Nepal is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. The country is exposed to a range of geophysical and hydro-meteorological hazards. Each year hundreds of lives are lost in water induced disasters such as floods and landslides and thousands of people are affected. Being one of the most seismically active regions in the world, the risk of a major earthquake always looms large on the country. The dynamics of climate change add another dimension to disaster risk in Nepal. The impacts of climate change are projected to have serious consequences on Nepal’s economy and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people, who are occupying marginal lands prone to hydrometeorological hazards and lack adequate capacity to respond to risks.

The Environment and Resilience Portfolio of UNDP Nepal manages disaster management and climate change adaptation initiatives of the Country Office. Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Programme (CDRMP) is UNDP’s long-term umbrella programme launched in 2010 and is built on consolidating UNDP’s past support in this area via a number of small and short-run projects. CDRMP strategically aligns with and contributes to UNDP CPD 2018-22 Outcome 3: By 2022, environmental management, sustainable recovery and reconstruction, and resilience to climate change and natural disaster are strengthened at all levels.

Over the past two decades, UNDP has played an important role in building capacities for disaster risk management in Nepal in partnership with the government, sectoral agencies, national and international NGOs, and UN agencies. UNDP has successfully advocated for a comprehensive risk management approach and built strong collaboration with all key ministries, particularly the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Urban Development, Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, National Planning Commission and recently the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority to help realize the vision of making Nepal a risk resilient society by 2030. UNDP’s support has been more focussed on strengthening DRRM related policies and institutions and building capacities for risk mitigation, risk reduction, climate change adaptation and emergency preparedness and response. Aligned with Sendai DRR priority actions, UNDP supported the federal government to formulate National Policy and Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management following the enactment of the DRRM Act in 2017. In a new federal system of governance, UNDP has been working closely with provincial and local governments to build system and capacities for disaster preparedness and response and early-recovery guided by sub-national level DRRM policies and action plans.

As UNDP’s umbrella programme on disaster risk management, CDRMP has focused on almost all aspects of disaster management cycle from mainstreaming DRRM into national, provincial and local development plans to support for emergency preparedness, early-recovery, climate change adaptation, compliance of building codes, risk sensitive land use plans and community based EWS and DRM. CDRMP has taken an integrated approach of resilience building where disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation programming go side-by-side. Recent support of CDRMP tto NDRRMA has been to establish disaster information management system known as BIPAD Portal and help in Sendai monitoring and digitization of DRR and response mechanism supported by UNDP BRH’s managed regional programme.

In the aftermath of the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake, UNDP substantively contributed to finalize the PDNA and partnered with National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) for post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction of more than 27,000 damaged houses with financial support from Government of India and DG-ECHO following owner driven reconstruction and inclusive recovery approach. Experiences and lessons learnt from post-earthquake recovery and reconstruction by UNDP has been documented and disseminated via various channels and shared with the global community who attended International Conference on Nepal Reconstruction in December 2021. Nepal’s experience on reconstruction has contributed to develop a Handbook of Reconstruction, a Retrofitting Manual and establishing a Shock Table Testing Facilities within Institute of Engineering. With continued support from DG-ECHO, UNDP has gained significant experience by piloting urban risk governance model in three urban municipalities of Nepal and has kicked start implementation of a new project called Strengthening Urban Preparedness, Earthquake Preparedness and Response in Western Region of Nepal (SUPER). As a trusted partner of the Government, UNDP is expected serve as one of the key partners to support the Government's efforts to institutionalize mainstreaming disaster and climate risk management into Provincial and Local government. 

Building upon UNDP’s extensive experiences through CDRMP, a range of DRRM programming areas have emerged including disaster preparedness, urban resilience, risk sensitive land use planning, building code compliance and retrofitting of most vulnerable rural housing in Western Nepal, which requires further discussion with the government and development partners. 

Considering potential programmatic opportunities and urgency for smooth implementation of on-going SUPER project funded by DG-ECHO and to fulfil UNDP’s on-going commitments to its partners, UNDP plans to bring an international DRRM professional to work as RM Specialist-Strengthening Urban Preparedness, Earthquake for the Country Office. The position will work under the supervision of Environment and Resilience Advisor of UNDP and overall guidance of the Deputy Resident Representative of UNDP. The incumbent will be supervising the project staff on day-to-day basis.

The RM Specialist-Strengthening Urban Preparedness, Earthquake will be responsible to carry following activities, but not limited to:

Summary of key functions:

• Provision of strategic direction, programme formulation and overall guidance of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management programming in support of government institutions and other stakeholders to build resilience to multiple risks. 
• Provision of high quality programme implementation support and oversight including timely implementation of projects (e.g. ECHO funded SUPER project)
• Provision of advisory services and opportunities for partnerships, knowledge management and synergy between UN agencies, donors, international and national NGOs, and international institutions for disaster risk reduction, response and recovery;

The Key Responsibilities of the assignment are:

Provision of strategic direction programme formulation and overall guidance of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management programming in support of government institutions and other stakeholders to build resilience to multiple risks.

• Review national disaster management policies, strategies, plans, acts and guidelines, as well as relevant UN and UNDP planning frameworks (UNSDCF, UNDP CPD, UNDP CO Business Plan, etc) to identify opportunities for UNDP’s programming support for mainstreaming disaster and climate risk management into overall development strategy.
• Maintain synergies and linkages with institutions, bilateral partners and UN Agencies’ work related to disaster management and climate change adaptation and ensure coordination with UNCT and UN agencies on DRRM programming and implementation and support UNDP in its role as co-chair of UNDAF Outcome Group 3 in coordination and preparing Outcome report
• Prepare concepts and strategies per UNDP requirements for UNDP’s future engagement to reduce vulnerability of the community and the sectors from natural hazards and build livelihood recovery integrating resilience, environment, climate, risk governance, gender and inclusive growth;
• Advise UNDP on programming and collaboration opportunities with key ministries, provincial and local governments, CSOs and communities for managing disaster and climate risks, including disaster preparedness and response, seismic resilience and early recovery
• Analysis of global, regional and local funding mechanisms in Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation and support CO in mobilizing resources to implement a long-term disaster and climate risk reduction programme for Nepal.
• Design of new programming framework for DRRM with result framework and theory of Change in consultation with UNDP and CDRMP/SUPER team in the area earthquake preparedness, urban resilience, risk sensitive land use planning and disaster mitigation as relevant

Provision of high quality programme implementation support and oversight including timely implementation of projects (e.g. ECHO funded SUPER project)

• Provide programme implementation support, drafting ToRs for key personnel and services, assist in speedy recruitment of project personnel.
• Oversight and management of project activities, formulation of workplans for timely deliverables, drafting of quality progress reports as per expectations among others
• Take responsibility of producing donor reports (both programmatic and financial) and assist the team in fulfilling compliance requirements
• Provide guidance and support to UNDP/CDRMP/SUPER team to realize on-going commitments of UNDP at different fronts
• Work with UNDP CO resilience and environment portfolio manager, policy analyst and other members of the team and contribute to developing strategies and approaches for resilience building
• Engage in building technical capacity within CDRMP/SUPER team to ensure quality of DRM results to be delivered by UNDP and mechanism of tracking the results.
• Support the government and partners in implementation, monitoring and reporting of DRR results as per Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) and for effective participation in international forums such as global and regional DRR platform meetings

Provision of advisory services and opportunities for partnerships, knowledge management and synergy between UN agencies, donors, international and national NGOs, and international institutions for disaster risk reduction, response and recovery

• Advise on effective donor, government and CSO co-ordination on DRRM and UNDP’s role at national and sub-national levels
• Advocate for implementing climate and disaster risk management policy and action plan at sub-national levels to promote risk-informed development and risk governance in line with global and regional good practices
• Engage with UNDP/CDRMP/SUPER team in delivery of key results of different programme/project components and their timely reporting
• Explore opportunities for cross learning with other country’s experiences within the region and outside and support UNDP/CDRMP/SUPER programme/project team to be actively engaged in those kinds of learning and experience sharing events.
• Build capacities of CDRMP/SUPER team in its efforts to design and maintain a comprehensive hazard and vulnerability information system and utilize climate information and impact projections to plan disaster risk reduction interventions and policies
• Support coordination with UN Women and UNICEF in implementation of EU-funded SUPER project implemented by UNDP as lead consortium partner
• Engage in policy debates and advocacy, meetings and workshops and contribute to disaster management planning for emergency preparedness, response and early recovery and earthquake resistant construction of public and private buildings
• Represent UNDP Nepal in national and international fora on disaster risk reduction and advise UNDP on strategic actions to be taken for managing disaster risks and strengthening the functioning of National, Provincial, District and Local Emergency Operation Centers