International Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilient Reconstruction Expert

Contract

This is a International Consultant contract. More about International Consultant contracts.

Background

Due to its morphology and location, Mozambique is a coastal country that is highly vulnerable to extreme climate events. Cyclones are the most frequent of them, hitting severely the settlements along the coast and once inland, provoking prolonged and heavy rainfalls, which generate extensive floods. On March 14th, 2019, Cyclone Idai made landfall in the urban area of Beira Dondo (approx. 700,000 people), causing major damages and destruction, and then moving westwards through Sofala and Manica Provinces along the Beira corridor, until reaching Zimbabwe where it died off. This cyclone and the subsequent large floods affected approximately 3 million people in the South-Eastern Africa, half of which in Mozambique, but also in Zimbabwe and Malawi. It claimed around 1,000 lives, injured thousands of people, displaced 150,000 people, damaged or destroyed over 240,000 houses, in addition to causing heavy infrastructure destruction (roads, bridges, schools, health centres, telecommunication, electricity networks, etc.), agricultural losses (ahead of the harvesting season, leading to food insecurity) and spreading of diseases. On April 25th tropical Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in northern Mozambique, after impacting on the Comorian archipelago, affecting Cabo Delgado and Nampula provinces, with similar type of consequences as Idai, although in lesser dimensions. The cyclone struck almost 200,000 people, most of them already vulnerable due to a fragile health system and weak water and sanitation infrastructure. The United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) has been working with the government of Mozambique for more than 16 years providing technical and on-site assistance to know-how for supporting climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and resilience building activities since 2002. Following the disasters UN-Habitat Country Team in Mozambique, supported by the Regional Office for Africa (ROAF) and several branches at headquarter level immediately activated its experts and defined a Recovery Strategy, based on extensive consultations carried out between mid-April and mid-July 2019, including by the UN-Habitat Executive Director, the Director of the Regional Office for Africa and the Emergency Director, with high-level government officials (President of the Republic, Ministers, Sofala Province Governor, Director of the Reconstruction Office), several mayors (Beira, Dondo, Pemba, Quelimane, etc.), community representatives, bi-lateral and multi-lateral development partners and sister UN Agencies, as well as field visits to the affected areas and preliminary assessments.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Coordinate project start-up and implementation activities of initiatives that are going to be implemented under Axis 2 of the “Post-Cyclones Building Back Better and Resilience Building” strategy for effective and efficient execution of first activities by working in close collaboration: - (Internally) with the programme manager, technical officers, and field staff, in activities development and implementation, including work planning and reporting. - (Externally) with the Government at the different levels, co-implementing partners (sister agencies, NGOs and CBO/CSOs), communities and private sector.
• Perform technical advisory and supervision in participatory planning for recovery and resilient reconstruction, resilient housing and community infrastructure prioritization and implementation, with particular focus on the above-mentioned AICS joint project where UN-Habitat has the task to lead a team including ILO and UNESCO to perform a multidimensional resilient recovery in Ibo and Búzi districts.
• Support the Programme Manager in coordination on projects related technical and operational work between Mozambique country office and UN-Habitat HQ and related branches, as well as with the co-implementing agencies.
• Support the Programme Manager in establishing and maintaining a fluid and continuous relation with the donor, in order to fulfil contract obligations in terms of coordination and deliverables.
• Support the Programme Manager in establishing the implementation conditions in the prioritized districts, supporting in recruitment and inception of technical staff (in the sectors of planning, construction, community mobilization etc), as well as in the establishment of consultative mechanisms with local authorities and relevant local stakeholders.
• Provide capacity building, training, technical and operational support to the project team and project partners, focusing especially on national and local authorities involved in the activities at the different stages, related with multidimensional integrated recovery at settlement level, based on UN-Habitat vast experience and best practices in Disaster Risk Reduction and adaptation to climate change.
• Review and comment regularly on deliverables produced by the project team prior to submission to the programme manager, headquarter and donors, with a view to ensure quality assurance and quality standards expected of international organizations.
• Contribute to the consolidation and development of new ideas, concepts, innovations and new programmes and approaches.
• Any other assignments requested by the supervisors.
• The Adviser will be part of a multidisciplinary team managing and guiding the Post Disaster Recovery and Resilient Reconstruction Programme, which is composed of Country Programme Manager (UN-Habitat), Country Coordinating Advisor for Recovery, project officers (architects, urban planners, DRR experts, urban governance expert, climate change expert, resilient construction experts, interns, among other staff recruited over time, supporting coordination of initiatives under Axis 1, and in particular related with the Multi-dimensional resilient recovery of Ibo and Búzi district.

Competencies

Experience

• Minimum of 7 years of relevant and progressively responsible working experience at international level in the fields of disaster risk reduction, housing, and settlements (re)construction and participatory planning.
• Experience in interacting, collaborating, working, and effectively managing partnerships with government officials/institutions and development partners.
• Experience in project coordination related with disaster risk reduction, urban upgrading, and resilient housing promotion with proved successful experiences in promoting owner and community driven (re) construction.
• Experience in elaboration of technical guidelines and plans related with disaster risk reduction, urban upgrading, and resilient housing promotion.
• Working experience in the African continent, and in Mozambique in particular. Skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, to interact with institutions communities project partners etc.
• Excellent capacities of coordinating interdisciplinary teams in achieving clear results under tight deadlines and in complex local contexts.
• Excellent writing skills, with analytical capacity and ability to synthesize project outputs and relevant findings for the preparation of quality project proposals.
• Ability to work independently or with minimal supervision with a high degree of responsibility, in a flexible manner and often under pressure.

Languages

• Full proficiency in both oral and written English and Portuguese

Required Skills and Experience

• Master’s degree in urban planning/management, architecture, or equivalent.

• Documents to be submitted

  • Resume / CV

  • Financial Proposal based on monthly fee (22 days´ workload per month).

  Candidate Evaluation

  The contract shall be awarded to the individual consultant whose bid has been evaluated and determined as:

  • Responsive/compliant/acceptable.

  • Having received the highest score from a predetermined set of technical and financial criteria weighted specifically for this solicitation (technical criteria - 70 points and financial criteria - 30 points).

  Documents to be submitted

  • Resume / CV

  • Financial Proposal based on monthly fee (22 days´ workload per month).

  Selection criteria

  • Education according to the ToR - 20 points.

  • Experience according to the ToR - 40 points.

  • Skills according to the ToR - 30 points.

  • Interpretation of the ToR - 10 points

  Only applicants scoring a minimum of 70 points will be considered for the financial evaluation.

  Payment schedule

  Payment will be made in three installments according to the following criteria:

  15% at contract signature

  25% upon delivery of inception report and first product delivery

  25% upon delivery of intermediate consultancy report

  20% upon delivery of final draft of the consultancy products

  15% upon delivery of final consultancy report and final version of the products