National Environmental and Social Safeguard/ESS Specialist (National Consultant)

Background

The Project Identification Form (PIF) titled ‘Effectively Managing Networks of Marine Protected Areas in Large Marine Ecosystems in the ASEAN Region (ASEAN ENMAPS) was approved by the GEF Council during its meeting in December 2021. A Project Preparation Grant (PPG) was approved to develop the project document and other requirements for GEF CEO endorsement.

Table 1: brief description of The Project’s objective, grant amounts, components, geographies and PPG team composition

UNDP, in collaboration with the Governments of the Philippines, seeks to engage a qualified National Environmental and Social Safeguards (ESS) Specialist to finalize the SESP, draft the UNDP Risk Register and prepare an Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) for the project. The PPG will support all the preparatory work required to draft and finalize all the documentation required by the GEF for CEO Endorsement. The PPG phase will be underpinned by a participatory approach, with regular consultation and working meetings with all key PPG stakeholders throughout the PPG phase. The consultant will be contributing to the delivery of the PPG tasks as specified below.

UNDP’s Social and Environmental Standards (SES) underpin UNDP’s commitment to mainstream social and environmental sustainability in our Programmes and Projects to support sustainable development. The objectives of the standards are to:

• Strengthen the social and environmental outcomes of Programmes and Projects
• Avoid adverse impacts to people and the environment
• Minimize, mitigate, and manage adverse impacts where avoidance is not possible
• Strengthen UNDP and partner capacities for managing social and environmental risks
• Ensure full and effective stakeholder engagement, including through a mechanism to respond to complaints from project-affected people

A key mechanism to ensure these standards are applied is through UNDP’s project-level Social and Environmental Screening Procedure (SESP) which is a requirement for all proposed projects. The objectives of the SESP are to: (a) Integrate the SES Overarching Principles (human rights, gender equality and environmental sustainability); (b) Identify potential social and environmental risks and their significance; (c) Determine the Project's risk category (Low, Moderate, High); and (d) Determine the level of social and environmental assessment and management required to address potential risks and impacts.

UNDP’s SES and SESP came into effect January 1, 2015. All guidance on UNDPs Social and Environmental Safeguards can be found in the SES Toolkit.

Institutional Arrangements

• The Consultant will be home-based and will report to, and be directly supervised by UNDP BRH, will coordinate closely with the UNDP-NCE Regional Technical Advisor (RTA) based in Bangkok and Climate Action Programme Analyst with whom all outputs shall be submitted and through whom all communications shall be coursed or copied.  
• The Consultant is expected to provide his/her own laptop for the work requirement.
• The Consultant will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• Given the virtual or face-to-face consultations to be undertaken during this assignment, the consultant is expected to be reasonably flexible with his/her availability for such consultations taking into consideration different time zones;
• The Consultant shall consider at least 5 working days lead time for UNDP to review outputs, give comments, certify approval/acceptance of outputs delivered, etc.

Duty Station and Duration of the Work:

Duty Station is in Home-based. The consultant will be engaged for 60 working days spread 18 months from March 2022 to November 2023, unless revised in a mutually agreed upon timetable by UNDP and the Contractor. Changes in the duration of the contract will be implemented through issuance of a contract amendment.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and declaration of State of Public Health Emergency in the Philippines, all work and travel of the Individual consultant shall be done within the guidelines and protocols set by the local and national government. Field work, trainings, meetings, and coordination shall be done in compliance with community quarantine policies.

Travel:

• Missions to the Project sites and stakeholder consultations (TBD) with an estimated duration of up to 15 days might be required (subject to COVID-19 situation vis-a-vis travel restriction policy of the government);
• UNDP will cover the cost of the travel on actual basis once the travel is confirmed.  In general, UNDP could not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the consultant 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 based on provision of supporting documentation.

• The BSAFE course must be completed before the commencement of travel including any training on COVID-19 safety;
• Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when traveling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director;
• Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under https://dss.un.org/dssweb/

Scope of Price Proposal and Schedule of Payment:

1. The Contractor should send the financial proposal based on a lump-sum amount for the delivery of the outputs identified below. The total amount quoted shall be “all inclusive” (professional daily fees X number of days, communications, etc.) that could possibly be incurred by the Contractor should be factored into the final amount submitted in the proposal. Travel, as deemed relevant by UNDP and compliant with government guidelines on community quarantine, will be arranged and paid for by UNDP and should not be included in the financial proposal.
2. Medical/health insurance must be purchased by the individual at his/her own expense, and upon award of contract, the Contractor must be ready to submit proof of insurance valid during contract duration.
3. The contract price will be fixed output-based price. Any deviations from the output and timeline will be agreed upon between the Contractor and UNDP.
4. Payments will be done upon satisfactory completion of the delivery by target due dates. Outputs will be certified by the UNDP BRH and Climate Action Team Leader prior to release of payments.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of the assignment

Role: The National Environmental and Social Safeguard (ESS) Specialist will provide a comprehensive support to the National Team Leader to develop all mandatory project and project specific annexes; and lead the tasks related to social and environmental safeguards requirements, including preparing the SESP, UNDP Risk Register and ESMF as well as supporting  adherence of project development to UNDP’s SES standards. The consultant will be a social and environmental safeguards expert with experience in UNDP SES requirements for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project development, community engagement, and sustainable livelihoods.

Due to the ongoing COVID pandemic it is likely that the bulk of the work might have to be conducted remotely, but costs site visits during the PPG phase has been included in the CO budget, if travel restrictions are eased.

Responsibilities: Below are details of the overall responsibilities and deliverables that will be expected from the National Consultant. The UNDP PPG Initiation Plan (IP) provides further guidance regarding the tasks and responsibilities of the PPG team and must be followed accordingly.

• Preparatory Technical Studies and Reviews (Component A): Prepare inputs and support the required analyses/studies, as agreed with the GEF PPG Team Leader, including:

1. Review the SESP pre-screening of the PIF; complete the UNDP Social and Environmental Screening Procedure (SESP), and support the detailed assessment of all project risks including consultations with local stakeholders;
2. With the Stakeholder Engagement and Gender Specialist, assess presence of Indigenous Peoples/ethnic minorities within project landscapes and their interests. If present, assess potential impacts of the project on rights and interests, lands, territories, resources, and traditional livelihoods and determine when FPIC applies in accordance with national contexts and preferences. Carry out consultations with communities at demonstration landscape to assess level of understanding and capacity to give consent and identify community preferences for FPIC process. Based on these assessments, and if relevant, integrate relevant matters as needed including FPIC into project design and into the comprehensive Stakeholder Engagement Plan, in consultation with the Stakeholder Engagement and Gender Specialist;
3. Support the completion of any additional studies that are determined to be needed for the preparation of the ProDoc and all other final outputs as guided by the PPG Team Leader.

• Contributions to the Formulation of the ProDoc, CEO Endorsement Request and Mandatory and Project Specific Annexes (Component B):

1. Complete the SESP, based on assessments undertaken during Component A and detailed development of project interventions, and identify management measures to mitigate risks to be incorporated into the ProDoc;
2. Prepare ESMF and UNDP Risk Register
3. Prepare Indigenous People’s Plan and Livelihood Action Plan, as needed
4. Identify an appropriate design of a grievance redress mechanism (GRM) for the project based on the existing government and UNDP mechanisms.
5. Support the agreements on project management arrangements and ensure that gender and safeguards are adequately incorporated into these arrangements.

• Validation Workshop (Component C):

1. Contribute to the conduct of the National Stakeholder ValidationnWorkshop; and
2. Support all necessary revisions that arise during the workshop, as appropriate.

• Final Deliverables:

1. Finalized Social and Environmental Screening (SESP) matrix
2. Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF)
3. Indigenous People’s Plan, as needed
4. Livelihood Action Plan, as needed
5. UNDP Risk Register
6. Appropriate inputs to the final UNDP-GEF project document based on guidance from the PPG Team Leader.

Table 2: Required deliverables, estimates duration, fee percentage and required approvals

*Please refer to the PPG Initiation Plan for the deadlines

Competencies

Corporate Competencies

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s 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;

Functional Competencies

• Able to communicate effectively in writing to a varied and broad audience in a simple and concise manner;
• Capable of working in a high- pressure environment with sharp and frequent deadlines, managing many tasks simultaneously;
• Excellent analytical and organizational skills;
• Exercises the highest level of responsibility and be able to handle confidential and politically sensitive issues in a responsible and mature manner.
• Works well in a team;
• Projects a positive image and is ready to take on a wide range of tasks;
• Focuses on results for the client;
• Welcomes constructive feedback;
• Fluent English language (both oral and written) and excellent communication and presentation skills, particularly in the preparation of written documents.

Required Skills and Experience

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or higher in a relevant field, such as Environmental Assessment, Development Studies, Human Ecology, Sociology, or Anthropology;
• Minimum 10 years of demonstrable experience in conducting UNDP Social and environmental Procedure (SESP) or with development partners (the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Food and Agricultural Organization, etc.);
• Minimum 3 years of demonstrated experience in  preparing UNDP SESP, Environmental and Social Management Framework (ESMF) or targeted stand-alone social and environmental risk management plans;
• Minimum 5 years of demonstrated experience in carrying out stakeholder consultations, community engagement, including consultations with Indigenous Peoples, women and the ethnic minorities on livelihood activities; protection of cultural heritage, and protection environmentally sensitive areas; and consultations related to Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC);
• Minimum 2 years of experience in in the Philippines or in Asia-Pacific on related projects highly desired;
• Minimum 2 years of experience in and knowledge of biodiversity conservation, preferably in marine biodiversity conservation; and
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English, including analytical, writing, advocacy, presentation, and communications skills are required.

Criteria for Selection of the Best Offer and Qualifications of Successful Candidate

The Offers received will be evaluated using a combined scoring method - where technical proposal will be weighted 70 points and combined with the price offer which will be weighted 30 points. 

The CV will be reviewed using the criteria in the table below. Only offerors who will obtain a minimum of 70% or 49 out of 70 obtainable points will be shortlisted and considered for evaluation of financial proposal.

Recommended presentation of offer

Interested applicants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Please group them into one (1) single PDF document as the application only allows to upload of a maximum of one document.

1. Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability with Financial Proposal (in PHP) using the template provided as Annex III 

[Financial proposal: Consultant shall quote an all-inclusive fixed total contract price, supported by a breakdown of costs, as per template provided for the entire assignment. The term “all-inclusive” implies that all costs (professional fees, communications, consumables, etc. and travel cost) that could be incurred by the IC in completing the assignment are already factored into the proposed fee submitted in the proposal]

If an Offeror is employed by an organization/ company/ institution, and he/she expects his/her employer to charge a management fee in the process of releasing him/her to UNDP under Reimbursable Loan Agreement (RLA), the Offeror must indicate at this point, and ensure that all such costs are duly incorporated in the financial proposal submitted to UNDP.

2.  P11 / Personal CV, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references.

Note: The above documents need to be scanned in one file and uploaded to the online application as one document.

Interested applicants to note that personal Medical/health insurance (to be purchased by the individual at his/her own expense) is mandatory for the issuance of contracts. Upon award of the contract, the consultant must be ready to submit proof of insurance valid during the contract duration.

The following templates / Annexes and IC General Terms & Conditions can be downloaded from http://gofile.me/6xdJm/bE9TCw8fU:

• General Terms and Conditions for Individual Contract
• Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability
• P-11 form

In view of the volume of applications, UNDP receives, only shortlisted offerors will be notified.