Livestock Specialist

About Asian Disaster Preparedness Center

ADPC is an autonomous international organization with a vision to reduce disaster and climate risk impacts on communities and countries in Asia and the Pacific by working with governments, development partners, international organizations, NGOs, civil society, private sector, media, and other key stakeholders. Established in 1986 as a technical capacity building center, ADPC has grown and diversified its expertise across social and physical sciences to support sustainable solutions for risk reduction across a broad range of specialist areas. With over 100 staff from 19 different nationalities and a wide range of professional expertise from atmospheric scientists to social scientists with experiences from all levels of engagement typically required for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Resilience (CR) in an effective manner. ADPC is a competent regional resource center and has seven thematic departments: ADPC Academy, Risk Governance, Climate Resilience, Urban Resilience, Health Risk Management, Preparedness for Response and Recovery, Geospatial Information. These are supported by Finance, Human Resources and Administration, and Strategic Planning departments. In addition to the departments, ADPC works on three cross-cutting themes: Gender and Diversity, Poverty and Livelihoods, and Regional and Transboundary Cooperation through permanent working committees. ADPC Strategy 2020 guides the organization in providing comprehensive risk reduction support to countries and communities in Asia and the Pacific. ADPC recognizes the importance of examining the linkages between disaster risk management, poverty reduction, gender equality, sustainability, rights-based approaches, climate change and regional cooperation. For details please refer to ADPC website at http://www.adpc.net/

Background

Disasters take a huge toll on the development agenda of SAR countries. Between 2000 and 2017, disasters in South Asia incurred estimated damages of US$ 149.27 billion. Public expenditure is under stress by the repeated need to reallocate capital budgets away from long term development planning and towards reconstruction activities in post-disaster environments. For example, since 2005, Pakistan has suffered losses on the order of US$ 16 billion due to natural disasters. In Bangladesh, 2007 Cyclone Sidr resulted in damages and losses of US$1.7 billion, or 2.6 per cent of GDP. To increase resilience and achieve climate commitments, there is a need for a transformational shift towards policies and institutions that enable climate-resilient investments. Investing in more resilient infrastructure is both profitable and urgent as disruptions are extremely costly for governments, households and private sector and large ongoing investments in infrastructure assets will have long-lasting repercussions as poor maintenance and natural disasters result in a vulnerable stock. With the financial support from the World Bank Group, ADPC will be implementing a five years’ project, titled “Climate Adaptation and Resilience Project for South Asia” (CARE). The project aims to create an enabling environment for climate resilience policies and investments across South Asia. This objective will be achieved through enhanced regional cooperation and knowledge exchange for climate resilience and adaptation and mainstreaming of resilience and adaptation in national policies, plans and investments.

The agricultural sector in Bangladesh has grown steadily in recent years, driven by an increase in productivity and efficiency achieved through investments in improved technology and mechanization supported by conducive public policies. Livestock is an integral component of the agricultural sector of Bangladesh and is second to agriculture in the economy of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is one of the most climate change the vulnerable country in the world and the lack of accessible and reliable climate information among farmers represents a considerable challenge to the scaling out of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) and Livestock practices. Strengthening climate information services and making them easily accessible to farmers would greatly improve their capacity to adapt to changes. CSA technologies and practices will provide opportunities for addressing climate change challenges, as well as for economic growth and development of the agriculture sector in Bangladesh. Scaling up the national livestock related policies in context with climate-smart agriculture in Bangladesh is vital to satisfactorily implement all the required components of the project. It would involve a review of national and sectoral policies to support in the development of climate-resilient tools and guides for the agriculture sector including livestock. Accordingly, a highly qualified and experienced Livestock Specialist will be required to support in reviewing national and sectoral guidelines for the agriculture and livestock sector. S/he will be selected on a competitive basis following World Bank Procurement Regulations. The objectives of this consultancy service are to:

• Identify national and sub-national best practices and methods of livestock practices in Bangladesh;
• Review national and sectoral guidelines, policies, programs, frameworks etc. for livestock sub-sector under the agriculture sector;
• Conduct needs assessment and validation workshops for the agriculture and livestock sector;
• Develop strategic options on climate-smart livestock and validate through the participatory process;
• Support in scaling up climate-smart agriculture and livestock practices;
• Integrate strategic climate considerations for climate-smart livestock including monitoring framework to strengthen climate-smart agriculture

Statement of Intent

The Livestock Specialist will lead in national-level livestock specific activities under agriculture sector through reviewing various documents, assessing data for the livestock sector and liaising with stakeholders in public and private sector. The consultant will provide further support in developing tools and guidelines to support climate-smart agriculture and livestock. The Livestock Specialist will be based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Note: It is not the intent of this Terms of Reference to cover every aspect of the position requirements, rather highlight the most important areas of personal and joint responsibilities.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Livestock Specialist shall be responsible for:

Technical Review and Support

• Conducting and developing analysis and evaluation report on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) strategy for Bangladesh and detailed study on climate challenges in livestock;
• Preparing strategic options on climate-smart livestock and validate through the participatory process;
• Developing strategic options on climate-smart livestock and validate through the participatory process;
• Integrating strategic climate considerations for climate-smart livestock including monitoring framework to strengthen CSA;
• Providing inputs to identify national and sub-national best practices and methods of climate smart agriculture and livestock in Bangladesh;
• Reviewing various documents including policies, plans, acts, guidelines, institutional setup related to livestock management in Bangladesh

Assessment

• Arranging and conducting key informant interviews and focus group discussions to support in developing an analysis and evaluation report for a climate-smart agriculture strategy;
• Support in conducting consultations and workshops to finalize climate-related hazard and risk assessment methodologies for the agricultural sector and validation workshop to finalize strategic options on climate-smart agriculture.

Tool and Guides Development

• Supporting in identifying national and sub-national best climate-smart practices and methods of livestock management in Bangladesh;
• Providing inputs from livestock perspective to climate modelling with future climate data to develop strategic climate scenarios;
• Developing a monitoring framework and a draft climate-smart agriculture strategy to strengthen climate-smart agriculture and livestock;
• Providing information for climate-smart agriculture and livestock strategic framework that considers climate-extreme risk and mitigation solutions along with developing strategic options on climate-smart livestock;
• Preparing draft guidelines for climate-smart agriculture and livestock for Government of Bangladesh;
• Developing country-specific chapters for regional guidelines for Government of Bangladesh on climate-smart agriculture and livestock through incorporating stakeholder inputs and preparing dissemination of IEC materials.

Coordination and Reporting

• Performing other relevant tasks as assigned by the Director, Climate Resilience, Project Director, Country Project Lead and the Resilient Agriculture Specialist (Regional) in Bangkok Office.
• The consultant will coordinate with Resilient Agriculture Specialist (National) in Bangladesh to provide necessary technical inputs.

Deliverables

• Inputs to the inception report on the performance of the livestock sub-sector to identify policy, institutional, and regulatory set-up in Bangladesh;
• Report on climate-smart agriculture (CSA) strategy for Bangladesh and detailed study on climate challenges in livestock;
• Review report of various documents including policies, plans, acts, guidelines, institutional set-up related to CSA and Livestock in Bangladesh;
• Report on strategic options on climate-smart livestock;
• Workshop, KII and FGD reports with a summary of key points;
• Report on climate-smart agriculture strategy including monitoring framework to strengthen CSA and livestock;
• Any other deliverables required by Director, Climate Resilience and Resilient Agriculture Specialist (Regional) in Bangkok Office during the consultancy period.

Qualifications

The candidate should at least have:

• A master’s degree in animal science, animal husbandry or agriculture-related field with complementary knowledge in livestock development planning;
• At least 7 years’ practical experience in the planning and implementation of the livestock development program at the country level;
• At least 5 years of professional and practical work experience in livestock or animal production projects at the field or national level;
• Knowledge and experience of latest climate-smart agriculture policies, livestock policies, frameworks etc. in South Asia and Bangladesh;
• Teamwork with strong communication skills and capacity to work under pressure and short deadlines;
• Cross-cultural awareness and ability to work amongst a diverse group of staff, and partners;
• Required computer proficiencies: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Internet;
• Experience in training and capacity building;
• Excellent English proficiency in oral and written communication, including a demonstrated track record in technical report writing and ability to communicate technical matters effectively to a general audience;
• Fluency in Bengali language preferred;

Reporting Relationships

The Livestock Specialist will report to Country Project Lead for the day to day activities and maintain close coordination with the ADPC’s Country Representative in Bangladesh. The technical oversight will be provided by Agriculture Sector Lead (Regional) at the Bangkok office through the PIU. The specialist will also coordinate with the other CARE project specialists at the regional and national level to carry out different activities under the project.