Project Manager

Background:

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, is the focal agency for all urbanization and human settlements matters within the United Nations System. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable town and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. Globally, UN-Habitat is present in 76 countries actively working with Governments and various partners in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 11 focused on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, along with the New Urban Agenda.

In Pakistan, UN-Habitat is actively engaged in providing technical assistance in the areas of disaster preparedness and management, rehabilitation and reconstruction, water and sanitation, urban management and planning, climate change and provision of technical assistance and operational support to the Government at federal, provincial and local levels, stakeholders and partners. The Ministry of Climate Change (MoCC) is UN-Habitat’s key Government counterpart in Pakistan.

Project Summary:

UN-Habitat is planning to implement a project entitled “Development and Implementation of Retrofitting Guiding Tools for Hazard Resistant Learning Spaces in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province”. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of government institutions, vulnerable communities and schools in KP province in addressing disaster risks in an institutionalized and sustainable manner through consolidation of inclusive Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) and School-Based Disaster Risk Management (SBDRM) methodologies.

Through this project, technical vulnerability assessments will be carried out in selected schools in Peshawar and Swat (6 schools each of 6 typologies), involving relevant authorities and other stakeholders followed by the development of a prioritization scheme of selected schools to be retrofitted as endorsed by these authorities. At least 12 schools will be selected for retrofitting (at least one classroom in each school) to serve as models which can be replicated and the lessons learnt during the retrofitting process will be documented to feed into the retrofitting, repair, and strengthening guidelines that will be developed as a manual for the relevant authorities to use. In order for the government to finance and scale-up this project, extensive advocacy will be undertaken to influence the authorities such that fresh funds are earmarked for retrofitting of existing schools to make school buildings of Peshawar and Swat safe learning facilities for learners and workers by ensuring they are resilient to both natural and human-induced disasters.

The synergies and common approaches for the consolidation of CBDRM/SBDRM systematic model approaches, responsive to the urban and rural contexts, barriers to the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in education and strategies to overcome these have been discussed and agreed with the ECHO partners (CARE for CBDRM, UN-Habitat for pillar 1 – focus on bridging the gap between policies and implementation, HOPE'87 and Plan International (PI) for pillars 2 and 3 of SBDRM model and Solidar/Helvetas for pillars 2 and 3 of SBDRM respectively). A coordinated approach has been adopted and a common result for coordination has been agreed by all the partners.

The post is required specifically for this project.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Under the overall supervision of the Country Programme Manager (CPM) and in close coordination with UN-Habitat technical and operations teams and the implementing partner (HOPE’87), the incumbent will have the following duties and responsibilities:

- Overall oversight of the project management lifecycle, particularly in ensuring the highest technical specifications and standards of work within available resources and agreed work plan.

-Responsible for overall implementation of the project activities, manage and supervise the project team, coordinate with the implementing partner, other C/SBDRM partners and stakeholders to ensure timely and quality delivery of outputs and prepare the project progress and final reports in close consultation with the CPM.

-Oversee the detailed technical assessment of selected schools in the targeted areas and quality assurance of the requirements for retrofitting, repairing and strengthening in order to ensure the school buildings and learning spaces are disaster resilient.

-Propose the most cost-effective and efficient retrofit design for the assessed schools.-Oversee the retrofitting, repairing and strengthening of selected most vulnerable schools of Peshawar and Swat as per the prioritization scheme and collaboration with the implementing partner(s).

-Oversee the development and field testing of retrofitting process and monitoring tools. The retrofit and monitoring of the process is expected to be supervised by the PTCs in each school.

-Provide technical inputs and quality control to the development of easy-to

-understand, culturally appropriate and socially acceptable retrofitting, repairing and strengthening guidelines while focusing on addressing gender equality and needs of disabled people.

-Advocate with the Education Department and other relevant departments (such as Planning and Development, PDMA etc.) in KP for the enactment of policies and capacity building initiatives of the current structures and not only the ones damaged by disasters are periodically assessed technically and to make them disaster resilient, including the allocation of budget in the annual development plans and budget for 2018-2019 to ensure the policies are consistent with fund allocation and the implementation reaches the ground level.

-Coordinate closely with the government counterparts especially members of MoE&SE, C&W, PDMA and DDMA and build their capacity to enable them to conduct future assessments on their own.

-Promote UN-Habitat mandate and objectives.-Ensure adherence to UN-Habitat operational policies, procedures and standards of conduct.

-Perform any other task assigned by the supervisor.

Required Qualification & Experience

- Master’s degree in Civil Engineering or Architecture or Project Management, combined with minimum 3 years of hands-on experience in structural and non-structural DRR measures, Technical Vulnerability Assessments, Retrofitting of schools (and/or public buildings) and Guidelines development.

- Experience of managing projects of similar nature is required.

- Familiar with Pakistan’s National DRM Framework, National Disaster  Management Plan, National DRR Policy, KP Government’s DRM Road Map, particularly the National Education Policy and Pakistan School Safety Framework.

- Excellent networking and communication skills and experience in collaborating with relevant Ministries and line departments in KP and various partners.

- Excellent project management, reporting writing skills, time and resource management, negotiation and advanced computing skills including MS-Office applications. 

- Prince 2 Certification is an asset.

- Knowledge of the local area and community is essential. 

- Knowledge of UN rules and regulations is an advantage.

Required Competencies

- Ability to work under pressure and difficult conditions 

- Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN values and ethical standards -  Ability of work effectively and harmoniously with colleagues 

- Displays culture, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability

- Treats all people fairly without favoritism

- Shares knowledge and experience and contributes to UN-Habitat practice areas and actively works towards continuing personal learning and development 

- Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting

- Ability to go beyond established procedures and models, propose new approaches which expand the range of programmes 

- Ability to work with minimal supervision 

- Focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to critical feedback

- Builds strong relationship with clients and external actors Required

Languages

 - Proficiency in English and Urdu is essential.

- Knowledge of local languages is an advantage.