Regional Expert, Climate-Smart Agriculture At Asian Disaster Preparedness Center

Climate Adaptation and Resilience for South Asia Project

Climate change has an immense impact on agriculture throughout South Asia, which exacerbates inherent poverty, undernourishment, and food insecurity in the region. According to the World Bank, between 1990 and 2019, climate-induced disasters in South Asia affected 1.68 billion people, killed approximately 267,000 and caused over US$127 billion economic losses. At the country level, during the period between 1990-2020, climate-induced hydro-meteorological hazards have caused an estimated US$16 billion economic losses in Bangladesh, US$1.24 billion in Nepal and US$23 billion in Pakistan. The current agricultural practices are failing to properly respond to climate change risks while the production is short to address food and nutrition security problems. Since a large number of people in South Asia rely on agriculture for their livelihood, the region needs strategies that increase production while addressing climate change risks and eventually contribute to achieving sustainable development goals. Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) has been promoted globally as the solution to food insecurity and climate risk problems in agriculture. CSA has three pillars: enhancing production and food, improving adaptation and resilience, and mitigation as co-benefit. There is great scope for promoting CSA for the overall growth and development of the South Asia region.

With the financial support from the World Bank Group, ADPC and the Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) are jointly implementing a five-year (2020-2025) project, titled “Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CARE) for South Asia”. The project aims to create an enabling environment for climate resilience policies and investments in Climate Resilient Agriculture, Integrated Water Resources Management, Resilient Transport Infrastructure, and Policy, Planning and Finance sectors. Through its regional portfolio, ADPC will also facilitate high-level dialogues for institutional cooperation and knowledge exchange, develop climate-resilient guidelines, and promote innovation and adoption of disruptive technology at national and regional levels. The national-level activities will initially be implemented in Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.

In the above context, ADPC is aiming to establish positions for Regional Experts that provide an advisory and mentoring role to the sectoral teams and Project Implementation Unit (PIU) of ADPC based at the regional level in Bangkok, Thailand. Regional Experts will provide guidance and oversight for each of the project core sectors on a part time basis, in addition to participating in national, regional and global events to highlight best practices and learning of the CARE for South Asia project as part of wider knowledge-sharing.**

The Regional Expert’s primary role is twofold:

· Providing expert advice and consultative support to the members of project key sectors, especially to the Sector Leads, to maintain state-of-the-art technical standard of interventions and approaches in the project; and

· Supporting the capacity and relationship building to meet the wider needs of the stakeholders to be reached out and to benefit from the existing climate adaptation institutions and initiatives in the region.

Statement of Intent

The Regional Expert is expected to help with an improved output performance that will show emerging impact to the stakeholders and beneficiaries and increased quality of the technical products and outcomes based on standards set by the World Bank.

It is also expected that the Regional Expert will support the project’s sustainability by strengthening in-house technical capacities of ADPC teams in key sectors and facilitate wider dissemination of the project outputs and outcomes beyond the geographical confines of the project.

Note:

It is not the intent of this Terms of Reference to cover every aspect of the position requirements, rather to highlight the most important areas of personal and joint responsibilities.

Duties and Responsibilities

The detailed functions of the Regional Expert, Climate Smart Agriculture are expected to include:

1. Advisory and consultative support

⁃ Provide input and strategic advice on the implementation of the agriculture sector activities to achieve the goals and objectives of the CARE for South Asia project.

⁃ Review and ensure that project outputs and reports are delivered to the required quality standard, in line with agreed specifications of the approved workplan and other commitments.

⁃ Undertake periodic review of resilient agriculture on-farm activities and research to identify potential gaps and solutions and ensure incorporation of lessons learned into ongoing implementation.

⁃ Function as a source of advice and support in technical updates, including new technology and innovations, tools and approaches related to CSA that can be rolled out in the region.

2. Regional level capacity and relationship-building

⁃ Provide technical guidance to the project team for conceptualizing, designing, and implementing technical capacity development plans on CSA at the regional level.

⁃ Provide technical inputs to the project’s regional activities and initiatives such as regional policy dialogues, thematic fora, and other outreach events and missions relevant to the agriculture sector activities and CSAs in specific planned under the CARE for South Asia project.

⁃ Participate in relevant regional/global meetings, where required, and expand exposure, disseminate impact and lessons learned, and involve in the promotion or follow-up of the project in the agriculture sector.

⁃ Establish effective communication channels and develop close ties with existing and instrumental regional and international partners and initiatives related to resilient agriculture to improve visibility of the CARE for South Asia project and ADPC in general.

⁃ Provide technical support for the regional initiative of demand-driven scientific research and advisory services on resilient agriculture targeting subnational public institutions and agencies in collaboration with regional centers of excellence.

3. Regional Expert Meetings

a) Convening meetings

Regular Regional Expert meetings will be convened to undertake monitoring and review of the project implementation status and strategies. The PIU of the CARE for South Asia project will be the convener of the meetings and provide the Secretariat to the Regional Experts ensuring the preparation and storage of relevant documents/minutes. All Regional Expert meetings will be held virtually.

b) Frequency of the meetings

Two Regional Experts meetings per year are foreseen during the course of the project.

Qualifications

The candidate should hold a Master’s degree (Ph.D. is desired) and have 15 years of professional experience in climate change adaptation and mitigation, food and nutrition security, resilient agriculture, climate-smart agriculture (CSA), climate-smart village (CSV), knowledge management, institutional capacity building gained in international and multi-cultural environments.

Professional record should include experiences in:

· Design, management and technical coordination of complex multi-stakeholders projects and programs;

· A minimum of 10 years of professional experience in CSA along with experience in providing technical guidance and advice at the South Asia level;

· An excellent understanding of the current regional (South Asia) and global discourse, policies, and practices related to CSA;

· Experience in training, capacity building and facilitating high-level discussions, policy dialogues, thematic fora, and other outreach events and missions;

· Demonstrated experience in technical leadership and oversight for the regional initiative of demand-driven scientific research and advisory services;

· Knowledge on review of agricultural project implementation strategies, documenting potential gaps and solutions, good practices, and lessons learned;

· Excellent English proficiency in oral and written communication, including a demonstrated track record in technical report writing and ability to communicate;

· Required computer proficiencies: Word, Excel, Power Point, Microsoft Teams; and

· Liaise with national and sub-national level government agencies, local administrations and representatives of the donor community.

Reporting Relationships

The Regional Expert will report to the Project Director and work in close coordination with the Climate Resilience Advisor and Resilient Agriculture Specialist. The Expert will also coordinate with the other CARE for South Asia project specialists at regional and national levels as necessary to carry out different activities under the project.

The expert will submit a time-charging sheet every month explaining the type of inputs and a summary of deliverables every quarter to ascertain the level of efforts.**

Contract Duration

The contract duration will be a maximum of 120 days stretched over a period of 1 year. It will be a time-based contract.

Selection Method

The consultant will be selected in accordance with ADPC’s recruitment process and in compliance with the World Bank Procurement Regulations.