Empleos en el PNUD - 104105- National Consultant for Regional Research on COVID

National Consultant for Regional Research on COVID-19 Medical Waste Management (Myanmar National Only)

Localidad :

Home Based, Myanmar

Tipo de contrato :

Individual Contract

Fecha de comienzo del contrato :

01-Feb-2022

Fecha límite de postulación :

26-Jan-22 (Medianoche Nueva York, Estados Unidos)

Nivel de puesto :

National Consultant

Duración del contrato inicial :

30 working days

Idiomas requeridos :

Inglés

Duración esperada del puesto :

El PNUD está comprometido con lograr la diversidad de su personal en términos de género, nacionalidad y cultura. Se alienta por igual a las personas que pertenecen a grupos minoritarios, a pueblos indígenas o que tienen alguna discapacidad a presentar su candidatura. Todas las solicitudes se tratarán con la mayor confidencialidad. UNDP no tolera la explotación y el abuso sexual, ningún tipo de acoso, incluido el acoso sexual, ni la discriminación. Por lo tanto, todos los candidatos seleccionados serán sometidos a una rigurosa verificación de referencias y antecedentes.

Antecedentes

COVID-19, with its highly contagious and transmissible nature, has led to the exponential increase of healthcare waste generated in healthcare and quarantine facilities, medical laboratories and biomedical research facilities. Additionally, the increase in the amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) used during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to normal circumstances, has further contributed towards the increase in healthcare solid waste. For example, recent research estimated that every minute 3 million facial masks are thrown away globally and in some cities in the Asia and the Pacific the volume of medical waste has been increased by 500% on average compared with before COVID-19 figures.

If not properly treated and managed, such large amount of waste will pose serious risks of disease transmission to waste pickers, waste workers, health workers, patients, and the community in general through exposure to infectious agents. In addition, unmanaged or poor-managed waste will also cause pollution and create new environmental risks.

COVID-19 has put significant additional burden on all phases of medical waste management systems, from segregation, collection, storage, transportation, treatment to final disposal. In light of the serious issue, international organizations such as WHO have developed a series of guidelines to support the countries manage healthcare waste resulting from the current pandemic. Many countries have also formulated policies, plans and SOPs on COVID-19 medical waste management at national and local levels. However, institutional and capacity gaps continue to persist, such as shortage of waste treatment equipment and facilities, lack of technologies for safe transportation and disposal, lack of professional workers and expertise for safe operations and the need for awareness-raising and behavioral changes towards better management of COVID medical waste etc.

UNDP, in partnership with the Government of China, is undertaking a regional project to support COVID-19 medical waste management capacity building in 5 countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and Philippines. Under the project, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Building Team at UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH), in collaboration with Country Offices in the project countries, aims to conduct a series of research to better understand the most pressing issues of medical waste management in 5 project countries through the systems approach, fostering changes in mindset, perceptions, behaviors and actions, towards more systematic and risk-informed medical waste management practices.

The research will take a phased approach, with baseline and benchmarking assessment as the initial step to map out the pinpoints that call for most attention and efforts of interventions, accompanied by a systems thinking workshop for each country to facilitate systems thinking and design among stakeholders supervising or working on multiple medical waste management stages. Based on the findings of baseline and benchmarking assessment, a research and experimentation will be conducted by applying behavioral insights (BI) to nudge for better changes in COVID medical waste management.

UNDP Myanmar is hiring a national consultant to support 1) an international consultant working on Health Care Waste (HCW) baseline and benchmarking assessment, and 2) an international consultant working on HCW behavioral insights, in terms of in-country data collection, stakeholder coordination and other research-related activities in close coordination with UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH).

Deberes y responsabilidades

Please check more information as following procurement notice Link:UNDP | Procurement Notices - 87176 - National Consultant for Regional

Competencias

Please check more information as following procurement notice Link: UNDP | Procurement Notices - 87176 - National Consultant for Regional

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Please check more information as following procurement notice Link: UNDP | Procurement Notices - 87176 - National Consultant for Regional