession by: (i) reducing opportunities for judicial error and corruption; (ii) increasing efficiency both within and without the courtroom, leading to saved time and costs; (iii) increasing transparency and legal clarity.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Regional General Supervisor, the incumbent shall be responsible for managing the development of the Iraqi Legal Database-Phase III, and will undertake the following tasks:

Participating in the start up phase of the ILD project with the representative of the Iraqi company, the chief indexer (head of the legal team work) and the project manager, to plan and prepare the execution phase (10 months). The planning sessions consist in drafting the strategy of execution, the methodology of following-up the work, and defining the methods of coordination between the Iraqi company, UNDP-IRAQ, the regional supervisor and project manager, especially for the delivery of works, and submission of monthly progress reports in order to follow up the execution progress.
Delivering and training the Iraqi experts (national project manager and the chief indexer) on the methodology of indexing, and drafting the thesaurus. Training the Iraqi experts will be executed on several sessions (4 expected sessions), which are synchronized with the documentation phases: ? drafting the indexes, ? building the thesaurus, ? documenting the legal texts and ? documenting the court decisions.
Controlling the work execution of the Iraqi experts by following up with the Iraqi company (who will manage the Iraqi experts works); especially following up the delivery of documentation works;
Receiving the documentation works from the Iraqi company sent by courier according to the set instructions and time line;
Coordinating with UNDP-IRAQ regarding the provision of court decisions relating to the selected topics of documentation; and controlling the selection of Iraqi and Kurdish court decisions;
Controlling the selection of all documentation materials (selected court decisions, and legal texts) and tools (documentation forms);
Assisting in updating and revising the indexing tools such as the indexes (analysis grid), list of juridical keywords, and thesaurus;
Managing and controlling the documentation work of the regional experts in charge of correcting the documentation; assisting in adopting changes and correction to the documentation works;
Managing and ensuring the proper execution of data modelization according to the designated timeline;
Validating the tasks related to data modelization;

Validating the thematic index and the juridical concepts accordingly (indexes might be modified accordingly to the outcome of the field work consisting in analyzing texts).
Validating the updating of the existing Iraqi legal texts (from 2008 to 2010).
Validating the indexing works, such as the classification of the selected legal texts, the grouping of the codes, and the documentation of the legal texts and the related court decisions.
Validating the thesaurus by reviewing and correcting synonyms and other relations, such as terms that are linguistically similar and relations between the original word and its subsidiaries.

Following up the execution of the technical tasks (typing, scanning, linking and hyper linking) and responsibilities in coordination with the IT expert in charge of leading the implementation of the technical component of the Iraqi database according to the set instructions and time line;
Carrying-out other managerial tasks and responsibilities as requested by the Supervisor in relation to developing the content of the Iraqi Database-PhaseIII;
Submitting a monthly report on the progress of the documentation work to the project regional supervisor;
Submitting a final report on the “Content Component” of the Iraqi Database to the project regional supervisor upon the completion of the above mentioned tasks and responsibilities.

Competencies

Demonstrates integrity by modeling 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 favoritism.
Judicial Background and degree in Law informatics.
Strong understanding of laws and methods of accessing information
Strong analytical and conceptual skills.\
Basic knowledge of computers and information technology.

Required Skills and Experience

Professional Experience:
5 / 7 years experience in developing legal databases and familiar to POGAR platform databases.
Strong experience in information technology.
Full awareness of Iraqi legal database.