To support the successful implementation of the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) in 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and more than 160 cities, initiated by ACP Group of States and financed by the European Commission (EC).
The consultant will be based at UN-Habitat Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.
6 Months
BACKGROUND:
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT, is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable communities, towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. The main documents outlining the mandate of the organization are the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, Habitat Agenda, Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium, and Resolution 56/206. Its activities contribute to the overall objective of the United Nations to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development within the context and the challenges of a rapidly urbanizing world.
The overall aim of the assignment is to support the successful implementation of the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) in 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and more than 160 cities, initiated by ACP Group of States and financed by the European Commission (EC). PSUP aims to triggering change to make a real difference in the lives of slum dwellers in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions and contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG Target 11.1 as well as the implementation of the New Urban Agenda for inclusive and sustainable urbanization. PSUP seeks to tackle urban poverty through adaptive and pro-active measures and to enhance management of urbanization through assessment studies and strategic planning approaches for participatory and inclusive decision-making processes and up-scaled participatory slum upgrading.
The PSUP is acknowledged for its approach aligned with the New Urban Agenda and the SDGs and tested in many ACP countries with many success stories, lessons to be learnt and opportunities for upscaling. In the past, globally often slum upgrading has been approached through a project-to-project basis and experience has shown that this approach is ineffective, because it rarely gained scale and/or replication. For making slum upgrading sustainable there is a current shift towards strategic and inclusive city-wide slum upgrading with pro-active measures which PSUP is implementing.
APPROACH
The Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) consists of six general programme criteria:
1. Quality of the project design: the appropriateness of the suggested project objectives and underlying problems, the needs and priorities of the intended target groups and beneficiaries that the project is supposed to address and the adaptation to the physical and policy environment within it operates. This shall include the quality of the project preparation and design – the logic and completeness of the project planning process, and the internal logic and coherence of the project design.
2. Achievement of the main objectives and effectiveness in the implementation of participatory slum upgrading projects: the assessment of expected results and impacts, including unintended ones, and then the comparison of intended and unintended consequences. The consequences shall be evaluated in relation to the overall goal and the objectives of the PSUP, and the respect countries'/cities' objectives.
3. Efficiency of the implementation to date: to what extent funding, human, financial resources, regulatory, and/or administrative resources contributed to, or hindered, the achievement of the objectives and results. This also includes the ownership of the national and local governments to contribute to the programme implementation in line with national priorities and budgets.
4. Sustainability of the effects: an analysis of the extent to which the results and impact are being, or are likely to be maintained over time, considering the multiplier effect of the planned slum upgrading activities and the extent to which the projects identified in PSUP are being or are likely to be financed and implemented (based also on the developed resource mobilization strategy).
5. Key cross-cutting areas of interventions: for example, land, environment, gender, human rights, housing, basic urban services, urban planning, legislation, livelihoods and local economic development, inclusive governance etc. are combined and are taken care off in the programme design which leads to a strong project with multiplier effects.
6. Coordination, complementation and coherence: the degree that the proposed pilot projects are coherent with national priorities and current efforts of the key local and national partners, with donors and EU policies and Member States, with the UN Country Teams, UNDAF and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers as well as UN-Habitat's Country Programme Documents (if in place). This shall include an assessment of the positioning of UN-Habitat within the overall context of donors in the field of urban development.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
To achieve the above objectives, this assignment consists of the following areas of engagement in the PSUP, and will work directly and report to the PSUP Project Manager:
1. PSUP focal point for selected francophone and anglophone African countries (50%):
• Ensure implementation of the PSUP activities in the selected countries
• Monitor and advise on the implementation of country activities, report
• Develop and design Terms of Reference for multi-partner implementation frameworks, Memorandum of Understanding with governments and Cooperation Agreements with implementing partners as well as Contribution Agreements for co-financing in PSUP countries
• Provide technical support to implementing partners in line with PSUP principles
• Enrich the process of the implementation of community-led initiatives, finance strategies, scaling initiatives on housing in slums
• Coordinate implementation with the Regional and Country Offices as well as UN Resident Coordinator Office in countries and other sections within UN-Habitat
• Conduct and/or support trainings at country level using PSUP guidelines and material
• Provide assistance to the Country Teams in developing participatory citywide slum upgrading strategies in line with PSUP guidelines. Maintain regular communication including with officials from national and local governments, NGOs and academia
2. Finance and partnerships (40%)
• Lead inputs in national strategies on finance and community-led co-creation with private sector, including housing provision
• Analyse market studies and suggest actions for local economic development building on the PSUP approach
• Contribute to the design of a Challenge Fund for the Southern African region
• Contribute to the review and formulation of integrated thematic as well as process-oriented guides for up-scaled participatory slum upgrading with the above expertise
• Contribute to capacity building, e-learning and monitoring with thematic specialization
• Contribute to organization and follow up of thematic Forums and regional workshops
• Coordinate a Research team on a catalog of projects which can inform the socio-economic recovery after COVID-19
• Document and report on implementation, impacts and engagement
3. Contributions to the Section (10%)
• Provide research inputs and data collection to the Section
• Contribution to the UN-Habitat Global Report on Slums
Academic Qualifications: Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in a field relevant to development and urban planning. architecture public policy, social sciences, international development, political science, or similar is a requirement. Knowledge of experiences in local economic development and co-creation with the private sector, housing and real estate market or relevant sector is desirable.
Experience: 7 years' experience in country operations especially in programmes dealing with urban poverty alleviation, slum upgrading, and environmental issues is a requirement. Experience with private sector engagement in a pro-poor contexts an added advantage. General knowledge and experience in stakeholder engagement (especially slum community participation) for slum/informal settlement upgrading is desirable.
Language: Excellent proficiency in spoken and written French and English are required.
THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.