Due to its morphology and location, Mozambique is a coastal country that is highly vulnerable to extreme climate events. Cyclones are the most frequent of them, severely hitting the settlements along the coast and once inland, provoking prolonged and heavy rainfalls, which generate extensive floods.
On March 14th, 2019, Cyclone Idai made landfall in the urban area of Beira and Dondo (approx. 700,000 people), causing major damages and destruction, and then moving westwards through Sofala and Manica Provinces along the Beira corridor, until reaching Zimbabwe where it died off. This cyclone and the subsequent large floods affected approximately 3 million people in the South-Eastern Africa, half of which in Mozambique, but also in Zimbabwe and Malawi. It claimed around 1,000 lives, injured thousands of people, displaced 150,000 people, damaged or destroyed over 240,000 houses, in addition to causing heavy infrastructure destruction (roads, bridges, schools, health centres, telecommunication, electricity networks, etc.), agricultural losses (ahead of the harvesting season, leading to food insecurity) and spreading of diseases. In the same year, on April 25th tropical Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in northern Mozambique, with similar type of consequences as Idai, although in lesser dimensions.
The United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) has been working with the Government of Mozambique for almost 20 years providing technical assistance and on-site support for climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and resilience building.
Following the recent disasters, UN-Habitat Country Team in Mozambique, supported by the Regional Office for Africa (ROAF) and several branches at headquarter level immediately activated its experts and defined a Recovery Strategy, based on extensive consultations, as well as field visits to the affected areas and preliminary assessments.
The strategy, as a document of orientation and principles, was then transformed in a programme, “Post-Cyclones Building Back Better and Resilience Building 2019-2024”, based on two complementary axes of intervention to support the recovery and reconstruction process in Mozambique, as follows:
Axis 1: Building Back Better (Safer Schools, Safer Hospitals and Resilient Housing): to rehabilitate or reconstruct better, either in rural settlements or in urban areas, including safe public facilities that can withstand the impact of strong winds, floods or other natural hazards, and can be used as safe havens during emergency times. The proposed BBB activities are complemented by training and capacity building of the various stakeholders engaged at the different levels, awareness-raising, dissemination of architectural solutions and guidelines to be replicated at scale and according to the different local conditions, on-site technical assistance, and enforcement of improved building standards. Axis 2: Enhancing urban resilience through integrated approach: Support the design of integrated urban recovery and reconstruction plans and strategies at neighbourhood, city/town and metropolitan level, to be designed in a participatory manner, including: rapid assessments and thematic urban studies; tools and guidelines; and sustainable housing finance mechanisms.
UN-Habitat already began implementing several sub-projects that are included in the programme, as well as ensuring technical assistance to National and Local authorities in coordinating efforts for resilient recovery and reconstruction, contributing in particular to the PDNA (Post Disaster Need Assessment) and DRF (Disaster Recovery Framework) leading the Housing and Human Settlement Sector, supporting Beira municipality in the elaboration of the Beira Recovery and Resilience Plan (BRRP) and performing continuous assistance and advocacy to GREPOC (Post Disaster Reconstruction Cabinet) in the formulation of the PALPOC (Action Plan for Housing Recovery), together with Eduardo Mondlane University in the framework of an MoU signed with GREPOC in October 2019.
Under Axis 1 of the above-mentioned “Post-Cyclones Building Back Better and Resilience Building” strategy, UN-Habitat is providing Technical Assistance to the GREPOC on post cyclone resilient recovery of housing within the CERRP initiative funded by the World Bank, in the areas affected by cyclone Idai in Sofala Province. The Technical Assistance will particularly be targeting planning, defining, coordinating, training and supervising activities implemented or benefitting national and local institutions and other key stakeholders, in the Districts of Beira, Dondo, Nhamatanda and Búzi.
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Under the supervision of the UN-Habitat Senior Human Settlements Officer and Task Manager for Mozambique and with the support of the UN-Habitat Head of Office in Mozambique, in collaboration with the Head of UN- Habitat Beira sub-office, the Technical Team Leader (TTL) – Housing & Infrastructure Reconstruction International/National Expert will have to carry out the following tasks and responsibilities: - Represent UN-Habitat as the main referent on the TA service delivery contract with GREPOC and the World Bank.
- Coordinate and supervise the team of experts responsible for the delivery of technical assistance, to ensure the smooth implementation of the reconstruction process, based on the approved timeline.
- Lead the punctual and qualitative elaboration and delivery of required technical outputs (such as periodic action plans, manuals, guidelines, models, and projects) to the GREPOC and other implementing partners (NGOs, contractors, and supervising teams from private and public sector).
- Plan and coordinate continuous field supervision activities during the housing and infrastructure implementation process, as well as the technical team missions, including the international experts’ missions.
- Manage project technical assistance budget and project resource allocation, based on the approved budget, in coordination with UN -Habitat administration at country and regional level.
- Ensure coordination of technical assistance activity under responsibility of UN-Habitat with the components to be implemented by other technical stakeholder and project implementing partners (NGOs and Implementing partners, local communities, MIS consultants, and others).
- Lead the formulation of UN-Habitat Technical Assistance quarterly, mid-term and final report to the GREPOC and local authorities, collecting and harmonizing the contributions of the various experts of the pool.
- Liaise and ensure the coordination between project activities included in the GREPOC-WB technical assistance and the other housing and infrastructure reconstruction projects implemented directly by UN- Habitat in Sofala Province.
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