GRAF Consultant - Guidance & workshop package for improved understanding of inter-connected risk in Common Country Analysis and UN Cooperation Frameworks

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Under the supervision of the GRAF Programme Management Officer the consultant will report to the Head of UNDRR Global Risk Analysis and Reporting Section (GRAR) in close collaboration with UNDRR’s Regional Offices, Capacity Building Section / Global Education and Training Institute (GETI) and Partnerships Branch.

The consultant will:

• Gain understanding of the rationale, benefits and applications of inter-connected and systemic risk analysis in various development and humanitarian settings, including a desk review of existing methodologies and analytical frameworks for multi-dimensional risk analysis.

• Familiarize with existing guidance and initiatives as noted under section 5

• Consult with following stakeholders:

o The consultants hired to deliver the GRAF workshops on inter-connected and systemic risks;
o Consultant with UNDRR Regional Office staff involved in CCA processes
o Consultant hired to develop the guidance package for inter-connected and systemic risk analysis for Humanitarian Programme Cycle

• Develop a simple analytical framework for the analysis of inter-connected and systemic risk analysis designed to inform a CCA process and adaptable to the priorities and risk analysis needs of CCA stakeholders.

• Develops a set of instructions that explain:

o how different risk datasets can be used to inform analysis of inter-connected and compound risk (link to GRAF Pillar1);
o how to adapt and facilitate agreement on the analytical framework for analysis of inter-connected risk in CCAs;
o how to facilitate a joint risk analysis within the CCA process that is multi-hazards, multi-sectoral and examines inter-connected risks approaches to synthesize and visualize the results from the risk analysis in an effective manner;
o how the analysis results can effectively inform decision-making and strategic planning

• Design a half-day workshop package for inter-connected risk analysis in a CCA setting.

SCOPE OF DELIVERABLES

The following deliverables are expected from the assignment:

1.) Inception report that includes implementation plan of consultancy (1 week after begin of consultancy)
2.) Draft a guidance document/ manual for how available GRAF data can be applied to enhance inter-connected risk analysis in CCAs;
3.) Set of instructions as outlined under section 6;
4.) Workshop package for enhancing risk understanding and analysis risk analysis in coordinated development planning processes (concept, agenda, presentations, exercises);
5.) A short presentation outlining the key elements of the guidance and workshop package.

The deliverables should be presented so that they are understandable, useful and relevant for the above listed audiences.

CONTEXT

Established in December 1999, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) is the designated focal point in the United Nations system for the coordination of efforts to reduce disasters and to ensure synergies among the disaster reduction activities of the United Nations and regional organizations and activities in both developed and less developed countries. Led by the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction (SRSG/ASG), UNDRR has over 100 staff located in its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and in regional offices. Specifically, UNDRR guides, monitors, analyses and reports on progress in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, supports regional and national implementation of the Framework and catalyzes action and increases global awareness to reduce disaster risk working with UN Member States and a broad range of partners and stakeholders, including civil society, the private sector, parliamentarians and the science and technology community.

In adopting the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015 – 2030 (Sendai Framework), the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda), the New Urban Agenda (NUA) and the Paris Agreement, Member States clearly identified the prevention of new risk, the reduction of existing risk, and the strengthening of resilience, as central to global efforts in realizing sustainable development pathways in the 21st century.

Through the UN Plan of Action on Disaster Risk Reduction for Resilience, UNDRR plays also a leadership role in integrating DRR across the UN system and contributes to providing a bridge between development and humanitarian communities. Through the UN Plan of Action, the UN System commits to strengthen its joint ability ‘to effectively support national and local communities in early warning, preparedness, response and recovery’ (Result 2.2).

BACKGROUND

Many countries lack the means to assess and manage escalating risks in a holistic and integrated manner: they lack a risk assessment approach that allows them to understand the systemic nature of risk in development, humanitarian and fragile state contexts. As the United Nations focal point agency for disaster risk reduction, UNDRR has designed the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) as a long-term initiative aiming to:

• help UNDRR partners to access and better apply risk data, including hazard, vulnerability and exposure data relating to complex climate futures,

• deploy new technological innovations in risk data across thematic areas to strengthen anticipatory finance and enable specialized analytics to better understand the systemic risks facing countries and regions,

• strengthen the capacity of national and sub-national partners to integrate complex climate futures into their investment and development plans, by improving the uptake of risk science in decision-making and diffusion of practical tools to inform risk reduction options,

• scale-up and incentivize investment in risk reduction through outreach, advocacy and partnerships for collective action.

The goal of GRAF is to improve risk information for more resilient development and humanitarian decision making across sectors and scales. It aims to increase resilient investment by governments and the private sector to accelerate achievement of the Sendai Framework targets, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement objectives.

UNDRR designed GRAF to address a wide spectrum of challenges to improve comprehensive risk management. GRAF seeks to transcend traditional linear and probabilistic risk analyses which have proven to be inadequate in understanding risk today. A core feature of the GRAF is creating partnerships between global, regional and national experts in risk science, investment, policy making and communication. The GRAF aims to increase use of scalable, systemic risk information to support more resilient development and humanitarian planning, public and private investment, strategic and operational decision-making.

The intended impact of the GRAF is that improved climate and disaster risk information will drive more disaster resilient decision-making across sectors and at multiple scales (national, sub-national, local). Concretely, the GRAF aims for multiple countries to be making planning, financing and program decisions based on quality risk information. GRAF addresses not only natural hazards but also biological, environmental, and technological-related hazards, with an emphasis on understanding how risk manifests across systems with specific emphasis on the role of managing exposure and vulnerability in reducing risk. The GRAF approach has a dual purpose: to increase the availability of, and access to, quality data and to increase the use of the data and information products to drive decision-making to prevent and reduce risks.

Specifically, the GRAF aims to result in improved information available and accessible to national and sub-national governments and other stakeholders on how to better understand and think about the consequences of choices that impact on the ability to manage multi-hazard and systemic risks. Notably, the GRAF emphasizes the importance of integrating quality data on climate future scenarios and demographic changes into the assessment and analysis of systemic risks. The GRAF seeks to ensure that countries make development and humanitarian planning and financing as well as sectoral programmatic, strategic and operational decisions at all levels based on high quality and actionable risk information.

The GRAF is anchored in four complementary pillars. The first two pillars are focused on increasing the access to, and availability of, quality risk information, including climate change related data. The second two pillars aim to support countries to ensure the sustainability of their development pathways by building capacity to make planning and financing decisions based on quality systemic risk information. Each of the four objectives is essential to achievement of sustainable results: strengthened core data (Pillar 1) is the foundation for improved innovative analytics (Pillar 2). Enhanced technical quality and human capacity development (Pillar 3) contribute to improved global networks and advocacy (Pillar 4) that will help ensure the data, analysis and research generated is used effectively to support risk-informed decision-making. This assignment falls under Pillar 2 of the GRAF.

FRAMING OF ASSIGNMENT

Rationale:

Understanding risks in all its dimensions of hazards, exposure, vulnerabilities and capacities is essential to assess the potential impacts on social, economic and environmental systems to evaluate the most efficient actions that can be taken to prevent and reduce risk at multiple scales.

At national level, multiple stakeholders conduct different disaster risk and vulnerability assessments, single or multi-hazard, quantitative or qualitative analysis using different methodologies (probabilistic or deterministic). Assessments vary on their ultimate purposes from strategic, policy and planning decisions to programmatic and operational actions focusing on different sectors, systems and geographic areas of concern. Findings and corresponding risk data is often not efficiently shared.

At the United Nations country programming level, development processes are based on CCAs for UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks (UNSDCF) which connect assessments of vulnerabilities to risks and impacts of climate change and disasters across sectors, to provide a common understanding of multidimensional and interlinked nature of risk. Knowledge, expertise and capacity to bring risk data together and facilitate a joint analysis of inter-connected risk is still limited at country level. As result CCA tend to examine risk in silos without exploring consistently cascading and compounding effects across social, economic and environmental systems and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals.

Audience:

The manual/ guidance to be developed will be used primarily by UNDRR regional office staff and GRAF officers to inform their contributions into country Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNOs). The expectation is that this document will be used to inform a coherent approach when engaging in Common Country Analysis (CCA) processes and also short workshops to be conducted at country level by UNDRR technical experts (and potentially in the future a wider cadre of experts) that can orient United Nations Country Teams (UNCTs) and working groups at technical level to the information resources available through the GRAF initiative and outline how they can be applied to strengthen risk analysis in CCAs. These workshops would build upon a joined-up capacity building event that brings together humanitarian and development actors around GRAF Pillar 1.

The target audience for the workshops Development Coordination Officers, Information Management Officers and Sector Coordinators involved in CCA processes as well as GRAF, Comprehensive Risk Management (CRM) and UNDRR Programme Officers.

Linkages to existing guidance and initiatives:

• build upon the training package developed for GRAF Pillar 1;

• align with the methodology developed and being tested with NDMAs under the GRAF;

• build upon good practice in multi-dimensional risk analysis;

• complement the UN Cooperation Framework Guidance, the Consolidated Annexes to the Cooperation Framework, the Companion Piece ‘Humanitarian-Development and Peace Collaboration, UN Resilience Guidance, the 13 SDG-based risk areas, Integrating Disaster Risk Reduction,

• complement the training package accompanying the rollout of the recommendations and checklist on scaling up DRR in humanitarian action.

Principles:

The guidance and workshop package should allow for practical, people-centred and multi-hazard, multi-sector analysis of inter-connected risks, with clear links to risk datasets.

UNDRR programme references:

• DRR Strategic Framework 2022-25: Strategic Objective 1: Countries use quality risk information and analysis to reduce risk and inform development decisions.
• UNDRR Accelerator 1: Generating robust evidence, innovation, and good practices on risk to inform decision-making processes.
• GRAF Pillar 1 (Strengthening access, analysis, and visualization of risk data), Pillar 2 (Catalyzing New Knowledge for Risk-informed Development and Humanitarian Action), Pillar 3 (Capacity building).

Academic Qualifications: - Master’s degree in Business Administration, International Relations, Economic Development, Development Studies, Social Science, International Development, Political Science, International Relations or other relevant field is required.

• A first-level university degree in combination with a minimum of 2 years additional qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience: - Minimum 7 years of experience in relevant development and/or humanitarian work at international level is required;

• Experience in disaster risk analysis, systems thinking is desired;
• Experience with United Nations Cooperation Framework processes, and in particular of Common Country Analysis processes, is desired;
• Experience in training and building capacity of government, UN and non-government representatives is desired;
• Experience in working in or supporting developing countries in development and humanitarian programmes, emergency or early recovery situations is desired;
• Experience in the UN system related to disaster risk reduction, emergency preparedness, response and recovery is desired.

Language: - Fluency in English is required;

• Knowledge of French, Spanish or another UN language is an advantage.