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Consultant on curriculum development and advocacy to support community-based volunteer firefighting stations .

Vacancy Number: Pr20/02094

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	02 Oct 2020, 16:30 (GMT+2:00)
Application Extended deadline:	09 Oct 2020, 16:30 (GMT+2:00)
Starting date:	07 Oct 2020
Reference to the project:	Promotion of climate change and disaster risk reduction solution in the water and civil protection sectors for enhanced rural resilience
Expected Duration of Assignment:	during 3 months (up to 30 working days)
Submission Instructions: Proposals should be submitted by email, no later than 02 October 2020. Requests for clarification only must be sent by standard electronic communication to the following e-mail: cristina.cotofana@undp.org. UNDP will respond by standard electronic mail and will send written copies of the response, including an explanation of the query without identifying the source of inquiry, to all applicants.
Supporting Documents: Individual Consultant Procurement Notice Terms of Reference OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP CONFIRMING INTEREST AND AVAILABILITY FOR THE INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTOR (IC) ASSIGNMENT UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Ms. Cristina Cotofana.

Background

Considering its economic structure and geographic features, Moldova is highly vulnerable to climate change and is exposed to disasters due to hydrometeorological phenomena and natural hazards.  While drought and floods are among top hydro-meteorological hazards caused by extreme weather and climate events, due to the current and projected abnormal high temperatures leading to water scarcity, the incidence of forest fires is increasingly posing a threat to natural ecosystems, the agricultural system and human settlements.

Such high exposure is due to the country’s dependence on rain-fed agricultural production which is tied to climate, making it the most vulnerable of all economic sectors. This is primarily due to the shortage of water for agricultural needs and limited resources and capacities to plan and put in place water storage facilities for irrigation needs in rural communities of Moldova, especially, since climate projections show larger rainfall events in the future, which could supply such facilities.

Climate scenarios also indicate the country is strongly trending towards becoming more arid. Unfortunately, rural communities experience a capacity deficit in terms of fire prevention, preparedness and timely response, mainly due to the liquidation of over 400 equipped and capacitated firefighting units. It resulted in increased response time and lower awareness of fire risks by the rural population, subsequently leading to considerable increase in loss of life, property and affected ecosystems. It is widely accepted that rural women are disproportionately affected by fires due to them being mostly engaged in cooking in unsafe cook stoves and collection of firewood in ecosystems that might be at high risk of fires.

Against this background, the project aims to increase resilience and adaptive capacities of rural communities to climate change and disasters through improved water storage infrastructures and disasters risk reduction measures. The project is supporting implementation of climate-smart water management solutions for agriculture, flood management, fire prevention and expansion of community-based rescue/firefighting teams in rural communities of Moldova with the purpose of reducing the exposure and vulnerability of the rural communities to climate change and disaster risks. The project will be implemented over a period of 36 months and the activities are clustered around 2 major outputs intended to produce impact in 5 districts of Moldova, in the Central (Hincesti, Criuleni and Ungheni districts) and Southern (Leova and Cantemir) regions.

Scope of work

In order to ensure that the performance of the climate and disaster response local teams in the target communities is exercised at its full capacity, this assignment will concentrate on the review of the current training curricula and attestation for professional firefighters and rescuers and based on it -- elaborate a curricula for volunteer and community level firefighters and rescuers incorporating the specifics for this non-professional intervention group. Thus, the main outcome of the assignment is to ultimately strengthen the professional capacities of the community-level rescue/firefighting staff and volunteers from rural communities through a tailor-made and targeted training curricula and attestation process.

For detailed information, please refer to Annex 1 – Terms of Reference.

Requirements for experience

1. Academic Qualifications:

• University degree in law, disaster risk management or other relevant fields.

2. Experience and knowledge:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible professional experience working on disaster risk reduction associated with firefighting as part of development programs/projects.
• At least 5 years of experience in working with Moldova’s state institutions involved in disaster risk reduction and firefighting, including in matters related to elaboration and implementation of curricula, trainings and capacity development.
• At least 3 assignments during the previous 5 years in working with the development and improvement of training curricula, educational materials in fields related to firefighting and disaster risk management.
• At least 3 years of experience in conducting needs/capacity assessment and in developing training curricula to various target groups.
• Experience of working and collaborating with the CPAs, LPAs and UN is an asset.

 3. Competencies:

• Excellent written communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize project outputs and relevant findings for the preparation of analytical documents.
• Capacity to build strong relationships with beneficiaries, to focus on impact and result and to respond positively to feedback.
• Excellent language skills in Romanian is mandatory. Knowledge of Russian and/or English will be an asset.

4. Personal qualities:

• Proven commitment to the core values of the United Nations, in particular, for differences of culture, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, language, age, HIV status, disability, and sexual orientation, or other status.

Documents to be included

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Proposal:

• Providing a brief information on each of the above qualifications, item by item and a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work (if applicable).

2. Financial proposal (in USD), specifying a fee per day and total requested amount including all related costs, e.g. fees, per diems, phone calls etc.
3. Up-to-date CV with at least 3 names for a reference check.
4. Offeror’s letter to UNDP confirming interest and availability for the individual contractor (IC) assignment.

Financial proposal

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including fees, taxes, travel costs, accommodation costs, communication, and number of anticipated working days).  

The financial proposal will specify the daily fee and payments are made to the Individual Consultant based on the number of days worked.

Travel

All envisaged travel costs shall be covered by the project.  In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant prior to travel and will be reimbursed.