Capacity development 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, Preparednessfor 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.

With the financial support from the World Bank Group, ADPC will be implementing a five years’ 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.

Scaling up the regional and national level capacity development is vital to satisfactorily implement all the required components of the project. It would involve development of curriculum and implementation of capacity building initiatives.

Accordingly, a highly qualified and experienced Capacity Development Specialist is required to lead in conducting training needs assessment and implementation of capacity building initiatives.

The objectives of this staff position are to:

- Lead in conducting training needs assessment in the three focus countries on agriculture, water and transport
- Develop and implement customized training from needs and assessment at the regional and national level
- Support development of gender mainstreaming national and regional capacity develop activities
- Lead on developing e-learning courses to support climate change adaptation, public policy and finance, among other relevant fields

C. Statement of Intent

The Capacity Development Specialist will lead in development capacity building initiatives through training needs assessment to identify current gaps climate change adaption, climate public policy, climate finance, among other relevant topics. The specialist will further coordinate rational and national capacity development activities to support gender mainstreaming.

The Capacity Development Specialist will be based in Bangkok, Thailand

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 Capacity Development Specialist shall be responsible for providing technical inputs on:

- Supporting training needs assessment with focus on climate change adaptation, climate public policy, and climate finance in the three countries on agriculture, water, and transport
- Supporting climate-resilience adaptive policy making design and solutions for priority sectors (agriculture, transport and water) that will result the development of training material across three focus countries
- Developing training material on climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies at three levels (national, sub-national and Corporative Societies/lead farmers) utilizing locally available CSA technologies in the three focus countries.

Bangladesh

- Developing curriculum for monitoring and evaluation in transport sector to better manage the portfolio and impact of activities supported by climate change in Bangladesh
- Developing training material for budgeting officers to prioritize investment and determine tax incentive and subsidies with additional investments for climate resilience

Nepal

- Developing training material for existing and new engineers in the Department of Roads (DoR) on climate resilience, utilization of geo-hazard assessments, hazard maps and climate data for undertaking climate-resilient design and construction
- Developing training material for local governments on climate change adaptation, expenditures, budgeting and resilience in support of the federalization process

Pakistan

- Building capacity of Punjab provincial government officials on agro-climatic zoning
- Strengthening capacity of Sindh Irrigation Department for drought this management

The Capacity Development Specialist will provide further support in:

- Developing curriculum and implement other capacity development activities in partnership with national and regional organizations on gender mainstreaming in three focus countries and at the regional level
- Assisting the three focus countries in gaining access to international climate finance including support accreditation process for national/sub-national entities to access GCF
- Assisting the provision of technical support to Ministries of Finance and Planning for climate-informed macro-level analysis, modeling, and climate-informed fiscal risk management in Pakistan
- Performing other relevant tasks as assigned by the supervisor.
E. Qualifications

- A master’s degree in Development, Education or other relevant fields of study with strong background in institutional capacity building
- A minimum of 10 years of substantive work experience in developmental activities, training, and capacity buildings, preferably on climate change adaptation, climate resilience and disaster risk reduction.
- A minimum of 7 years’ experience as technical/senior advisor for training program development and delivering for clients, including government agencies
- Extensive work experience in adult learning and as facilitator/resource person of training activities.
- Proven track record of organizing training, capacity building and facilitating high-level discussions
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills and capacity to work under pressure and short deadlines
- Cross cultural awareness and ability to work amongst a diverse group of staff, and partners
- Excellent English proficiency in oral and written communication, including a demonstrated track record in technical report writing and ability to communicate technical matters effectively to general audience.
- Experience working in South Asian countries is preferred
- Required computer proficiencies: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Microsoft Teams

F. Reporting Relationships

The staff will report to the Director, ADPC Academy and will consult with and seek advice from the Deputy Executive Director, ADPC. The specialist would also coordinate with the CARE project specialists at the regional and national level to carry out different activities under the project.

G. Contract Duration

The contract duration will be for two (2) years with possibility of extension.

H. Selection Method

The staff will be selected in accordance with ADPC’s recruitment process