UNDP Jobs - 59707- Governance Analysis of Climate and Disaster Risk M

Governance Analysis of Climate and Disaster Risk Management Systems at City and Municipal Levels in Arab States

Location :

Amman, JORDAN

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

15-Sep-2015

Application Deadline :

08-Sep-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

Up to 31 Dec 2015

Languages Required :

Arabic English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

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

Urban Disaster and climate risks in Arab States

Arab region is urbanizing very fast. Urban population in the region is growing double then the overall growth in population, while the overall growth rate of the region remains highest in the world. Between 1970 and 2010, urban population of the region increased by four times . Over 56 % of the Arab population presently lives in urban areas (large cities and small towns), while in some countries the percentage of people living in urban areas is as high as 100%. The average urban population for Gulf region is 80%, while the Maghreb is above 70%. Arab cities are a major source of economic and human development due to the opportunities they provide in the form of employment, education, health, communications facilities, trade and tourism. Many cities are also important historical and cultural centres.

Disasters pose a serious threat to the Arab region in general and to urban centres in particular. Many Arab cities and towns are located in high risk areas, including coasts and highly seismic zones, which expose them to disaster risks from earthquakes, flash flooding and storms thus leading to losses in lives, assets and livelihoods. Climate change has increased the frequency and severity of hydro-meteorological incidents. The climate change induced disasters have manifested themselves in the form of flash flooding, droughts, desertification, and storms during the recent years. Growing Arab cities are increasingly exposed to climate change related coastal erosion, sea level rise, storms/cyclones and flash flooding among other risks. The 2008-11 flash flooding in Riyad, Jeddah and Yemen, the 2007-12 cyclones in Oman, the 2013 winter storm in Palestine, the 2011 famine and drought in the Horn of Africa, the 2008-11 droughts in Syria, Iraq and Jordan are but a few reminders about the increasing intensity and frequency of climate change induced disaster events. Seismic activity is also a significant risk in the Arab region. For example, the Jordan rift valley system places a number of countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria) at high risk from earthquakes. Similarly, some countries in the Maghreb region (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) have been exposed to seismic activity in the past. Devastating earthquakes have occurred in Palestine (1927), Lebanon (1956), Morocco (1960), Egypt (1992) and Algeria (2003).

A variety of factors serve as drivers of risk in the Arab cities. First, the rising urban population coupled with poor quality of housing, infrastructure and services is a key driver. Second, the city governments in the region have limited authority and funding to take local level action for DRR due to the centralized nature of state.

Third, the expansion of urban centres is occurring without adherence to legal frameworks, building codes, or land use plans. Often an urban plan does not exist or is outdated. Significant percentage of poor urban population is forced to live in unsafe areas thus exposing themselves to risks of disasters. Building codes and regulations remain poorly developed and implemented in the Arab region, although the quality of building construction vary greatly across the region with a high quality construction in the Gulf to medium quality in Mashriq and Maghreb, to very low quality in the Horn of Africa and Yemen. As a result of poorly planned urbanization, environmental resources have suffered losses, which could be a key driver behind enhanced flash flooding, changes in rainfall patterns, desertification and landslides.

The combination of natural hazards and risk drivers has the potential to cause serious losses to urban populations, infrastructure, economy and livelihoods in the Arab region. Therefore there is an urgent need to start city level action for disaster risk reduction so as to develop systems to minimize risks to sustainable development from disasters and climate change.

UNDP Programme on Arab Cities Resilience

In order to address urban risks, UNDP in collaboration with the UNISDR and SDC proposed the Aqaba Declaration on Disaster Risk Reduction in Cities at the First Arab Conference on DRR, which was held in Aqaba Jordan from 19-21 March, 2013. The Declaration prescribes achievable and time bound targets to be implemented by city governments. The targets are supposed to be achieved during the five year period of 2013-17.

In 2014, UNDP launched the Arab Cities Disaster Resilience Programme to facilitate the implementation of the Aqaba Declaration. The project has two components. The first component is focused on working with high risk cities to improve their resilience. The second component is regional which focus upon building partnerships, networking, knowledge products, and south-south sharing. At the moment the project is being implemented in the cities of Khartoum (Sudan), Saida (Lebanon) and Ain Draham (Tunisia). UNDP plans to expand the project to other cities in the region.

At the regional level, UNDP intends to launch a regional Arab Cities Resilience Report. The Study Governance Analysis of Climate and Disaster Risk Management Systems at City and Municipal Levels in Arab States is being conducted to support the production of the Arab Cities Resilience Report. The purpose of the study is to serve as an advocacy tool to convince decision makers at the city and national levels about the need to invest in urban disaster risk reduction, so as to ensure sustainable development and increase societal resilience. It will offer analysis of disaster/climate risk trends for urban areas, including analysis of the causes of growing exposure and vulnerability. The study will also identify bottlenecks in urban disaster risk reduction and opportunities that are available for disaster and climate risk reduction. The study shall include an assessment about the existing disaster risk management systems at city level with an analysis of their strengths and weaknesses.

In terms of geographic and city coverage, since it is impossible to cover all cities as individual entities, the study would therefore delimit itself to following dimensions of analysis. It will include analysis about all capital cities in the 22 Arab countries. It will include analysis about other cities which have been affected by major disasters in the past 50 years; e.g. the Algerian earthquakes, the Jeddah flooding, cyclone Gonu of 2007, Khartoum flooding, Syrian drought of 2007-12, cyclone and flooding in Yemen, Flooding in Lebanon and Egypt, sandstorms in Gulf (Kuwait) to name a few. The study will include analysis about any other cities about which data is available either in terms of risk analysis or real time disasters. The study shall specifically include analysis about coastal urban sprawl in Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia.

Duties and Responsibilities

The task of the consultant is to contribute to the Arab Cities Resilience Report. This will be done by conducting research and writing analysis in the form of chapters (or sections in chapters) as per mutually agreed outline of the report. The research and writing by the consultant will revolve around following aspects:

Review existing disaster and climate risk reduction systems in urban areas

Analysis of the governance systems for disaster and climate risk management; including review of urban policies and legislation, institutional mechanisms that exist for management and coordination to reduce disaster and climate risks, existing programmes on climate and disaster risk management in urban areas, technical capacities of municipal institutions, review of financial regime for disaster and climate risk management and community preparedness. The analysis shall cover the weakness and strengths of studied policies, institutions, mechanisms and programmes.

Identify bottlenecks in promoting urban resilience against disaster and climate risks

Identify city based examples of best practices in urban resilience against climate and disaster risks. These may relate to urban governance (policies, legislation, institutions, coordination mechanisms), societal resilience, physical resilience (e.g. infrastructure, settlements, building codes, landuse planning), sectorial resilience (e.g. health, education, transport, environment, water), examples of the role of ICT in promoting resilience amongst others.

Identify bottlenecks in promoting urban resilience against disaster and climate risks

These may relate to issues of urban governance, vision or lack of vision by city authorities, mandate of city governments, lack of technical capacities, lack of financing etc

Describe opportunities for increasing urban resilience against disaster and climate risks

This may include following aspects:

i) Institutional and governance reforms taking place in different countries to increase local autonomy;
ii) Growth of media and technologies and their role in public education and awareness about risk etc.;
iii) Funding opportunities: global climate change funds, increased national incomes, private sector, role of insurance sector and bilateral investments. This section shall try and define how different opportunities can be used to offset the numerous bottlenecks.

In analysing the above factors the consultant must provide both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The quantitative analysis might answer questions like the number of cities, number of policies, number of beneficiaries, percentage of municipal budgets dedicated to climate and DRR, the number of search and rescue teams, number of prepared communities etc. The qualitative analysis could focus on the scope of policies, mandate of institutions, effectiveness of institutions, strengths, weaknesses, capacities, gaps and opportunities etc.

The consultant will be the primary contributor to the Chapters 3 and 4 of the Arab Cities Resilience Report.

The chapter tiltes are listed below. Details of the chapters can be found in Annex 1.

Chapter 3 - Governance and capacities for urban resilience (20 pages);
Chapter 4 – Best practices on urban resilience (20 pages);
In addition the consultant is also expected to contribute to sub-sections under Chapter 2 and Chapter 5.

The sub-sections where consultant is expected to make contributions are below:

i.Concept of resilience (Chapter 2);
ii. Challenges to urban resilience in Arab States (Chapter 2);
iii. Recommendations (chapter 5).

Responsibilities with regards to the above task:

Agree with the writing Team on the structure of report and the contributions required by the consultant to different chapters or sections;
Prepare and submit an annotated outline of the study contents that the consultant will undertake for his/her task as outline above;
Prepare and submit a work plan to conduct various activities to complete the study. The work plan must include list of activities, time line, places to be visited, list of people to be met, and literature to be reviewed etc.;
Conduct literature review of disaster and climate risk management systems in the urban areas of Arab States region;
Conduct interviews with relevant stakeholders from city authorities, civil society, academia, donors, United Nations, cities networks etc.;
Conduct site visits for field observation concerning urban exposure, vulnerability and risk factors, if essential;
Participate in stakeholder consultations involving multidisciplinary groups; e.g. youth, women, civil society, engineers, academia, municipal officials etc.;
Prepare the draft report by writing the required sections and chapters and submit to UNDP for review;
Present the study in a regional meeting of experts and stakeholders for feedback;
Finalize the report based upon stakeholder inputs including those of technical and non-technical categories.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

Research:

Demonstrated ability to undertake multidisciplinary research including policy, institutional and legislative analysis to describe the existing governance system for climate and disaster risk reduction in cities and urban areas of Arab States, including the strengths and weaknesses of the existing system, the bottlenecks and opportunities in promoting climate and disaster resilience.

Networking:

Advanced skills in accessing large number of individuals and organizations in the Arab States to acquire information about urban areas, concerning climate and disaster risk management systems.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

A Master’s Degree in urban development, architecture, seismology, water resources, meteorology, disaster risk management, environment, climate change, social sciences, engineering or fields related to urban disaster risk reduction.

Experience:

10 years of research experience preferably about disaster risk management, environmental management and urban development and management;
At least 2 publications and papers produced and published on related subjects;
Knowledge of disaster risk, climate change and urbanization trends in the Arab States or elsewhere.

Communication and use of ICT:

Experience in using multiple information technologies to access open source, online information about climate and disaster risk management systems in urban areas of Arab States.

Languages:

Fluency in English, knowledge of Arabic desirable.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposal

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

Cover Letter: Brief one-page letter explaining why the applicant thinks they are an outstanding candidate for the job;
Detailed Technical proposal for the assigned tasks;
Financial proposal: indicating all-inclusive lump sum fee in USD;
Personal CV and/or signed P-11: including past experience in similar projects and the name and contact details of 3 references.

Evaluation

Cumulative analysis

When using this weighted scoring method, the award of the contract should be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and

Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation;

Technical Criteria weight - [100]70%;
Financial Criteria weight - [100]30%.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 60 point would be considered for the Financial Evaluation

Technical Criteria - 70% of total evaluation – max. 100 points:

CV and knowledge of the subject matter -10;
Previous experience in conducting similar research assignments -10;
Research methodology for the assignment-20;
Knowledge of consultant about published, unpublished and online sources of information on climate and disaster risk management systems in Arab Cities - 15;
Ability of consultant to access information about maximum number of Arab cities using his/her personal contacts and networks-15.