Regional disaster risk reduction specialist - Latin America and Caribbean region

Background

UNDP occupies a critical niche within the UN family in the achievement of impact in the field of Crisis Prevention and Recovery (CPR). UNDP seeks to foster a global network in which the causes of natural and man-made social, political, security and economic crises are identified and analyzed and pro-active mechanisms are developed and implemented for effective and timely interventions before, during, and after crises, to minimize their negative impact on human security, the achievement of the MDGs, and other long-term development goals.

UNDP, and especially its Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) in close partnership with the Regional Bureaus thus aims to promote crisis-sensitive development and consolidate peace, primarily through UNDP Country Offices, and in partnership with other key stakeholders. This is done mainly through integrated needs assessments, the mobilization and provision of crisis prevention and recovery knowledge and services, and their integration into the corporate, national, regional and global development and human security agendas through development programmes.

In line with UNDP’s strategy to enhance its support to country offices through the establishment of Regional Service Centers (RSCs), bringing together policy, technical, programmatic, operational, and coordination advisory resources and capacities from all the relevant Bureaus to ensure cohesion among the various services provided to country offices, the Disaster Reduction Specialist will be stationed in the UNDP Regional Service Center in Panama.

Under the day-to-day supervision of the Regional Disaster Reduction Advisor and the overall guidance of the CPR Cluster Leader, and in full collaboration with other disaster experts within the team, the Disaster Reduction Specialist will be responsible for providing technical support to UNDP country offices under the thematic area of disaster risk reduction and recovery. In addition, the Regional Disaster Reduction Specialist will, as required, represent UNDP in the broader regional community of practice on Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery, including within the UN system and bilateral partners.

Duties and Responsibilities
The Disaster Reduction Specialist will perform specific functions as follows:

- Advise country offices in the region of natural disaster reduction programmatic services and support them to participate in and contribute to the implementation of BCPR’s overall programme strategy and UNDP’s strategic plan.

- Provide technical input for the design, development, and implementation of UNDP disaster reduction and early recovery initiatives at the national and sub-regional levels in the countries, including the formulation of national and regional capacity building programmes.

- Engage with the coordinators of BCPR's thematic programs related to risk identification, mainstreaming, capacity development, climate risk management, urban risk management, recovery and gender to make sure that regional and national-level programming is technically sound and gender-sensitive.

- Appraise Country Office requests for TRAC 3 Category II support in case of natural disasters and provide technical advisory for the assessment, strategic planning and programming of post disaster recovery interventions in the countries.

- In post-disaster situations, contribute to the preparation of appeals in co-ordination with OCHA’s regional advisors, ensuring that UNDP transition recovery needs are adequately reflected.

- Assist with and track post-disaster recovery processes in countries included in portfolio.

- Provide policy level input for the development of national and regional disaster reduction strategies and institutional and legislative systems for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into national development planning and programming.

- Support the development of synergies between UNDP disaster risk reduction strategies and relevant regional and national strategies related to poverty alleviation, governance, and energy and environment.

- Substantively contribute to regional and sub-regional consultations on appropriate disaster risk reduction policy initiatives and present evidence-based inputs for regional policy development, including lessons learned and evaluations of UNDP’s experience in disaster risk reduction in the region.

- Prepare regional inputs for the formulation of UNDP corporate policy, guidelines and practice notes on disaster risk reduction and recovery.

- Provide technical assistance for project development and Joint Programme at the country level where requested.

- Identify disaster risk hot spots in the region to promote risk reduction programming in the region.

- Provide technical input and contribute to the development of regional strategies.

- Provide substantive inputs to the DRR project documents developed by the CO´s ensuring that CPR criteria and 8 point agenda is included on it.

- Provide appropriate technical support to ongoing UNDP Country Office disaster reduction and recovery projects, including monitoring the achievement of outputs, outcomes and goals and ensuring that substantive and financial reporting is provided, in accordance with the MoU signed between UNDP and donors for those activities receiving support from BCPR managed funds.

- Provide support to the program of National Disaster Reduction Advisors in the region.

- Monitor and advise on BCPR’s programme resources, including TRAC 113 and Crisis Prevention and Recovery (CPR) Trust Funds. This includes helping country offices prepare allocation requests, providing feedback to the allocation committee as to the country office’s needs and capacities to launch new programmes and absorb new and/or old allocations, and tracking resource use over the project cycle.

- Provide substantive inputs from the region for the development of a roster of outsourced personnel for disaster reduction and transition recovery purposes and supervise the work of consultants on disaster reduction and recovery issues and authorize payments.

- Provide inputs for the production and dissemination of both regular and occasional reports on UNDP activities in disaster reduction and transition recovery in the region.

- Provide technical advice and support the development and effective deployment of BCPR’s knowledge management and policy products.

- Provide relevant substantive inputs to knowledge networking, including responding to Country Office requests for information on best practice and offering referrals to experts and expert institutions.

- Identify critical components for the development of strategic partnerships and alliances for achievement of UNDP’s overall strategy and policies in the region, with other UN organizations (in particular OCHA, the ISDR Secretariat and other disaster related programmes), multilateral organizations, regional member state organizations, civil society and the academia, and with donors and programme countries. Contribute to the establishment of such partnerships, drafting of agreements and monitoring of implementation.

- Conduct regular meetings and coordinate with the technical units on programme management to identify and address the key issues in a timely and systematic manner.

Impact of Results

The key results have an impact on the overall performance of the CPR Cluster and success in implementation of regional strategies and projects national and regional level.

Competencies
Corporate Competencies:

- Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN values and ethical standards

- Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP

- Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

- Treats all people fairly without favoritism

- Excellent analytical and organizational skills

Functional Competencies:
Knowledge Management and Learning

- Promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture in the office

- Has good knowledge on UNDP programme and operational issues

- Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more Practice Areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills

- Has knowledge of UNDP/UN policies and programme in disaster and disaster risk  situations.

Development and Operational Effectiveness:

- Ability to lead and contribute to strategic planning, change processes, results-based management, work planning, and reporting.

- Ability to lead formulation, oversight of implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects.

- Ability to apply development theory to the specific country context to identify creative, practical approaches to overcome challenging situations.

- Ability to build and sustain effective partnerships with UN Agencies and main constituents, advocate effectively, communicate sensitively across different constituencies.

Management and Leadership:

- Focuses on impact and results for the client and responds positively to feedback

- Ability to establish effective working relations in a multicultural team environment

- Excellent interpersonal skills

- Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude

- Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills

- Builds strong relationships with internal and external clients

- Demonstrates capacity to communicate effectively; resource management; capacity to plan and organize programmes effectively

- Demonstrates resourcefulness, initiative and mature judgment

Required Skills and Experience

- Advanced university degree in international development/ relations, environmental science or other development-related fields, or equivalent professional experience

- At least 7 years of professional experience in programme management related to natural disaster reduction and recovery

- Field experience in a country in special development circumstances including in post-disaster settings preferable; Understanding of UN/ UNDP programming modalities is an asset

- Fluency in English and Spanish, both spoken and written is required. Working knowledge of Portuguese and French is an asset.