Chief Technical Advisor

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

The UNDP-led flagship seven-year programme on Reducing the Risk of Climate-Driven Disasters (referred to as Programme, hereafter) is being implemented since 2019 in partnership with the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, with funding from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the governments of Georgia, Switzerland and Sweden. The Programme includes three inter-related projects:

• GCF-funded Scaling-up Multi-Hazard Early Warning System and the Use of Climate Information in Georgia
• SDC-funded Strengthening Climate Adaptation Capacities in Georgia
• SIDA-funded Improved Resilience of Communities to Climate Risk

The overall objective of the Programme is to reduce exposure of Georgia’s communities, livelihoods and infrastructure to climate-induced natural hazards through a well-functioning nation-wide multi-hazard early warning system and a risk-informed local action.

The programme aims to reduce the risk of seven hazards: floods, landslides, mudflows, avalanches, hailstorms, windstorms and droughts in 11 major river basins of Georgia, providing direct protection to more than 1.7 million people and assisting the country in building a climate-proof future.

Specifically, the GCF project will provide critical climate risk information that would enable the Government of Georgia to implement a number of nationwide transformative policies and actions for reducing the exposure and vulnerability of the population to climate-induced hazards. The project will thus catalyze a paradigm shift in the national climate risk management, climate-proofed disaster risk reduction and early warning approaches. The project innovation and transformative change will also include (a) participatory “Last Mile” communication solutions tailored to the needs of local communities, including CBEWSs; (b) increasing implementation capacities for carrying out cost-effective risk reduction and community resilience measures through such innovative approaches as watershed/floodplain restoration, agroforestry, etc., and combination of structural and non-structural protection measures aimed at reducing exposure and increasing the effectiveness of the early warning; (c) combining best available science and local knowledge for vulnerability assessment, hazard and risk mapping, disaster modelling and forecasting; (d) (e) carrying out a comprehensive community, municipal and national-wide awareness-raising, education and capacity development activities on multi-hazard risk reduction, including preparedness, response and EWSs.

Furthermore, the project will benefit from SDC funded project to be implemented by UNDP in parallel with the project with a major objective of developing the nation-wide hazard and risk mapping. More specifically, the project will assist the national government in developing capacities and regulatory/legal frameworks for multi-hazard mapping and risk assessment and contribute to the establishment of effective multi-hazard early warning, through:

1. Development of unified multi-hazard mapping and risk assessment methodology;
2. Setting up institutional and regulatory frameworks for hazard and risk assessments;
3. Nation-wide multi-hazard mapping and risk assessment with relevant capacity building and
4. Enhancing municipal capacities for multi-hazard risk-informed preparedness and response planning.

In addition, as a complementary measure to the GCF/SDC interventions, the SIDA-funded project will improve the resilience of communities through expanding the implementation of community-based EWS and priority risk reduction actions.

The programme requires the services of a Chief Technical Advisor (CTA) to ensure smooth implementation of the programme.

The main purpose and scope of this assignment are to provide managerial and coordination support and technical guidance to the Programme (three inter-related projects) towards achieving the programme objective and related expected results.