Senior urban planning advisor

Background

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, is the agency for the United Nations dedicated to promoting socially and environmentally sustainable development of human settlements in an urbanizing world, with the goal of providing safer and inclusive human settlements.

UN-HABITAT established a presence in Myanmar in the early 1990’s through 2004 where the agency pioneered the ‘people’s process’ by establishing the first community led projects in the Dry Zone, Shan State and the Delta. Over 2.1 million people were supported though developing community social infrastructure networks and facilitating access to safe water. The Community Water Supply and Sanitation (CWSS) Programme and the Community Initiative Support Facilities (CISF) Programmes were implemented by UNHabitat. The agency also extended substantive assistance in designing the Human Development Initiative for UNDP & has partnered in implementation of HDI1, HDI 2 and HDI 3.

Today UN-HABITAT continues to implement several normative and operational activities focusing on basic access of services to settlements, while addressing cross-cutting issues of gender, risk reduction, environment and climate change. As part of her normative activities, the agency is providing technical assistance on issues related to Habitat Agenda to its partners in Myanmar.

Myanmar, with the installation of the new government, is on the road to modernization and development. The new constitution envisages a country based on decentralized system of governance where citizens enjoy the freedom to decide where they want to live and where they want to invest. The central government is trying to devise ways and means to support the enabling role it will be required to play in light of these changes; the devolution of power to State/Regions and further down, signs of market economy approach, attempts on poverty alleviation, inclusive rural development strategies and policies to address impending urbanization of the country.

With settlements support interventions on Habitat agenda established in multiple townships across Myanmar represent her operational capacities, UN-Habitat, Myanmar is planning to surge up her normative programmatic support to several line ministries and stakeholders in the areas of Urban Planning &Design, Urban-Rural Linkages, Research, Training & Capacity Building, Urban Land Legislation and Governance, Local Governance and Leadership Training and Development.

For an effective programme development of normative areas of support and implementation of operational projects, UN-Habitat is looking for committed professionals who will work under the direct supervision of the UN-Habitat Country Manager, and in close cooperation with sectoral advisors and ROAP officers.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Sr Urban Planning Advisor will work closely with the Country Programme Manager (CPM) and in close consultation with officials from the Ministry of Construction and the UN-Habitat Programme Management Team. The Urban Planning Advisor will work on the roll-out of UN-Habitat’s Myanmar Safer Settlements and Urban Research Programme (MSSURP) jointly with the Ministry of Construction of Myanmar.

In specific, the Sr. Urban Planning Advisor will be responsible for the following:

- Review Ministry info collection and analysis, help update urban sector knowledge collection analysis, and link to the evidence based policy papers UN is preparing; and with this understanding advise UN-Habitat for future country programming to support GoRUM
- Initial Conceptualization for the development of an Urban Planning Manual and Guidelines for Myanmar.
- Reviewing existing Urban/Planning regulations in Myanmar and advising on appropriate amendments for the same, with a particular emphasis on mainstreaming DRR lessons learned to build a Safer Myanmar.
- Scoping for the establishment of the Urban Research and Development Institute (URDI) within the Ministry of Construction.
- Development of Training Needs Assessments for the officials from Ministry of Construction for all issues related to developmental planning.
- Development of an in-country training curriculum for capacity building of Ministry of Construction officials, which will be implemented as part of URDI.
- Initial conceptualization for a roadmap for the development of a pro-poor development strategy to address urbanization in Myanmar.
- Mentor and advise UN-Habitat team on human settlements and urban development issues, for effective programming at country office level.

Qualifications and Experience

The Sr. Urban Planning Advisor will be technically assessed according to the following competencies and there prior experience:

- Advanced university degree in urban planning/engineering/architecture, or discipline relevant to urban/rural regional planning, management, and/or any relevant social science disciplines relating to international development
- Minimum of 15-20 years relevant Urban Planning experience including experience developing cooperation programmes national governments.
- Excellent interpersonal, communication and negotiation skills with high level counterparts