COVID-19, with its highly contagious and transmissible nature, has led to the exponential increase of healthcare waste generated in healthcare and quarantine facilities, medical laboratories and biomedical research facilities. Additionally, the increase in the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) used during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to normal circumstances, has further contributed towards the increase in healthcare solid waste. For example, recent research estimated that every minute 3 million facial masks are thrown away globally[1] and in some cities in the Asia and the Pacific the volume of medical waste has been increased by 500% on average compared with before COVID-19 figures.[2]

If not properly treated and managed, such large amount of waste will pose serious risks of disease transmission to waste pickers, waste workers, health workers, patients, and the community in general through exposure to infectious agents. In addition, unmanaged or poor-managed waste will also cause pollution and create new environmental risks.

COVID-19 has put significant additional burden on all phases of medical waste management systems, from segregation, collection, storage, transportation, treatment to final disposal. In light of the serious issue, international organizations such as WHO have developed a series of guidelines to support the countries manage healthcare waste resulting from the current pandemic. Many countries have also formulated policies, plans and SOPs on COVID-19 medical waste management at national and local levels. However, institutional and capacity gaps continue to persist, such as shortage of waste treatment equipment and facilities, lack of technologies for safe transportation and disposal, lack of professional workers and expertise for safe operations and the need for awareness-raising and behavioral changes towards better management of COVID medical waste etc.

UNDP, in partnership with the Government of China, is undertaking a regional project to support COVID-19 medical waste management capacity building in 5 countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and Philippines. Under the project, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building Team at UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH), in collaboration with Country Offices in the project countries, aims to conduct a series of research to better understand the most pressing issues of medical waste management in 5 project countries through the systems approach, fostering changes in mindset, perceptions, behaviors and actions, towards more systematic and risk-informed medical waste management practices.

The research will take a phased approach, with baseline and benchmarking assessment as the initial step to map out the pinpoints that call for most attention and efforts of interventions, accompanied by a systems thinking workshop (either virtual or virtual/physical hybrid) for each country to facilitate systems thinking and design among stakeholders supervising or working on multiple medical waste management stages. Based on the findings of baseline and benchmarking assessment, a research and experimentation will be conducted by applying behavioral insights (BI) to nudge for better changes in COVID medical waste management.

UNDP BRH DRT is hiring a Cambodian national consultant to support 1) an international consultant working on Health Care Waste (HCW) baseline and benchmarking assessment, and 2) an international consultant working on HCW behavioral insights, in terms of in-country data collection, stakeholder coordination and other research-related activities in close coordination with UNDP Cambodia.

UNDP BRH DRT and in close coordination with UNDP Cambodia is looking for a Cambodian Expert/Specialist, National Consultant, to work alongside with an International Consultants to jointly deliver the below roles and responsibilities:

•  Supporting the international consultant on baseline and benchmarking assessment to collect relevant data and statistics of Cambodia, including coordinating and organizing focus group discussions, stakeholder interviews, questionnaires and consultations etc.;
• Supporting the international consultant on baseline and benchmarking assessment to organize 1 systems thinking workshop with key stakeholders in Cambodia, such as government officials, professionals and practitioners of multiple HCW management stages to communicate the research results and facilitate system thinking on the causal dynamics and feedback loops within and between medical waste management stages for more coordinated, coherent and systematic future design and action;
• Supporting the international consultant on HCW behavioral insights to design and implement the behavioral experiment, including collecting relevant data and coordinating stakeholder meetings, experiment activities etc.;
• Supporting the communications of the research in the country, including preparing communications material and products (photos, videos, newsletters, tweets, blogs etc.)
• Any other tasks as assigned by UNDP BRH DRT and International Consultants.

Interested offeror must read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=87292  for more detail information about term of reference, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online.

• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Displays integrity and fairness - embodies UN values and promotes the well-being of all individuals regardless of gender, religion, race, nationality, or age;
• Results-driven, initiative-taking, ability to work under pressure and to meet deadlines;
• Ability to work under minimum supervision;
• Highly motivated with a positive attitude and problem-solving approach;
• Good interpersonal and networking skills, supports and encourages open communication.

Education: 

• Bachelor’s Degree or above in public administration, international relations, political science, development studies, medical science, environmental science, public health, medical waste management, or relevant.

Experience:

• Minimum five years of experience working with relevant public sectors, research institutions, medical waste management agencies or development partners;
• Proven experience and knowledge of medical waste management in the COVID-19 context;
• Proven experience and knowledge of existing medical waste management system and challenges in Cambodia.

Language Requirement:

• Fluency in English and Khmer language (spoken and written)

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested individual offeror must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

 1. Proposal: Letter of explaining why they are most suitable for the work

2. Financial proposal (Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP)

3. Personal CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references

 Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email chanpisey.ky@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice