Consultant: Disaster Risk Management Project in Costa Rica

Background

Established in 1874, the Universal Postal Union (UPU) is the UN agency specialized in the postal sector, with its headquarters in the Swiss capital Berne, is the second oldest international organization worldwide.

The UPU is the primary forum for cooperation between postal sector players. It helps to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services.

In this way, the organization fulfils an advisory, mediating and liaison role, and provides technical assistance where needed. It sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to stimulate growth in mail, parcel and financial services volumes and improve quality of service for customers.

With a wide network of over 677,000 post offices around the world, 5.32 million staff and physical infrastructure covering 192 countries, the postal sector does indeed play a critical soci-economic role. That is why the UPU recently started its technical assistance called Disaster Resilience Fund (DRF) for developing countries supported by the government of Japan.

DRM Project in Costa Rica

The UPU selected a project proposed by Correos de Costa Rica S. A (CCR), the designated postal operator of Costa Rica.

The UPU is currently seeking expression of interest from qualified and committed consultant for the project.

The project has two components

• Develop a Business Continuity Plan(BCP) that strengths the CCR’s  disaster resilience and mitigate any major disaster
• Implement training to all level of CCR employees that develops their capabilities in the field of DRM.

Produce a BCP

The National Risk Management Policy 2016-2030 which stipulates commitments of Public Sector institutions including the CCR to develop enough human and physical resources to deal with various types of natural disasters

This Policy is the basis for the formulation of the National Risk Management Plan" which stipulates the competent actors including the CCR to define the commitments; in the form of actions and goals, which must then be part of the institutional, strategic and operative planning of each actor.

With the support of the UPU technical assistance, the CCR is able to develop its BCP that enables the CCR to maintain or resume productive or commercial activity. This is done through the development of protection and recovery strategies for 3P (People, Property, Products) of CCR.

DRM training for employees of the CCR

The Consultant will develop the training programme and schedule, and provide the training materials. The CCR’s BCP and the national disaster plan should inform the training programme. In developing the training programme, the CCR will utilize as far as possible the Trainpost DRM training course developed and provided by the UPU.

The consultant will be responsible for conducting the training session with the CCR’s employees and, in cases where an additional facilitator/trainer is required; this responsibility will be borne by the consultant.

The training sessions are developed for multi levels of the CCR’s employees (Management team, Operative team and Organizational team). The participation of 20 to 30 people for each session is estimated.

The training sessions will be held in post offices in Zapote, San Jose, Costa Rica.

The consultant will provide staff training in the following areas:

• Management team

1. Estimation of 24 hours of course, distributed among executive staff and process owners.
2. Duration: 4 hours in two sessions of 2 hours each.
3. Leadership and governance in business continuity and disaster management
4. Reputational risk, legal risk, occupational health risk and financial risk associated with business continuity
5. Principles on emergency and disaster management
6. Business continuity management system according to ISO 22301
7. Events of continuity and decision making
8. Roles and responsibilities in business continuity management

• Operative team

1. Duration: 16 hours in two sessions of 8 hours each.
2. Principles on business continuity
3. Principles on emergency and disaster management
4. Importance of correct business continuity management
5. Risk management in business continuity
6. Business continuity management system according to ISO 22301
7. Definition of critical business processes
8. Alignment of the business with Information Technology
9. How to make an adequate definition of continuity strategies
10. Designed a business continuity model before, during and after the event.
11. The management of continuity events
12. Types of tests that can be carried out
13. Continuous improvement and decision making

• Organizational team

1. Duration: 4 hours
2. Introduction to crisis management
3. Differences between emergency and crisis
4. What is the crisis management system?
5. Crisis and its alienation with business continuity
6. Communication plan and its importance
7. Crisis simulation workshop.Hazard preparedness (reflecting the particular hazards to which Grenada is exposed)
8. First aid training
9. Relief and supply management
10. Damage and needs assessment

Requirements

Essential

• Fluency in Spanish
• Understanding of national, regional and international DRM strategies and policies
• Experience developing BCPs, DRM plans or relevant documents
• Experience developing disaster related training and training curriculum
• Experience as a trainer of disaster related training
• Computer literacy, including MS Word, MS Excel and PowerPoint.
• Degree in relevant discipline

Desirable

• Fluency in English
• Experience working with UN organizations
• Experience working with CCR or other governmental organizations in Costa Rica
• Experience evaluating or measuring training effectiveness

Assignment support

The total budget for the project is 47,000CHF. The UPU supports consultant’s allowances, Correspondence expenses, Business trip travel expenses and Miscellaneous.