Regional Civil Military Specialist

The tri-border region of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, referred to as the Liptako-Gourma region, has over the past years become the epicentre of the escalation violence which engulfs the Sahel. The conflict drivers include a complex mix of political grievances, jihadi ideologies, competition over natural resources, protection of interests linked to wide-spread transboundary organised crime, inter- and intra-community conflicts for power and influence, etc. while the perpetrators of violence include several violent extremist groups, armed political movements, criminal groups, self-defence groups and militias as well as national and international military forces. Some of these groups also cooperate, openly or tacitly, around joint interests. Data from the ACLED data base show that reported fatalities for the first half of 2020 are at 90% of the (full) 2019 annual tally for the entire (Western) Sahel, most of which has taken place in the Liptako-Gourma region, pointing to a rapidly deteriorating situation.

It is against this background that international, regional and national actors have increasingly been mobilising in the fields of security, development and humanitarian aid to stem the violence, protect civilians, address humanitarian needs and create the necessary conditions for a return to peaceful governance and development. Recently, the international community, including the EU and the AU, have announced reinforced military efforts as well as much needed initiatives to enhance coordination and cooperation between security and civilian actors to help ensure that tactically successful military action is backed up by national and regional capacity to ensure a return to state-controlled and civilian led security, a reinforcement of state presence, access to social services and support for local livelihoods, with the overall objective of reducing or eliminating violence, build trust and establish the preconditions for addressing the root causes of the conflict and the political grievances.

In this context, UNDP considers the time ripe for pilot testing its approach to stabilisation, understood as support for the transition period from violent conflict to post-conflict early recovery, building on its experience in the Middle East and currently in the Lake Chad Basin. At the same time, and given the rapidly changing context, UNDP aims to take stock of the complex landscape of actors and conflict drivers in Liptako-Gourma and to formulate a value proposition within the emerging strategic policy and programmatic frameworks for the region, in close consultation and coordination with other actors on the ground. In this endeavour, and based on a formal request, UNDP will support the Liptako-Gourma Authority, a sub-regional organisation composed of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, with which UNDP has an ongoing partnership since its inception in 1970 and which has recently seen its mandate extended from a focus on cross-border cooperation on natural resources management and infrastructure to also include security.

The rationale underpinning the proposed 18 months pilot cum inception phase for the pilot testing and initial establishment of a Stabilisation Mechanism encompasses the following dimensions:

• Politics, i.e. the need for a shared understanding of and strong commitment to required political processes to sustain stabilisation efforts,
• Analytics, i.e. the need for in-depth and ongoing analysis of the conflict, its actors and effectiveness of crises responses,
• Capacity, i.e. the need to assess and reinforce required capacity for implementing stabilisation, and
• Results, i.e. the need to pilot test UNDP’s approach to stabilisation on the ground to collect lessons learnt and demonstrate results to other stakeholders.

UNDP is now recruiting the task team for implementation of the pilot phase, including a Project Manager, a Civil-Military) Adviser, a Project Analyst & MNE Adviser and a Procurement Specialist. The task team will be based at the LGA and work closely with the LGA Management and Technical Units in the spirit of contributing towards building LGA capacity while also implementing the pilot phase and laying the foundation for a full-scale stabilisation mechanism. The task team, through the Project Manager, reports to the UNDP Western and Central Sahel Hub Manager in Dakar and will work in close consultation and cooperation with the Stabilisation Unit in the Dakar Hub. 

This Job Description refers to the Regional Civil Military Adviser. Close coordination and cooperation with security forces, including the military, and supporting political-military dialogue is central to successful stabilisation which depends on the protection provided by the security forces to be able to implement early recovery and trust building interventions in affected areas but also aims at supporting the transition from military to civil led security. The selection of intervention areas for immediate stabilisation shall be aligned on political & security strategies, the design of stabilisation interventions should support enhanced trust in security forces and a transfer to civilian security, conflict analysis and sensitivity must take security strategies into account and overall stabilisation efforts should support military strategies and free up resources for military core operations while also contributing towards capacity building in areas related to Human Rights Accountability and Protection of Civilians. Hence, close and trustful relationship with and between both military and civil security forces at the regional, national and local level and the proposed Stabilisation Mechanism is central to successful stabilisation. This will be the primary task of the Civil-Military Adviser, in close consultation with the Project Manager and Task Team, the Stabilisation Unit in Dakar and existing, or to be established, regional, national and local coordination mechanisms involving security actors, including the local level Partnership Platforms proposed by UNDP under the Stabilisation Mechanism.

Given the role of the UN RC/HC in Humanitarian CIMIC, which is different from a Stabilisation Civil-Military Adviser but where there will be important overlaps and interfaces to learn from and capitalize on, liaison and coordination with the RCO, UNCT and UN Humanitarian Organisations in the region will be another key role of the Civil-Military adviser to be recruited.

Establish and maintain a civil-military Network for the implementation of the Pilot Phase:

• Establish and maintain dialogue and coordination with the national military and internal security forces in the three member states, as well as national authorities and advisory bodies linked to governance and oversight of the security sectors;
• Support the establishment and smooth functioning of the local level Partnership Platform, in close consultation with their chain of command;
• Establish and maintain dialogue and coordination with regional and international security partners present in the region, in close coordination with LGA’s Security Expert and Senior Management and aligned on regionally agreed principles of cooperation and subsidiarity in the area of security cooperation;
• Identify, map, assess and contribute towards existing consultation and coordination mechanisms in the area of civil – military coordination, including but not limited to humanitarian civil-military coordination;
• Establish and maintain dialogue and coordination with the RC/HC Offices and the UNCTs in the region, including the security and CIMIC experts in UN Humanitarian Agencies and MINUSMA in Mali;
• Establish and maintain dialogue and coordination with Security and CIMIC experts in civil society organisations.  

Analysis, Policy and Advocacy:

•  
• Monitor and assess existing mechanism for civil – military coordination and cooperation and make recommendations on improvements in support of effective stabilisation interventions and transition towards state-controlled civil-led security and protection of populations.
• Identify, assess and formulate policy recommendations to key stakeholders for improved coordination and cooperation between military and civil security forces to maximize the impact of stabilisation efforts and protection of civilians;
• Conduct a strategic review of UNDP’s civilian-military cooperation approach.
• Assess various policy options, make suggestions for process improvements, and hold consultations with other interagency stakeholders
• Map and assess needs and mechanisms for civil-military coordination and cooperation at the sub-regional level and advise LGA on which role they can play to establish or further improve such mechanisms, including in a cross-border cooperation context, in close consultation with other sub-regional organisations, notably the G5S;  
• Act as an advocate for the promulgation of international and regional ‘best/good practice’ CIMIC concepts, guidelines and principle, including the promotion and protection of human rights and humanitarian principles;
• Analyse and suggest performance indicators for how improved CIMIC contributes towards stabilisation and support the integration of such dimensions into the MNE system for the Stabilisation Mechanism and the design of stabilisation action plans at the local level;
• Prepare, or provide substantive input to, policy and position papers and reports on civil-military coordination issues for presentation to relevant stakeholders;
• Contribute to the Office regular reporting on civil-military coordination issues.

Capacity Building:

• Based on analysis and assessment of the context, and gradual lessons learnt from implementation of the pilot phase, advise and train the LGA on how to interpret and apply its enlarged mandate in the area of security in relation to stabilization and improved CIMIC at the sub-regional and cross-border level;
• As relevant, and in particular regarding the formation and smooth functioning of the local level Partnership Platforms, advise and train representatives of national and regional military and security forces in the areas of human rights and humanitarian principles;
• Lead or contribute towards the formulation of medium-term strategies for LGA’s role in cross-border stabilisation and CIMIC, as relevant and applicable;
• Contribute to discussions, learning and harmonisation of regional, national and local level approaches to CIMIC and stabilization where relevant, including with humanitarian organisations.

Other duties: 

• Acts as Security Focal Point for the pilot phase task team while establishing and maintaining engagement with UNDSS in the three countries concerned and any other Security Management System as appropriate;
• Performs other duties as required.