Background
Land use and land cover are often related, but they have different meanings. Land use involves an element of human activity and reflects human decisions about how land will be used. Land cover refers to the vegetative characteristics or manmade constructions on the land’s surface. Building statistics on LULC is a key to track desertification and environmental restoration that represents an important pillar in Saudi Vision 2030. It is also an important publication to link economic activities with changes on land use, to provide estimates of protected/ unprotected lands by owner and status (productive, unproductive, cover type, soil type, resources available, etc.) and associated attributes such as volume, biomass, growth, removals, disturbance, which may also be used as area estimate qualifiers.
To comply with international recommendations that require transparency on reporting Environmental Statistics, current Environmental publications were designed following the guidelines by UN Environmental Statistic. However, the publications developed still need further enhancements developing LULC statistics as well as Land Accounting Statistics publication and implement them within KSA Statistical Office (GASTAT) in accordance with Basic Set of Environment Statistics of the FDES2013 and the System of Environmental Economic Accounting 2012 Central Framework (SEEA CF)
We need the expert to be working on how to improve a LULC statistics and Land Accounting in several ways that are specified in Scope of Work. We need to be able to reconcile data from multiple sources on LULC and Land Accounting using improved methods of acquiring such data and to reflect the details at the finer scale possible.
Duties and Responsibilities
1-Scope of Work
In order to support GASTAT in the preparation of the next three-year Water Accounting Statistics plan, and in the context of " Institutional Support to Statistics" project, UNDP is seeking a water accounting Expert to review the current Environmental statistical publications, namely the Framework Development for Environmental Statistics and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Land, and build on it to develop a statistical publication on Land accounting. Land Accounts need to be compiled by administrative boundaries or by land cover characteristics. From an economic point of view, land accounts can be constructed by the area of land owned by different institutional sectors, land used by different industries and land zoned for different activities
The scope of the assignment will be to carry out the following tasks with the objectives to improve quality of current products and develop new ones that would help decision makers as well as environmental -related organizations make sense of all land -related stock changes that exist in natural or by human activities; and link that to socio-economic indicators to inform on the sustainability, value generated, or cost of using this valuable resource. The Consultant will be required to:
- benchmark the current statistical products on LULC and Land Accounting with the world’s best practices and provide gap-analysis report on where improvisation is needed.
- The gap-analysis task should include suggestions for new indicators/statistical publications that re-organizes and suggests LULC statistics products (detailed in spatial and temporal dimensions) and aligned with country’s reality as well as flexible enough to accommodate detailed needed on Land prices.
- Build all necessary templates for publishing the LULC and SEEA-Land Accounting in addition to building geographical information database template/schema required to onboard such statistics and its spatial attributes.
- Support the Department for assigned tasks by studying challenges notably in the Land-related indicators of sustainable development goals (SDGs).
- Implement a roadmap specifying all activities needed to be carried out in order to publish the LULC and SEEA-Land Accounting.
2-Technical support
- Harmonize country’s land statistics in accordance with international standards.
- Design and review the land statistics (surveys and publication templates) and advise on a plan for its water-related indicators’ (Design, data collection, processing, analyzing, and dissemination) that is aligned with the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM).
- Review and evaluate questionnaires, methodologies and data in order to improve them by providing best practice. Determining the adequate size for the sample considering the financial resources, timeframe, periodicity advised, and the objectives of the surveys; Designing methods for calculating weights for survey data and estimating sampling errors;
- Provide advice and methodology of implementation for improving (geospatial data/big data/alternative data) intakes to better reflect LULC statistics accounting for both spatial and temporal dimensions.
- Prepare descriptions and complete documentation of methodologies and procedures (or execution steps) to produce LULC-related indicators.
- Assemble and examine statistical material (using data on LULC that would be generated using agriculture, environmental, industrial or other administrative statistics related to land accounts) to ensure accuracy, clarity and validity; as well as advising on appropriate adjustments.
- Envision and design LULC and Land Accounting Geospatial Statistics Database platform, that can power a business intelligence platform; and enhances the visualization of the SEEA-Land for Saudi Arabia.
- Prepare data sets upon request and respond to queries/requests. Perform any other relevant tasks requested and that are informing Land statistics.
- In addition to delivering the abovementioned technical support, the land accounting Statistics Expert will advise relevant Statistics Departments on principles and best practice in relation to LULC Statistics methodologies and frameworks.
- Delivering training to Spatial and Resources Statistics Department staff in calculating LULC indicators and maintaining LULC Statistics databases.
- Providing coaching and on-the-job-training for the Environmental Statistics Department staff as needed.
- Expected Deliverables and Outputs
Deliverables | Breakdown with details | Estimated Duration to Complete | Target Due Dates | % of Payment | Review and Approvals Required |
Deliverable 1: current situation Analysis Report | Report submission of the current situation as well as the benchmark and gap-analysis regarding all LULC and Land Accounting Indicators covering all physical assets and monetary assets accounts. | 5 Working Days | 12/1/2023 | 10% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 2: Land Accounting Statistical | Submission of Land Accounting Statistical Publications’: SEEA-Land and other LULC indicators, (methodology, Tables’ Template, Bulletin Template). | 15 Working Days | 2/2/ 2023 | 20% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 3: Land statistics indicators | Reporting on “reorganizing Land statistics indicators” that includes (methodology, Table’s Templates, and Bulletin’s template) of the new structure of the LULC and Land Accounting statistical publications. This might require reviewing the current FEDS- and SDG-Land related indicators to harmonize both with the SEEA-Land developed in this mission. | 10 Working Days | 16/2/2023 | 15% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 4: New Data Report | Reporting on how and where (geospatial data, big data, or any alternative data) could be used to inform statistical production of Land statistics; and reflecting such recommendations on the other deliverables listed in this table whenever appropriate. | 5 Working Days | 23/2023 | 5% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 5: Methodologies Report | Reporting on methodologies to automate calculations of Land Use-related indicators contribution in GDP using data from other sources including supply and use tables of GASTAT or any relevant statistics to show growth in GDP compared to depleted or used Land assets using the SEEA-Land framework | 10 Working Days | 9/3/2023 | 10% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 6: Templates preparing | Reporting on how and preparing templates for feeding the land statistical production (LULC change matrix) into Supply and Use tables as well as Input Output Tables, and relate these changes -when appropriate- to environmental impact indicators. | 5 Working Days | 16/3/2023 | 5% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 7: SDGs land- related indicators | Submission of SDGs :land- related indicators with template design, methodologies, formula, data sources, etc. in a way that enhances reporting of those indicators. | 10 Working Days | 30/3/2023 | 10% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 8: BI Design | Envision and design a Business Intelligence land Statistics Platform | 5 Working Days | 6/4/2023 | 5% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Deliverable 9: Capacity Building | Training and coaching of staff | On-going | 6/4/2023 | 20% | Director of Environmental Statistics Department |
Total of Working Days | 65 Working Days |
| 100% |
| |
4. Institutional Arrangement
- The duty station for the Land Accounting Statistics Expert is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He/ She will be embedded within the Environmental Statistics Department at GASTAT.
- The consultant will report to the director of Environmental Statistics Department and the CTA of the UNDP-GASTAT Project.
- The consultant is also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under http://dss.un.org
- The consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment.
- The consultant is responsible for providing their own laptop computers and mobile phones for use during this assignment; the consultant must have access to reliable internet connection.
- Payments will be made upon submission of deliverable, and certification of payment form, and acceptance and confirmation by the supervisor.
Competencies
Required skills and competencies |
|
Desired additional skills and competencies |
|
Required Skills and Experience
Expertise and Qualifications of the Successful Individual Contractor
Min. Academic Education |
|
Min. years of relevant Work experience |
|
Required Language(s) (at working level)
- Excellent command of Arabic and English
Professional Certificates
- Master degree or PhD (preferred PhD)
- Certification of Training courses / workshops related to the field of Land Accounting
- Proof of experience.
Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodologies: Step I: Screening and desk review: Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology. Technical Criteria (CV review and Desk Review/Interview optional) – maximum 70 points. Only candidates who obtained at least 70% of points from the CV desk review (who will score at least 49 points) will be considered for the next stage of evaluation, i.e. financial evaluation.
Applications will be first screened and only candidates meeting the following minimum criteria will progress to the pool for shortlisting:
The following documents shall be required from the applicants:
Financial evaluation - Total 30% (30 points) The following formula will be used to evaluate the financial proposal: p = y (µ/z), where p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal µ = price of the lowest-priced proposal z = price of the proposal being evaluated
Interested applicants are advised to carefully review this advertisement and ensure that they meet the requirements and qualifications described.
Given the volume of applications that UNDP receives, only shortlisted offerors will be notified.
UNDP reserves the right to reject any incomplete applications. Please be informed that we don’t accept applications submitted via email. Interested Offerors are required to submit an application via UNDP Jobsite system as the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP Jobsite system. Please note that UNDP Jobsite system allows only one uploading of application documents, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your online application submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an email acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload a maximum one document. Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email mohammed.abbas@undp.org with a copy to and Nora Alzahid nora.alzahid@undp.org While the Procurement Unit would endeavour to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 3 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice 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.
The interested offeror must read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=96952 | ||||||||||||||