Consultancy on national risk and vulnerability assessment and mapping and capacity development of NDMA and partners in disaster risk reduction

Background

Disasters are increasing and becoming more divers and complex in recent times. In The Gambia to be more specific, all regions throughout the country are affected causing uncountable agony to the environment, human life, livestock and victims alike. Disasters are concerns to both the poor and the non-poor as their effects can bring the non-poor to destitution within minutes and can deepen the poor’s poverty. A nation overall economic growth and development can be reduced drastically and more so the cost of rehabilitation and reconstruction can take huge sums of public and community resources which could have been used to advance progress for accelerated growth and employment. Disaster management issues are multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional and require full mainstreaming by all stakeholders in the development process.

Realizing the importance of disaster risk reduction in the socio-economic transformation of the country and more-so for the attainment of national Vision 2020, the MDG-based Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, the Government of The Gambia established the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) by an Act of Parliament in 2008. The objects of the Act are mainly to firstly provide for an integrated and coordinated disaster management that focuses on; prevention, preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery from disaster/ emergency situations and the management of their effects.

Secondly to establish the National Disaster Management Agency, its regional, district and village committees and matters connected therewith. The agency is the central body entrusted with the coordination of all kinds of disaster in the Gambia, and became fully operational in 2009. There exist a national council and an agency secretariat at national level while regional coordination offices are also established in all the seven regions of the Local Government Administrative Authorities (LGAs) to act as central organs of disaster management within the regions. The regional coordination office is headed by a Coordinator whose primary function is to coordinate the general policy of regional disaster committees relating to prevention of, preparedness for, response to, mitigation of and recovery from disaster within the region. Multi-sectoral regional disaster management committees are institutionalized under the supervision of regional Governors/ Mayors.

It is in this regard that institutional strengthening of National Disaster Management Agency is relevant to all areas of the public, private and civil society-NGOs/CBOs as key stakeholders and partners, to prepare the communities to ensure that they are fully equipped to anticipate and respond to disaster events in a multi-stakeholder participatory manner at all levels. As stated in the National Disaster Management Agency Policy document, this approach on institutional strengthening of NDMA, will integrate disaster risk reduction, sustainable development policies and planning in order to promote a transparent, systematic and consistent approach to disaster risk assessment and management system.

The Hyogo framework for action (HFA-2005-2015) also calls for all governments to exert efforts aimed at building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters. Specifically, all countries are encouraged by the HFA to execute the following five priority areas.
• Ensure that disaster risk reduction is a national and local priority with a strong institutional basis for implementation;
• Identify, assess and monitor disaster risks and enhance early warning
• Build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels;
• Reduce the underlying risk factors and
• Strengthen disaster preparedness for effective response at all levels.

Given the call by the Africa Regional Strategy and its Program of Action (POA) (2006-2015) and the ECOWAS Policy for disaster risk reduction (DRR), it is only prudent that strengthening partnership for disaster risk reduction in a country like the Gambia, be vigorously pursued if we are to adhere to these protocols and most importantly to enhance national and community resilience against the impacts of Climate Change and human induced hazards.

About the Consultancy

The consultancy for each activity should last between 35 to 90 days depending on the scope of work and the availability of secondary data. The first draft will be provided 30 days after signing of contract and the final report submitted after 90 days later. The draft report especially, the risk assessment and mapping, the vulnerability assessment and the socio-economic impacts analysis will be subjected to a validation exercise in which the consultant will be the lead facilitator.  It is the consultant’s duty to incorporate the comments from the validation workshop along with others in the final report. NDMA will organize and bear costs of the validation process.

Competencies Required for the Consultancy

The main qualities of the consultant are as follows:

- Most have a master’s degree in any of the social sciences
- Need to know much about disaster issues and the overall function of NDMA in The Gambia
- Past experience in similar task, excellent communication, organizational and report writing skills will be highly essential for this assignment