UNDP Jobs - 77509- National Consultant to Evaluate the contribution o

National Consultant to Evaluate the contribution of hydro-met services to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Uganda

Location :

Home-based, with occasional travel to the field, UGANDA

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

16-Mar-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

National Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 working days

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

30 working days

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

The Vision, the Government of Uganda is implementing the National Development Plan(NDPII-2015/16-2019/20) whose theme is “Strengthening Uganda’s Competitiveness for Sustainable Wealth Creation, Employment and Inclusive Growth’’, with the main goal of attaining middle income status by 2020. One of the strategic objectives of NDP II is to increase Sustainable Production, Productivity and Value Addition in Key Growth Opportunities. On the other hand, Uganda’s economic and human development is closely tied to a number of climate-sensitive resources and sectors, such as agriculture, water, environment, natural resources, health, transport and housing.

The NDP II recognizes that if proactive and adaptive actions are not taken to respond to the climate and disaster risks, then Uganda’s transformation could be slowed down. This is because Uganda is susceptible to natural hazards, 70 per cent of which are of hydro-meteorological in origin. Examples include floods, droughts, thunderstorms, hailstorms, and landslides. As an example, Uganda experienced 2,500 disasters in the last decade, and in 2010-2011 rainfall variability costed the country about USD 1.2 billion

Factoring weather and climate information into agricultural decision-making has optimized agricultural production in many countries. However, in developing countries – where most smallholder farms are rain-fed – access to weather and climate information to guide decision-making is limited. Furthermore, the National Hydro-meteorological and Hydrological Services in developing countries, including the Uganda’s National Meteorological Authority (UNMA), do not receive sufficient funding to cover the cost of providing such services. This could be due to a lack of Government’s awareness of the contribution of hydro-meteorological services to socio-economic development of the country. This lack of awareness exists even though Governments face major challenges and constraints in agriculture, water resources management, health and disaster risk reduction, among others, all of which are heavily influenced by weather and climate.

Despite occurrences of drought with the attendant crop failure and occasional famine, flooding with the resultant loss of human life and destruction of property and the impacts of other phenomena on socio-economic development, there has been very limited research done to quantify the benefit of weather and climate information and services to development efforts.

The situation persists because National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in developing countries, including the Uganda, do not receive sufficient funding to cover the cost of providing such services. This could be attributed to a lack of awareness by the Policy Makers and Budget Holders, of the contribution of hydro-meteorological services to socio-economic development in the country.

To cope with changes in climate and weather conditions, reliable and timely early warning information is required for planning at both the policy and end-user levels. It is for this reason that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Uganda with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) has since 2013 been supporting the Government of Uganda to improve its infrastructure and systems for monitoring and forecasting the weather, climate and disaster information for preparedness and disaster management in the country. The GoU/UNDP’s “Strengthening Climate Information and Early Warning System (SCIEWS) project in Uganda” is being implemented by the Ministry of Water and Environment’s Uganda National Hydro-meteorological Authority (UNMA) and the Directorate of Water Resource Management (DWRM), in collaboration with key responsible partners including: the Department of Relief, Disaster Preparedness and Management (DRDPM) in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM); the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries (MAAIF), the Ministry of Local Governments; the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), and the Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development as the Donor Coordinator. The project has been implemented across the country, with pilot testing of its results in 28 Districts from four sub-regions of Elgon, Karamoja, Teso and Lango, in Eastern and Northern Uganda.

Over the past four years, the UNDP-GEF funded SCIEWS project, among other projects have made significant investment in hydro-met services to revamp or improve the capacity of the Uganda National Hydro-meteorological Authority (UNMA) and the Directorate of Water Resources Management (DWRM) to generate and monitor hydro-hydro-meteorological information and disseminating to end users. As such, there has been a significant improvement in the functionality and quality of products from the hydro-meteorological systems across the country. This includes key technology transfer like: automatic weather stations; automatic water level stations; automatic message switching systems; the upper air observations; over and above: building the capacity of forecasters and observers; introducing a business model for expanding the revenue base of UNMA through better pricing of products to the aviation sector.

The SCIEWS project aimed to avail the country with the opportunity to better manage climate hazards, food security and agricultural production, scarce and dwindling water resources and make its socioeconomic development process less vulnerable to climate-related risks by:

Enhancing the capacity of hydro-hydro-meteorological services and networks to monitor and predict weather and climate events and associated risks e.g. floods, droughts and severe storms;
Developing effective and efficient ways of packaging weather and climate information, including contextualising with other environmental and socio-economic data to produce early warnings/alerts and advisories; and
Supporting improved and timely preparedness and response to weather and climate information and early warnings, including efficient delivery mechanisms using radio and telecommunications network.

The project has been implemented across the whole country, with pilot testing of its results in 28 Districts from four sub-regions of Elgon, Karamoja, Teso and Lango mostly in Eastern Uganda. One of the outputs from the project was a study on the cost-benefit-analysis of the meteorological services with a focus on products for the aviation sub-sector.

This consultancy will build onto the outcome of the cost-benefit study, to deepen understanding on the value of hydro-met products, with a public-private sector perspective to sustainability of these services.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of work and methodology:

Given the lack of awareness and information on the contribution of hydro-meteorological services to National socio-economic development and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), this consultancy is intended to identify the key factors that have led to this knowledge gap, and to generate practical solutions and justification for valuing of hydro-met products as a critical resource for development, in both quantitative and qualitative terms. This is important for pricing and marketing the products from hydro-met services that have been improving over the past four years.

UNDP through the GEF funded ‘Strengthening Climate Information and Early Warning Systems,’ project intends to recruit a national consultant to undertake a study to measure the contribution of the hydro-met services to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which could help influence policy and funding to the sub-sector, as an effective hydro-met service reduces the economic and social impacts of hazardous incidences such as lightning, flooding, landslides and drought.

The study will be executed within April and May 2018. In terms of geographic coverage, the consultant will interact with National and sub-National partners across the country including from the pilot project regions of Elgon, Teso, Karamoja and Lango. The consultant will also meet with National Partners listed under section 1(UNMA, DWRM-MWE, MAAIF, OPM, MOLG, MoFPED, UNDP, UCC, CAA), of this ToR as well as the Civil Society and the Private Sector.

The consultant’s scope of work will consist of the following tasks:

To prepare and present the Inception Report including the work plan for the study;
To develop and field test the tools or instruments to be used for the study;
To carry out a clear Cost – Benefit -Analysis (CBA) of producing and disseminating hydro-met information;
To develop criteria for computing/costing hydro-met products, with price per unit;
To assess the contribution of the hydro-met services (hydrological and meteorological) to the GDP of Uganda;
To prepare the study Report and present to key stakeholders in a validation workshop of Policy Makers, Professionals, the private sector and users of weather and hydrological products.

Competencies

Excellent analytical skills and strong commitment to sharing expertise and experience in order to develop capacity of others, and work as a member/advisor of a team;
Strong communication skills; able to communicate effectively with people and able to write concisely and make presentations in a simple non-technical manner;
Excellent analytical, organizational and negotiation skills. Ability to demonstrate tact and diplomacy.

Required Skills and Experience

Academic qualifications:

A PhD or Master’s degree in one of the following disciplines: Economics; Natural Resources Management; Meteorology/ Environmental engineering/Water Resources Management; Agricultural Economics; Statistics, Social Sciences or related fields;

Years of experience:

No less than 5 years of experience in evaluating natural resources projects;
Previous experience with results-based assessment, monitoring and evaluation methodologies in Sub-Saharan Africa;
Familiarity with Climate and Early Warning systems, Disaster Risk management and response;
Knowledge of UNDP and GEF, with understanding and experience of UNDP and UN evaluation frameworks an added advantage.

Language requirements:

Fluency in written and spoken English.

Working arrangements:

Institutional Arrangement:

The Consultant will be supervised by the Project Coordinator in close liaison with the UNDP Team Leader for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience. The Consultant will work closely with the SCIEWS Project Manager, for the day-to-day requirements including access to key program resources and logistical support for the assignment.

Duration of the Work:

The assignment is expected to take a period of 30 working days in accordance with the scope of work and indicative period for submission of deliverables above.

Duty Station:

Home-based, with occasional travel to the field.

Evaluation Method and Criteria:

Cumulative analysis:

The award of the contract shall 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; - 70%;

Financial criteria weight; - 30%.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points (70% of the total technical points) would be considered for the Financial Evaluation.

Technical Criteria – Maximum 70 points, as per attached TORs.

Submission of Application:

The candidate is required to submit an electronic application directly uploaded on the UNDP jobs website with all the requirements as listed here below. Annexes and further information may be downloaded on http://procurement-notices.undp.org/. (Reference #44556).

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications in one single PDF document to this website - http://jobs.undp.org (Ref no.77509).

Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP (Annex II);
Personal CV, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.

Technical proposal:

Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment;
A methodology, on how they will approach and complete the assignment;
Financial proposal that indicates the all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided (Annex II);
Annexes 1 and II - may be downloaded from the UNDP Procurement Notices Website -http://procurement-notices.undp.org/ - under reference #44556. For further clarifications, please contact; janet.anyango@undp.org; moses.lutwama@undp.org;

Interested applicants should submit applications through uploading of all their required documentation in one single pdf document on this website only.