UNDP Jobs - 42659- National Consultant - Community Outreach Officer

National Consultant - Community Outreach Officer

Location :

Amman, Irbid and Mafraq, Jordan, JORDAN

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

08-Jan-2014

Application Deadline :

29-Dec-13 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

6 months

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

6 months

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

More than two years of violent conflict in Syria have resulted in massive movements of people within Syria, as well as into neighboring countries. By October 2013, more than 2 million people had registered, or were awaiting registration with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. Of these, approximately 530,000 have crossed the border into Jordan. While some of the Syrians are living in camps, the majority — as much as 70 percent —are staying in urban centers, where they share space, resources and services with their Jordanian hosts. This influx has rapidly expanded the population of many Jordanian towns and has placed additional pressures undermining the coping mechanisms of public institutions, communities, households and individuals. Public authorities lack the resources to keep up their service provision, such as maintaining health and education services, providing adequate roads, transportation and street lighting, ensuring waste collection and disposal, and delivering core social services. These pressures are impacting on longer-term development outcomes.

In response to the present crisis, the Government of Jordan has requested the support of the donor community and of the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme to address the impact of the Syrian refugees on host communities, particularly in the Northern Governorates. The World Bank’s Program – Emergency Services and Social Resilience (ESSRP) – was approved in mid-October with a total budget of US$ 53 million with grant funding from the State and Peace Building Fund (US$ 10 million) and the Governments of the UK and Canada.

UNDP’s Program – Mitigating the Impact of the Syrian Refugee through Support to Host Communities – is funded from various United Nations agencies and the Government of Japan. Both, the World Bank’s and UNDP’s Programs seek to provide emergency assistance to help Jordanian municipalities and host communities to address the immediate service delivery impacts of the Syrian refugee inflows. They also have a longer-term objective of building social resilience of the communities, as well as of central and local government structures to help them manage the ongoing and potential future crises. The implementation of both programs prioritizes the needs of the communities utilizing participatory approaches and supporting the development of local development plans.

This joint activity between the World Bank and UNDP is intended to enhance the joint impact of both World Bank and UNDP’s programs in terms of alleviating the social pressures on local communities and ensuring better coordination across programs through the utilization of common coordination mechanism and leveraging the institutions’ comparative advantage in strengthening local institutional capacity of community groups and local government councils to better articulate their needs and mobilize resources to solve common problems. Given the immediate needs and the urgency of addressing the situation in host communities, the utilization of UNDP’s expertise and its presence on the ground will help provide rapid implementation support to the World Bank’s program during the first year. It will also assist municipalities in engaging with communities in the development of medium-term development plans to generate employment, ease the rising social tensions between Jordan and Syrian communities and contribute to enhancing the resilience of both communities. This community-based program support direct citizen participation in the rehabilitation of their communities to address local needs.

The value of this proposed partnership between the World Bank and UNDP goes beyond the scope of this project. It will support efforts on part of the donor community to collaborate in testing new approaches to addressing the issue of displacement beyond the humanitarian response by considering and addressing longer-term development impacts on host communities. It is hoped that this partnership will also serve as a pilot for possible replication in other neighboring countries facing similar challenges as a result of the Syrian crisis.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Public Outreach Officer will provide technical support to the municipality for its public outreach activities. The Public Outreach Officers will assist in conducting workshops at municipalities’ level in over a period of six months.

Support in finalizing a stakeholder mapping at the local level in the nine target municipalities;
Assist in conducting a stakeholder analysis;
Map the NGOs and CBOs supporting community organization and participation at the local level.
Provide logistical and administrative organization for orientation sessions on communication and outreach Guidelines (Manual and Toolkit) at the target municipalities;
Support target municipalities to elaborate communication and outreach plans;
Facilitate and organize workshops at municipality level;
Ensure daily contact with target municipalities;
prepare training workshop reports;
Liaise and coordinate with the public outreach sections of the municipalities;
support training for target personnel in municipalities;
Provide reporting to the UNDP Jordan Country Office/Project Manager of “Mitigating the Impact of Syrian Refugee Crisis on the Vulnerable Host Communities” Programme;
Document project development in the target municipalities for future replication and expansion;
Undertake any other public outreach activities as assigned.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

Knowledge Management and Learning;
Promotes knowledge management and a learning environment;
Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more Practice Areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.
Strong communication, and interpersonal skills;
Demonstrated research and analytical skills’;
Good knowledge of the UN system.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

University degree in Development studies or any other related field .Master Degree is preferable.

Experience:

Five years of working experience in a related field;
Extensive experience in Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) building, structuring and balancing;
Advanced knowledge of economic statistics, household expenditure and income survey statistics, balance of payment, financial governmental statistics, etc.;
Excellent computer and word processing skills.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in Arabic and English.