Publication Expert

A. About Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC):

ADPC is an autonomous international organization with a vision to reducing disaster and climate risk impacts on communities and countries in Asia and the Pacific region 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. ADPC has 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.

B. Background

Disasters take a huge toll on the development agenda of South Asian 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, the 2007 Cyclone Sidr resulted in damages and losses of US$1.7 billion or 2.6 percent of GDP.

To increase resilience and achieve climate commitments, there is a need for a transformational shift toward 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 the 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 financial support from the World Bank Group, ADPC is implementing a five-year (2020-2025) project, titled “Climate Adaptation and Resilience Project (CARE) for South Asia”. 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 Project Development Objective of CARE for South Asia is “To contribute to an enabling environment for climate-resilient policies and investments in select sectors and countries in South Asia”. The project is supporting the region in building resilience to climate change by improving the availability of regional data and knowledge, developing guidelines, tools and capacities, and promoting climate-resilient decisions, policies and investments across key sectors. The project will promote the transformation of policies and institutional capacities for climate-resilient development in agriculture, transport, integrated water resources management, policy & planning, and finance in South Asia. Considering key results from the Global Climate Risk Index 2019, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh are IDA countries which rank higher than others in the region. The project intervention will be carried out in three select countries including Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. ADPC will facilitate high-level dialogues, develop climate-resilient guidelines in the priority sectors, and promote innovation and adoption of disruptive technology at national and regional levels. Anchored in building on the governments’ plans, the project will facilitate national institutions to meet commitments under the various global frameworks, such as the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Pakistan has the world’s fourth-highest rate of water use (amount in cubic meters per unit of GDP) and the most water-intensive economy in the world. The country’s per capita surface water availability has declined from 5,260 cubic meters in 1951 to around 1,000 cubic meters in 2016. This is likely to further drop to 860 cubic meters by 2025, marking the country’s transition from a “water-stressed” to a “water-scarce” country. The surface water, groundwater and rainfall runoff are sources of water resources in Pakistan. One of the major drivers of water resource depletion is the over-exploitation of groundwater resources to fulfill drinking water supply and irrigation needs, among others. As an agrarian economy, Pakistan requires water resources conservation and management practices enhanced to fulfill agricultural water demand in light of climate change impacts. The Indus River and its network of canals called “Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS)” is the main source of surface water resources which fulfill water demand of Punjab and Sindh Provinces. Sindh, the 2nd largest populated province of Pakistan; fulfills 95% of its irrigated agriculture share of surface water received from Indus basin irrigation system (IBIS). In Sindh, the IBIS surface water resources not only fulfill water demands from agricultural, but also industrial, domestic, and WASH sector. The province is unable to cultivate its 25% cultivable land due to non-availability of the irrigation water which cannot be increased further. However, by adapting water efficient practices, the existing water sources can be managed to bring extra land under cultivation through vertical expansion (water use efficiencies by adapting resource conservation practices) and horizontal expansion to bring more area under cultivation to achieve food security for ever increasing population of the province/country.

Several traditional adaptive water management practices are also being carried out in certain areas of Sindh which have a potential of scaling up. Additionally, research and development organizations have also done considerable evidenced based scientific research and piloted water efficient practices in certain identified areas in the province. However, these practices sometimes lack scaling up opportunity across the country/provincial level due to lack of dissemination strategy by the intermediaries and or ownership of the provincial governments. CARE for South Asia project has agreed to co-develop and document these best practices on adaptive water resources management practices of Sindh Province in collaboration with Irrigation and Agriculture departments of Government of Sindh.

In this setting, services of an individual consultant is required to assist ADPC in designing and developing a e-book and a hardcopy version containing identified best practices of adaptive water resources management in Sindh which is currently being screened and documented under the guidance of a Technical Working Group set up by Sindh Irrigation Department, Sindh.

C. Statement of Intent

The Publication Expert will design and develop

• Best-practices document with info-graphics, photographs, design of the best practices and video interviews of the farmers implementing the practice for 10 -15 adaptive water resources management interventions in Sindh
• E-book and hardcopy version of the document needs to be prepared.

Note:

It is not the intent of this Terms of Reference to cover every aspect of the position requirements, rather to highlight the most important areas of personal and joint responsibilities.

D. Duties and Responsibilities

The Publication Expert will be responsible for:

• Copy-editing of the narrations of the best practices identified and documented by ADPC and approved by Technical Working Group set up by Govt. of Sindh.
• Designing and layout of the best-practices document with info-graphics, photographs, design of the best practices and video interviews of the farmers implementing the practice (with QR Codes of videos in hard copy version).
• Development of an interactive e-book on the best practices.
• Development of print-ready colored hard bound hard copy version of the best practices document (80 – 100 pages).
• Launch video of book with voice over narrating the content of the book and its need with narrative of climate change impact on water resources of Sindh, Pakistan.

E. Qualifications

The individual consultant should at least have:

• Bachelor’s degree in digital communication, information technology or equivalent
• Experience in working digital communication, digital publishing in the private sector or in a startup business model
• Experience in writing, editing and producing communication materials (social media, blogs, newspaper article) for different platforms
• Excellent command of written and spoken English
• Work experience in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal is not required but preferred.

F. Deliverables and Payment Plan

1. Signing of the Contract along with plan of implementation of the activity (development of e-book), draft outline of the e-book and its content acceptable to ADPC (20% of the payment)
2. Delivery of the final copy edited, designed and laid out final version of interactive e-book and a pdf version of the hardcopy, accepted by ADPC (80% of the payment)

G. Reporting Relationships

The Publication Expert will report to the Director, Climate Resilience and work in close coordination with Project Director CARE for South Asia Project, Bangkok (Thailand). The technical oversight will be provided by Integrated Water Resources Management Specialist (Regional) at the Bangkok office and country water sector specialists in Pakistan through the PIU.

H. Contract Duration

The contract duration will be for 6 months period with no scope for extension.

Expected Start date: Immediate

I. Selection Method

The consultant will be selected in accordance with ADPC’s recruitment process and in compliance with the World Bank Procurement Regulations.

How to apply

Interested Candidates can submit the completed ADPC application form,

(downloadable from ‘Join us’ in www.adpc.net), resume, copy of degrees/certificate(s) together

with a cover letter, to: procurement.care@adpc.net

For inquiries, please contact to procurement.care@adpc.net

Female candidates are especially encouraged to apply.

ADPC encourage diversity in its workplace and support an inclusive work environment.