Technical Advisor - Small Grants Project (SGP) - NPSA 11 (Short-term)

Contract

This is a NPSA-11 contract. This kind of contract is known as National Personnel Services Agreement. It is normally only for nationals. It usually requires 7 years of experience, depending on education. More about NPSA-11 contracts.

Background

The Global Environment Facility supported Small Grants Programme of UNDP is aimed at supporting the achievement of global environmental benefits and the protection of the global environment through community and local solutions that work in harmony with local, national and global action. To that end, the objective of this project is to enable community organizations to take collective action for adaptive landscape management for socio-ecological resilience through design, implementation, and evaluation of grant projects for global environmental benefits and sustainable development in three ecologically sensitive landscapes:

a) the Knuckles Conservation Forest and its buffer zone;

b) the coastal region from Mannar Island to Jaffna; and,

c) the Colombo Wetlands.

This will be carried out through participatory, multi-stakeholder, landscape management using the COMDEKS approach. The proposed interventions are aimed at enhancing social and ecological resilience through community-based, community-driven projects to conserve biodiversity, optimize ecosystem services, manage land (particularly agro-ecosystems) and water sustainably, and mitigate climate change. The pilots will build on experience and lessons learned from previous SGP operational phases, and lessons learned from the COMDEKS Programme, to assist community organizations in carrying out and coordinating projects in pursuit of outcomes they have identified in landscape plans and strategies. Coordinated community projects in the landscape will generate ecological, economic and social synergies that will produce greater and potentially longer-lasting global environmental benefits, as well as increased social capital and local sustainable development benefits. Multi-stakeholder groups will also take experience, lessons learned, and best practices from prior initiatives and implement a number of potential scaling up efforts during this project’s lifetime.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

1. Technical Advisor will provide advisory services to the SGP Project Coordinator and National Steering Committee on various technical aspects of the project, especially on inception phase of the OP 7 cycle, on a part-time basis.

2. The Technical Advisor will report to the National Project Coordinator of the Small Grants Programme and will ensure that the implementation of the technical aspects of the project is on a right track.

3. The primary scope of the consultancy is to provide necessary technical advisory services on the implementation of key project activities and complete In particular the organization of the multi-sectoral working groups, advise on preparation of the landscape baseline assessments and strategies, the selection of the small grant eligibility criteria, advise on the formulation of the landscape-level project implementation strategy.

Institutional Arrangement

The Technical Advisor will report to the National Project Coordinator – SGP. The Technical Advisor is expected to be from the SGP OP7 programme landscapes (Colombo or Kandy/Matale or Mannar) and is expected to work from home as an individual consultant and is expected to engage in site visits to SGP project locations in Knuckles and its buffer zone areas, Coastal area from Mannar to Jaffna and the Colombo wetlands where standard UN daily subsitance allowance will be provided with travel.

Competencies

Core Competencies

Achieve Results:

LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline

Think Innovatively:

LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements

Learn Continuously:

LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback

Adapt with Agility:

LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible

Act with Determination:

LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident

Engage and Partner:

LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships

Enable Diversity and Inclusion:

LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies

Thematic Area

Name

Definition

2030 Agenda

Nature, Climate and Energy

Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Illegal Wildlife

2030 Agenda

Nature, Climate and Energy

Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Natural Resource Management

2030 Agenda

Gender

Gender Mainstreaming

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Education requirements

Master’s degree or equivalent in the areas of development, biodiversity conservation, natural resource management or related fields.

Min. years of relevant work experience

Minimum 7 years of demonstrable experience in the areas of biodiversity conservation, natural resources management, land management, soil conservation on biodiversity, Climate Change and M & E or related field.

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section

• Good knowledge on indicator analysis is an asset.
• Capacity to work with multiple stakeholders across a wide range of disciplines is an asset.
• Good analytic capacity and ability to synthesize relevant collected data and findings for the preparation of case studies and progress reports is desirable.
• Ability to seek and apply knowledge, information and best practices from multiple sectors is desirable.
• Proven background on development and implementation of biodiversity monitoring, M&E and project management is desirable
• Experience working with civil society organizations and multi stakeholders using the landscape conservation approach is desirable

Required Language(s)

Excellent command of English with Sinhala and/or Tamil written and spoken language skills.