Cambodia’s specific geographical location and long history and complicated topographical, ecological and social features has resulted in it becoming a prosperous, rich and diverse plant genetic resource country. While diverse climatic conditions diversified the country’s flora with both tropical and temperate plants, thousands of years of agricultural practice by ethnic groups enriched its crop genetic resources with large numbers of local cultivars and land races. In terms of medicinal plants, the high level of genetic diversity makes Cambodia an attractive country for bio-prospecting, especially given that there are approximately 800 known medicinal plants, many of which have associated traditional knowledge.  However, Cambodia faces a wide range of issues that threaten its biological diversity and ecological security. These threats emanate from the transition from a subsistence-based agrarian economy to a consumption-based cash economy, competing land use from urbanization and infrastructure development, poaching of wild plants and animals, localized overharvesting of timber, fuel wood and non-wood forest products, human-wildlife conflicts, and climate change. Because of the threat to biological resources, the traditional knowledge of local communities that is associated with genetic resources is disappearing rapidly, due to the change of traditional lifestyles. A large volume of traditional knowledge, such as medicinal use of biological resources, is being replaced by modern technology. The National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) of Cambodia was adopted in 2002. The NBSAP identified equity as the most important thing biological resources sustainably in the long run and calls for consideration of poor and economically disadvantage group to secure their access to common resources.

To counter the various threats to biodiversity, the country has planned various strategies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources for socio-economic development. However, making use of its biodiversity and traditional knowledge for the promotion of bioprospecting and of access and benefit- sharing (ABS) national regime that is constrained by several factors. Cambodia has no existing policy or legislation on ABS, the government recognizes the importance of establishing innovative schemes to derive equitable benefits through economic activities that are linked to sustainable utilization of natural resources and the institutional and personal capacity to carry out bio-prospecting beyond basic level and develop and manage ABS schemes that are compliant with Nagoya Protocol.

The project aims at strengthening human resources, legal frameworks and institutional capacities on access and benefit sharing of genetic resources to facilitate the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing. The above objective would be achieved through two components, namely

Component 1: Creating an enabling national policy, legal and institutional framework for ABS consistent with the CBD and its Nagoya Protocol
Component 2: Developing capacity and administrative measures for the implementation of the national ABS legal framework.

Under the overall guidance and supervision of the National Project Director, Project Coordinator, the selected International Consultant will be responsible for:

- S/he will develop national preliminary ABS legislation, which is stated in the Gap Analysis of ABS legislation in Cambodia in compliance with the Nagoya Protocol, annex 2;
- Review and define key elements into the proposed ABS outline/structure/skeleton which reflected to national circumstances and guidelines of drafting Cambodian legislation with supporting references and explanations;
- Together with national consultant, review and update stocktaking exercise to support the development of national ABS legislation;
- Work closely with the national consultant(s) and guide them in designing the national and sub-regional/local stakeholder consultation meetings.
- Provide the international perspectives presentation during the stakeholder consultation meetings.
- Participate in the consultation meeting and workshop, the ABS Sub-TWG meeting at the national level;
- Consolidate the comments, recommendations and feedback from stakeholders’ consultation meeting, workshop(s) and ABS Sub-TWG meeting with support from the national consultant;
- Compile reports about the finding and documentation;
- Submit the final draft national ABS legislation to project management unit (PMU), UNDP for review and PD for approval;

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=72476 for more  detail information about term  of references, instructions to offeror, and to download the documents to be submitted in the offer through online

• Strong analytical skills and ability in development of Policy and Frameworks;
• Excellent analytical capacity and ability to synthesize project outputs and relevant findings for the preparation of quality project reports;
• Ability to understand ABS terminology and its concepts and to analysis/synthesize information from different sources into a coherent project log-frame and framework;
• Skill in achieving results through persuading, influencing and working with others;
• Maturity and confidence in dealing with senior members of international, regional and national institutions;
• Displays sensitivity and adaptability to different cultures, genders, religions, races, nationalities and age groups;
• Good team player, self-starter, has ability to work under minimum supervision and maintain good relationships.

Education: 

At least Master or PhD (is preferable) degree in Environment law or policy relevant to natural resource management or environmental science, genetic resources, ecosystem services, and/or related field.

Experience:

• Prior experience in drafting or developing legislation on NRM or specific to ABS including research and development, knowledge on Nagoya Protocol, particularly ABS-related issues – min 10 years;
• Proven experience in ABS procedure, policy and legislation development in both user and provider countries;
• Specific international or country experience working on programs, projects research through any international or bilateral organization on ABS, INRM or negotiation related to fair and equitable sharing of benefit arising from the use of natural/genetic resources of the CBD will be an asset.

Language Requirement:

• Fluency in English required;
• Knowledge of Khmer is advantage

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

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

1. Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work

2. Financial proposal

3. Personal CV including experience in similar projects, list of publication written by Candidate and at least 3 references.

Interested Offerors are required to submit 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 document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail 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 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 aphikovith.phin@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org . While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 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 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