National Expert Protected Areas Institutional Assessment

The consultant should possess the following Competencies and Required Skills and Experience.

Competencies:
(i) The consultant must have experience with environmental programme design and implementation
(ii) The consultant must have knowledge of protected areas management, planning and/or financing
(iii) It is desirable that the consultant would have undertaken scientific research in aforementioned fields.

Required Skills and Experience:

Education:
The consultant must have University degree in the fields of biodiversity conservation and environmental protection, natural resource management. Advanced degree is an advantage;
Work experience:
The consultant must have at least 10 years of experience in protected area management, planning and/or financing, environmental protection and natural resources management, related scientific research, or environmental program design and implementation. Prior relevant experience to the assignment, with UNDP, is an advantage;
Languages:
The consultant must be fluent in written and oral communication in English;

The principal responsibility of the national consultant is to make substantive contributions to the development and structuring of the CEO Endorsement request document and Project Document for the Medium-Sized Project proposal (MSP). The incumbent will work under the overall guidance of the UNDP Romania Country Office and international protected area finance consultant, as informed by guidance from the UNDP/GEF Regional Technical Advisor. The expert will conduct institutional and individual capacity needs assessment for the sustainable financial management of PAs and will design an institutional development program through conducting desk reviews of existing information, documents, analytical reports and stakeholder interviews.


Within the framework of this ToR, the consultant is expected to perform the following duties:

1. Organize a stakeholder workshop at the inception of the preparation stage with the support from the CO. The workshop should clarify the objectives, approaches and outcomes of project design, and spell out the roles and contributions of different stakeholders, aiming at ensuring the national ownership from the very inception of the project;
2. Identification of the institutional responsibilities for Protected Area financing in Romania;
3. Completion of the UNDP/GEF institutional capacity assessment scorecard for the identified PA institutions in the Carpathians;
4. Analyze the institutional and individual capacity barriers which are hampering Carpathian protected area financial sustainability;
5. Analyze the operation of the institutional mechanisms for management and allocation of funds: looking at issues, such as: the use of funds generated for PA management; and criteria used for allocation of funds from the system level to site level – performance, need based;
6. Together with the international expert outline the capacity development and training programs for financial planning and management of PAS to be implemented in the MSP;
7. Work with the other experts to put together a set of criteria for the selection of the pilot sites for the demonstration of new governance structures for protected area management which would contribute to improved financial sustainability.
8. Prepare an overview of the baseline situation with associated approximate costs – which are the activities which will be undertaken by the governmental and non-governmental stakeholders that will contribute to financial sustainability of the Carpathian network of Protected Areas in Romania on 2009 – 2014 divided by the two components: (a) Supportive legislative framework and Sustainable PA Financing; and (b) Institutional and individual capacities of management authorities and other local stakeholders to realize sustainable financing of PAs. This overview will feed into the incremental reasoning;
9. Contribute to the design of the project – detailed description of outputs and costs for component II;
10. Contribute to the preparation of the logical framework – with provision of relevant impact indicators for the objective and outcomes level.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), acting as an implementing agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), is providing assistance to the Romanian Ministry of Environment in the preparation of the GEF Medium Size Project (MSP) “Improving the financial sustainability of the Carpathian System of Protected Areas”.

It is within this framework that UNDP Romania invites experts with relevant experience to apply for the positions:

1. Protected Area Institutional Assessment Specialist

Applications should be sent:
- by e-mail to procurement.ro@undp.org
- or by fax to 0212017828

Please see attached the Terms of Reference for this assignment or visit UNDP Romania web site www.undp.ro.

Applications should indicate: “National protected area finance expert/ Carpathian”.

The deadline for submitting applications is 5 June 2009.