The High Mountain catchments of Nepal are particularly prone to drought, landslides and floods, due to coincidence of seasonal snow melt with the summer monsoon season. In these highly vulnerable mountain regions warming trends are increasing and the impacts are magnified by the extreme changes in altitude. Around 85% of rainfall occurs during the four monsoon months of June to September and results in extensive flooding annually. Climate change is intensifying the monsoon rainfall and increasing snow and glacial melt rates, which is contributing to increased frequency and severity of flood and landslide disasters which result in extensive economic, life and livelihood losses annually. At the other extreme, water scarcity and droughts also pose a threat to the agriculture-reliant livelihoods of these regions. Climate change is increasing the temporal and spatial variability of rainfall and runoff, thus intensifying the problem of excess water during the monsoon and water scarcity during the dry season, increasing economic damages to agriculture, property, and the environment, disrupting lives and livelihoods and threatening food security.

A long-term solution to this climate change problem is to rehabilitate and maintain functional integrity of watersheds that have critical functions of water storage and release, infiltration, drainage control, and soil moisture retention. Using watersheds as organizing units for planning and implementation of natural resource management and resilient livelihood development is an approach to effectively tackle an immediate and long-term climate risk reduction issues, in relation to floods and droughts. Taking watershed management concerns into consideration the proposed LDCF project on “Developing climate resilient livelihoods in the vulnerable watershed in Nepal” will embed Integrated Watershed Management approaches in Nepal through policy and practice at the national and sub-national levels.  It will do so through establishing the legislative and institutional framework for integrated watershed management to address climate change induced hazards and introducing and scaling up integrated adaptive watershed management practices covering 844km2 of watershed areas and benefiting 121,606 vulnerable people. While the project interventions in the legislative and institutional frameworks will be at national and sub-national level, project investment in adaptive management practices will be done within sub-watersheds of the Dudh Koshi river basin which is the most vulnerable to floods and droughts.

Under the overall supervision of the National Project Manager (NPM), and direction of National Project Director (NPD), the Field Coordinator will be responsible for execution of the overall activities at the field level. The Field Coordinator will be establishing strong coordination and linkages amongst all the major stakeholders in the field i.e. Local and Provincial level to ensure that the program activities are implemented successfully. The Field Coordinator will provide the timely, accurate, reports to the NPM.

Overall roles and responsibilities:

1. Overall management in Project Implementation Unit:

• Facilitate the day-to-day management of the Project Implementation Unit (Field);
• Establish and maintain the good relationships with Local Government Units including elected members, officials, line agencies, CBOs, and all concerned agencies; 
• Maintain the good relationships with Federal River Basin Centre, Koshi, Province Ministry (all relevant), for the purpose of project planning, implementation and monitoring;
• Support to prepare annual project activities and ensure implementation of field-based project activities in accordance with the agreed work plan and budget;
• Provide technical support to the Field Offices, partner agencies and technical officers of selected municipalities in implementation of the different programme activities in coherence with the project outcomes;
• Supervise, coordinate and mobilize the field based staffs to ensure effective implementation of field based activities; and provide the timely update to PMU office;
• Support to solve the local level issues, grievances and maintain the well project management culture; 
• Supervise and facilitate coordination with consultants and contractors engaged in delivering of the programme’s work plans for the achievement of results; 
• Prepare annual work plan, quarterly progress report, annual progress report and other plans as required, with assistance/inputs of other project staffs and ensure timely submission to the Project Management Unit;
• Supervise, coach, and mentor Project Field staff for smooth project implementation;
• Support to organize Project Coordination Committee (PCC) at province level, plan local training and capacity building activities, including other activities as indicated in project results framework;
• Provide prompt reports, feedback, corrective measures, associated with the project management;
• Take the overall responsibility of the field implementation units for administrative and financial regulations as per requirement.
• Provide additional support required by National Project Manager.

2. Providing quality assurance and support to implement field activities:

• Maintain close coordination/linkages with targeted local level agencies, I/NGOs, and CBOS, user groups on the projects ongoing work and opportunity for complementarity;
• Provide technical backstopping on field activities implemented by local project partners;
• Provide technical inputs to the implementation of the different Programme activities and outputs – including organizing and participating in meetings, trainings, workshops and other events and by providing analysis of results of the workshop/trainings/ meetings/events, by providing technical inputs to workshop presentations, to studies, to advisory services and to other activities and outputs at the field;
• Organize and coordinate programme activities aimed to enhance capacity of local partners in compliance against programme and fiduciary standards;
• Support in developing of relevant knowledge management documents to capture lesson learned and success stories.

3. Monitoring and reporting of field based activities:

• Ensure that all financial and administrative matters related to the project are transparently, expediently, and effectively managed in line with UNDP rules and regulations;
• Plan, coordinate and organize regularly monitor (joint) the project implementation activities in the field;  
• Ensure timely preparation and submission of required reports, including bi-annual progress and expenditure reports, and as per the requirements UNDP and Global Environmental Facility (GEF);
• Provide secretariat services for the regular meetings of Provincial Inter-ministerial Project Coordination Committee and the Local Level Implementation Committee to facilitate coordination and cooperation between provincial and local level stakeholders; this will include conveying/coordinating the regular meetings; ensuring that all member representatives receive relevant information ahead of meetings; presenting the Programme’s progress; taking notes during – and circulating notes after the PEB meetings; Implementation of the decision made.
• Facilitate spot checks as well as annual audit exercises at the field level.

4. Develop and maintain strong relationship with government counterparts, user groups and community based organizations;

• Establish and maintain good working relationships with key stakeholders, government (provincial and local), non-government organizations, academia and private sectors;
• Maintain close coordination with provincial and local level government stakeholders in planning, monitoring (joint) and sharing (reports) for effective implementation and possible synergies in Integrated Watershed Management (IWM);

5. Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) Sensitivity: 

• Ensure alignment of programmatic policy, processes and procedures as per the UNDP’s GESI strategy;
• Prioritize selection of consultant process with due consideration of Gender and Social Inclusion perspectives as per the UNDP GESI strategy; 
• Coordinate with GESI focal point within relevant local governments as required to deliver the results of the project.

Impact of Results:

Effective delivery of field-based activities in accordance with the agreed work plan; supervise and coordinate field-based staffs to implement activities; effective coordination and maintaining good working relationship with governments counterparts and all relevant stakeholders; organize capacity needs of implementing partners to ensure compliance with UNDP norms; proper documentation and dissemination of success stories and lesson learned for replication of project activities.

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the Government of Nepal (GoN) and UN’s values and ethical standards; 
• Serves and promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of GoN and UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Good inter-personal skills;
• Clear and upfront communication skills; 
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism;
• Display cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability;
• Collaborates effectively in a team environment;
• Organized and good with following-up on pending issues; meets deadlines;
• Promote learning and knowledge management/sharing;
• Focuses on delivering results by taking calculated-risks and problem-solving approach;
• Fair and transparent decision making; regularly shares information with team members; 
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development.
  

Functional Competencies :

• Technical knowledge and understanding of climate change, climate induced disaster risk reduction, integrated watershed management as well as risk-informed planning;
• Demonstrate knowledge and experience in working on policy development and local governments including technical approaches on integrated watershed management;
• Experience in project management, with ability to keep track, deal effectively with problems and fulfil reporting requirement in timely manner;
• Promotes sharing of knowledge and experience, and actively works towards continued learning and development on personal level as well as for supervisees; 
• Good practical knowledge of inter-disciplinary development issues; 
• Ability to go beyond established procedures and models, propose new approaches which expand the range of projects; 
• Strong inter-personal skills, communication, networking, and team building skills; competent in leading teams and creating team spirit, management of inter-group dynamics and conflicting interests of various actors, stimulating team members to produce quality outputs in a timely and transparent manner;
• Strong knowledge / experience in results­based management and results­oriented approach to project implementation;
• Demonstrates strong problem solving, numerical and analytical skills;
• Excellent oral communication skills and excellent written communication skills;
• Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior and high ranking members of government and stakeholders;
• Results driven, ability to work under pressure and to meet strict deadlines; remains calm and in control under pressure;
• Has experience working with Monitoring and Evaluation tools;
• Experience in developing business plans for financial institutions including energy enterprises;
• Experience in coordination, technical assistance and advisory support top government and private institutions;
• Experienced in delivering training and other needed capacity/ institutional building support to a wide range of stakeholders including financial institutions;
• Demonstrates excellent organizational and administrative skills; 
• Identifies and communicates relevant information for a variety of audiences for advocating UNDP’s mandate;
• Analyzes and selects materials for strengthening strategic alliances with partners and stakeholders;
• Understands and applies fundamental concepts and principles of a professional discipline or technical specialty relating to the position;
• Possesses basic knowledge of organizational policies and procedures relating to the position and applies them consistently in work tasks;
• Demonstrates good knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments;
• Effectively networks with partners seizing opportunities to build strategic alliances relevant to UNDP’s mandate and strategic agenda; 
• Assesses project performance to identify success factors and incorporates best practices into project work;
• Monitors specific stages of projects/programme implementation;
• Researches linkages across programme activities to identify critical points of integration.

Education:

• Master's degree in watershed management, forestry, natural resource management or relevant area.

Experience:

• At least seven years of experience in project management preferably in government or international institutions;
• At least three years of work experience and expertise in integrated watershed management, forestry, forest restoration, climate change and cross-cutting issues such as GESI;
• Strong working experience with communities, user groups and local level governments; 
• Strong management skills including ability to provide strategic guidance, technical oversight, mentor staffs, develop work plans and manage budget and project expenditures;
• Proven ability to produce analytical reports with quantitative data analysis;
• Experience in programme design, monitoring and evaluation is an asset;
• Experience working for the government of Nepal and UN is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Good knowledge of English, fluency in the language of the duty station.