Background

The climate change poses serious, wide-ranging risks to economies, societies and ecosystems. Reducing these risks requires action to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation), combined with measures to increase resilience to the impacts that occur (adaptation). Through the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), opportunities have been created to ensure a more sustainable, equitable and prosperous future for all.

In many countries, Montenegro included, UNDP has an important role in working towards this future.

Working in partnership with the Government of Montenegro and with support from the Green Climate Fund, Montenegro is now implementing a project entitled “Enhancing Montenegro’s capacity to integrate climate change risks into planning”. 

Relying on cooperation with national stakeholders and in close cooperation with the Government of Montenegro, a stocktaking exercise to inform the development of an adaptation process concluded that water, agriculture, tourism and health sectors were the initial priority sectors for climate change adaptation interventions. 

Despite the actions taken and progress made so far in prioritizing adaptation planning within policy and institutional frameworks, several gaps and barriers are limiting the functioning and effectiveness of the adaptation planning process. These barriers are: 

(i) The coordination framework for adaptation planning and action are only partially established and underperforming, with a need for improvement and more effective organizational design, clear roles and responsibilities, improved capacity (technical and functional) and institutional arrangements designated for mainstreaming climate change into work-programmed at the sector level; 

(ii) Limited institutional and technical capacity at the national and sectoral level to address climate change impacts through adaptation actions, with a need to improve the technical capacity to collect, generate, use and disseminate climate information and services; 

(iii) The information required for conducting informed and effective adaptation planning and investments is unavailable. It is difficult to accurately gauge and cost adaptation options at national and sectoral levels without relevant information on climate impacts, vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity in the medium to long-term (iv) national and alternative sources of finance to fund adaptation investments are not optimized as the full costs of adaptation are not yet known.

Responding to these challenges, the proposal was developed for funding under The Green Climate Fund Readiness Programme. The project’s overarching objective is to improve Montenegro’s institutional capacity for long-term adaptation planning. To achieve this, the proposal is focused on (i) improving the institutional coordination framework and increasing institutional capabilities, (ii) increasing climate information and identifying potential adaptation responses/measures, and (iii) identifying financial requirements and resources to fund adaptation investments.

The design and sequence of the project activities have been planned to create efficiencies and have a greater chance of being effective. 

By building enabling institutional, planning and programming environments for adaption at the national and sectoral level, Montenegro will be able to identify climate-induced risks, and vulnerabilities, and use that information to inform adaptation planning process and to explore appropriate adaptation responses.

Within this context, the project is inviting eligible candidates with relevant experience in mainstreaming climate change issues into sectoral policies, drafting and preparing strategic documents in the area of climate change and/or sustainable development, facilitating consultation processes related to drafting and preparing strategic documents in the area of climate change and/or sustainable development, previous experience in capacity building interventions, consideration gender aspects and climate change and gender aspects and climate change adaptation specifically to support the process of the NAP development through: 

- formulate and draft a National Adaptation Plan

- develop a work-plan for implementation of the NAP process over a 3-year period

- develop a process for reviewing the NAP and updating priority actions beyond a 3-year time horizon

- coordinate a public and expert review process of the NAP

- finalize the NAP document based on the peer review and public comments.

The selected expert will be supported by 2 local experts, UNDP/national partners and the Working Group on Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change of National Council for Sustainable Development in line with the working and consultation plan prepared be the selected expert and agreed with UNDP. 

The process will relay on available data, relevant international (EU and UN) CCA guidelines and Methodology for policy development, drafting and monitoring of strategic planning documents (latest version here). 

Duties and Responsibilities

Objective of the assignment: 
The overall objective of this set of activities is to establish a team of multidisciplinary national and international experts to formulate and draft a National Adaptation Plan. This first draft will include the identification of priority risks, specific adaptation actions to be taken, and identify entry points for mainstreaming gender into the NAP scope of activities. Feedback from stakeholders and public will be reviewed and analyzed to inform the final version of the NAP.

The process will benefit from ongoing comprehensive review and consolidation of available climate risk assessments within or related to the four priority sectors implemented by the project,  analysis of monitoring and evaluation framework for adaptation planning and its effectiveness, adaptation goal setting and work on improvement of coordination mechanisms.  

The overall objective of the assignment is to lead, in conjunction with the 2 national consultants, formulation and drafting a National Adaptation Plan. 

A secondary objective is to develop training materials that will contribute to increasing capacity on reviewing the NAP and updating priority actions beyond a 3-year time horizon. 
The lead expert will have overall responsibility to guide the process, direct the work of local experts in a manner to obtain needed inputs and formulate expected deliverables. 

Specific tasks are:

The process will highlight how the forthcoming NAP could be strengthened on gender integration in alignment with good practices, therefore consists of three steps namely:

• Desk review of the relevant documents to identify a subset of adaptation actions for analysis in line with the UNFCCC, EU Adapt, national strategic framework with a view to identify partnerships.
• Formulate and draft a National Adaptation Plan. This first draft will include the identification of priority risks, specific adaptation actions to be taken, and identify entry points for mainstreaming gender into the NAP scope of activities. Feedback from stakeholders and public will be reviewed and analyzed to inform the final version of the NAP.
• Develop a work-plan for implementation of the NAP process over a 3-year period. This workplan, developed according to the draft NAP, will identify the steps necessary for implementing mid- and long-term adaptation programmes. 
• Coordinate a public and expert review process of the NAP. Public and expert consultations are critical to ensuring that the NAP represents Montenegro’s needs and reflects stakeholder’s concerns. This activity will facilitate a NAP public and peer review processes. The NAP will be posted online including various social media platforms for review by experts and the public. Feedback from this process will be taken into consideration, and as appropriate, incorporated into the final iteration of the NAP document.  
• Finalize the NAP document based on the peer review and public comments. Deliver a final draft to the Working Group on Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change for their review.
• Lastly, develop a process for reviewing the NAP and updating priority actions beyond a 3-year time horizon, develop and deliver a minimum 2 day training on the topic.

Time duration: the assignment should be implemented during the period of September 2022 – end of May 2023, with 120 working days and at least two in country visit. 

The Consultant is expected to adhere to the following reporting requirements: He/she will be reporting to the project manager on biweekly basis through e mails, teams or zoom calls.

The Consultant will be reporting his/her progress through e mails as a mode of communication to the contract supervisor. The Consultant will therefore submit all the agreed contract deliverables through e mails and these documents should be in word unless when he/she is submitting final versions where he/she has to submit both word and PDF versions. The Consultant should submit the following agreed deliverables; Inception Report detailing methodology to be used, Action Plan with clear deliverables and timelines; Draft Mapping of results (outputs, activities, indicators) with recommendations on the existing opportunities including potential partnerships; draft a National Adaptation Plan, training program with developed modules and implementation guidelines, Final report with integrating gender-sensitive climate adaptation measures for NAP Montenegro. 

Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UN/UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Excellent social, communication skills and writing skills; 
• Demonstrates ability to manage complexities and work under pressure, as well as conflict resolution skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• At least a master’s degree in a relevant field.

Experience:

• At least 7 years professional experience with mainstreaming climate change issues into sectoral policies, previous experience in capacity building assessments, training program design and formulation of strategic documents.
• Experience in designing training programs would be considered as an asset.
• Demonstrated experience in working with government partners and other stakeholders, 
• Experience with the usage of various systems analysis methods and techniques would be considered as advantage. 

Languages:

• Demonstrated knowledge of English language adequate for preparation of strategic documents and sharing with international entities.  
• Knowledge of Montenegrin language would be considered as asset. 

Criteria for selection:

Combined Scoring method will be used. When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the inidividual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as: (i) responsive, compliant, acceptable, and (ii) 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% (Background and education 10%; Relevant previous experience 20%; Substantial knowledge/Required competencies 30%; Required language 10%);

Financial criteria weight - 30%.

Only offerors obtaining a minimum 490 points for technical criteria will be considered for the financial evaluation. For more information on procurement methodology for Individual Contractors, please refer to Procurement Notice.

Application procedure:

Interested applicants are requested to submit their applications by August 12, 2022 by using the Apply now button. 

The application should contain a duly completed CV or Personal History Form (P11). 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. 

Only the short-listed applicants will be contacted and requested to submit a letter of interest including a price quotation indicating the lump sum (in EUR) requested for the work and travel envisaged in the section "Description of Responsibilities".