Grants management specialist

A. 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/

B. 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.

ADPC is implementing a five years World Bank-funded 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.

Grants management plays a vital role in successfully promoting innovation and adoption of disruptive technology in South Asia region (SAR) for climate resilience through award of grants to eligible and qualifying solutions, as envisaged in the CARE project.

The role of this consultant position would entail the coordination of grants to facilitate innovative solutions and monitoring of subsequent pilot-testing for application and scale-up across different sectors for resilience.

Accordingly, a highly qualified and experienced Grants Management Specialist will be required to regulate grants allocation and monitoring. S/he will be selected on a competitive basis following World Bank Procurement Regulation.

The consultant will ensure efficient and effective use of the allocated grants to the innovators from the South Asian region. S/he is also expected to support the grant allocation mechanism, release of the grants and monitoring progress of the innovators who are assigned the grant.

C. Statement of Intent

The consultant will ensure efficient and effective use of the allocated grants to the innovators. S/he is also expected to be instrumental in drawing up the grant allocation mechanism, release of the grants and monitoring progress of the innovators who are assigned the grant for piloting solutions. S/he will seek technical advice from the ADPC’s Deputy Executive Director and conduct technical appraisal and performance assessment of the innovators, as well as regular administration of the grant.

The consultant will be based in Bangkok, Thailand and report to Project Director.

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 Grants Management Specialist shall be responsible for:

Budgeting and Planning

- Leading and where required, support the Challenge partners, in designing the Innovation Grant allocation mechanism
- Undertaking financial and implementation appraisal of all Proposals (including budgets and log frames) and Concept Notes and making a summary to be taken up by the management of ADPC
- Checking, authorizing and ensuring payments of all grants
- Maintaining a comprehensive database of financial and performance records
- Monitoring completion of grant holder’s projects on time, within costs and to the required standards and in line with user requirements.

Monitoring and Evaluation

- Providing guidelines to all enquiries about grants
- Preparation of timely and quality quarterly reports on the status of innovation grant with PIU
- Providing advice and guidance to all grant holders
- Monitoring the progress of grant holders and evaluating their outputs
- Guiding and supporting responsible parties for the implementation of their respective tasks

Performing other relevant tasks as assigned by the Project Director.

E. Qualifications

The candidate should at least have:

- An advanced degree in Financial Management or equivalent
- Minimum 7 years of professional experience in managing grants for large donor funded programs
- Previous experience in grants management with the DFID and/or the World Bank is desirable but not necessary.
- Demonstrated knowledge and skills in designing grant allocation mechanism, monitoring grants and evaluating outputs from the allocated grants to grant holders
- Experience of managing grants from development projects related to climate change and disaster risk reduction
- Previous experience of working on innovation challenges or hackathons.

F. Reporting Relationships

The Consultant will report to the Project Director and will consult with and seek advice from the Deputy Executive Director. We encourage diversity in our workplace and support an inclusive work environment. The expert’s performance will be reviewed on a quarterly basis.

G. Contract Duration

The consultant is expected to commence services initially for 1 year. The assignment is likely to be extended depending on need and also upon satisfactory performance of the outputs envisaged in the TORs.

H. Selection Method

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