Community Development Specialist

UNOPS KEMC helps partners achieve their project goals in sectors including: governance, education, health, the environment, grant management and rural development. UNOPS KEMC has over twenty years of experience working in Africa, including on large scale infrastructure projects. With a flexible and responsive presence throughout the region, UNOPS is able to scale up rapidly, through various mechanisms into high risk areas which have proven to be beneficial to partners.

As part of the IDP crisis response, the Republic of Mozambique is preparing the Mozambique Northern Crisis Recovery Project (P176157) to be financed by the International Development Association (IDA) in the amount of US$100 million. The Project Development Objective is to improve access to basic services and economic opportunities for internally displaced persons and host communities in targeted areas of Northern Mozambique. The Project will be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADER) through the National Sustainable Development Fund (FNDS). The Project will retain and make use of existing Financial Management (FM) capacities and project oversight systems at FNDS. 

The Government intends to contract UNOPS to provide overall technical support to Project implementation, including through the preparation of Environmental and Social Safeguards instruments, based on the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Frameworks (ESF); as well as support in M&E. UNOPS is further tasked with the implementation of distinct project components.

The project ‘Mozambique Northern Crisis Recovery Project’ will be based in and around the City of Pemba in Cabo Delgado Province supporting the resettlement of IDPs from temporary settlement sites to 20 relocations sites. The project will support both IDPs and Host communities.  The project comprises of 4 main objectives related to the 

• Component 1: psychosocial social support and community peace building; and enhancing State-society trust and confidence.

• Component 2: provision of agriculture and fisheries inputs, cash for work programs for youth and women and the provision of kits for micro and small business development; and training on entrepreneurship and business management.

• Component 3: the restoration of basic services, small works for agriculture production, education and health infrastructure and the construction or rehabilitation of school and health infrastructure and community services and amenities in temporary and relocation sites and host communities.

• Component 4: strengthening of technical capacity of government authorities and local governments for conflict management. This component will also support project implementation, financial management, procurement, safeguards, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation.

The project will be implemented in collaboration with government authorities and will be guided by the various programme guidelines provided by the World bank- as the funding source. 

The project team is expected to contain Programme management staff, Safeguards and Monitoring and Evaluation staff and infrastructure staff and will require significant stakeholder and partner coordination and management. 

UNOPS is looking for a Community Development Specialist as part of the UNOPS Project Management Team, to support the safeguards component as well as implement Component 1 of the overall project deliverables. 

Purpose and Scope of Assignment 

The World Bank’s Environment and Social Standard 10 sets out that a Borrower has to engage with stakeholders as an integral part of a Project’s environmental and social assessment and project design and implementation. The nature, scope and frequency of the engagement should be proportional to the nature and scale of the Project. Consultations with stakeholders have to be meaningful and be based on stakeholder identification and analysis, plans on how to engage stakeholders, disclosure of information, actual consultations, as well as responses to stakeholder grievances, and reporting back to stakeholders.

Under the new World Bank ESSs, Bank-supported projects are required to facilitate mechanisms that address concerns and grievances that arise in connection with a Project. One of the key objectives of ESS 10 (Stakeholder Engagement and Information Disclosure) is ‘to provide project-affected parties with accessible and inclusive means to raise issues and grievances, and allow borrowers to respond and manage such grievances’. This Project GRM will facilitate the Project to respond to concerns and grievances of the project-affected parties related to the environmental and social performance of the project. The NCRP will provide mechanisms to receive and facilitate resolutions to such concerns. 

The Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) lays out the different Project stakeholder groups and the different strategies to consult these. It further defines how to inform stakeholders on the Project modalities. UNOPS is seeking a highly motivated and dynamic Community Development Specialist to implement the SEP, as well as lead on all other project-relevant community engagement and community development tasks and questions.

Furthermore, the Community Development Specialist will manage and oversee all activities of Component 1 of the Project on ‘Building Social Cohesion and Resilience to Conflict’. This component will include activities required to establish institutions and processes that promote stability, cohesion and peaceful cohabitation among different social groups and host communities while enhancing trust and confidence between society and State institutions and norms. The Community Development Specialist will oversee this component directly contributing to the all sub components. 

The Community Development Specialist will report to the Project Manager, and collaborate closely with the Environmental and Social safeguards team in the PIU, as well as with all state-level implementers and other Implementing partners.  

Social Safeguards: 

• Participate in the design, maintenance and dissemination of the Project’s Grievance Redress System in cooperation with the PIU Social Specialist, and the Communications Specialist.

• Support the Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) in close coordination with the PIU Social Safeguards Specialist

• Continue to refine the stakeholder mapping and analysis as defined in the SEP, and roll out analysis of stakeholders as areas of implementation become known (including all project-affected parties, vulnerable groups and minorities etc…); analyze Project stakeholder needs in newly selected areas for implementation

• Implement information disclosure to all relevant stakeholder groups; and guide and monitor Implementing Partners on such

• Implement continuous consultations on planned Project activities and plans, as well as Environmental and Social risks and mitigation measures; and guide and monitor Implementing Partners in such consultations

• Continuously compile all inputs gathered from stakeholder consultations and facilitate the PIU with summaries, aiming at Project adjustments and adjustments of stakeholder consultations where necessary

• Support the preparation of environmental and social safeguards instruments through field level data collection and stakeholder  engagements

• Advise the UNOPS Project Team on all community development related questions

• Act as the main community liaison focal point for all UNOPS activities

• Contribute to compiling information on the SEP and all other related activities for the monthly Project reporting cycle 

Component 1: Building social cohesion and resilience to conflict

• Manage and oversee the activities in Subcomponent 1: Supporting community-based organizations and leadership

  • Facilitating the strategy for IDP registration in relocation sides 

  • Training for local organizations, 

  • Establishment of local peacebuilding committees 

  • Development of the action plan to enhance state society and trust

  • Collaboration with existing partners working on similar activities within the project geography 

  • Creating interfaces and synergies with other project components 

• Manage and oversee the activities in Subcomponent 2: Provision of physical and psychosocial supportive services to vulnerable households and individuals

  • Establishing the referral pathway for provision of health services (physical and mental) 

  • Establishing the mechanisms for provision of psychological counselling in the project sites

  • Establishment of foster care services where required

  • Registration of IDPs to access these services

The Community Development Specialist will be required to draft the TORs for each of the activities required and put in place the monitoring mechanism to ensure that the activities and outputs are achieved. The Community Development Specialist will also be required to manage and monitor service providers that are identified. The community Development specialist will also be required to report on this specific component to the management of the PIU. 

Impact of Results 

• All project activities successfully engage with beneficiary communities  

• All project stakeholders are successfully consulted on project activities and environmental and social risks and impact of project activities

• High quality reporting as defined in the project tools

• Master’s Degree in Cultural/Social Anthropology, Development Studies or Sociology is required

• A combination of Bachelor’s degree with an additional 2 years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of the education requirements outlined above.

• A minimum of at least 5 years of relevant experience working with local governments and  communities in developing countries is required

• Experience working in Mozambique is desired

• Experience in fragile, post-conflict and disaster contexts is desired

• At least 2 years of relevant experience in design, implementation and management of crisis recovery of community-based organizations and infrastructure is required.

• Experience in implementing donor-funded projects, preferably World-Bank funded projects is desired

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns. Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.