The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) 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. UN-Habitats unique niche as an important United Nations agency in the humanitarian arena is through its focus on housing, land and settlement planning. UN-Habitat prioritizes resilience and good practices that reduce vulnerabilities and risks before and after disasters.
UN-Habitat provides a cross-cutting approach for reducing vulnerabilities and risks before and after the disasters. The organizations approach to disaster risk management/disaster risk reduction, reconstruction and recovery is based on its long-standing experience in working closely with the communities, provincial and local authorities to meet their needs for land, shelter, basic services, secure tenure and infrastructure while simultaneously addressing the longer-term development needs and and advocating on policy interventions
UH-Habitat Pakistan has vast experience in DRR/DRM. Under the One UN Programme 2009-2012 (OP-I), UN-Habitat led the component on Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) that focused on empowering communities, vulnerable groups, grassroots organizations and local authorities in high risk areas and enhancing their resources and capacities to prepare, respond and recover.
Pakistan is beset with plethora of natural and human induced hazards. Most of the school buildings and educational institutions do not comply with the hazards due to lack of resistance designs, preparedness, response plans, and poor construction methods. The historical data of loss and damages caused by disasters substantiates that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is one of the most highly affected province of Pakistan that has been impacted by every major disaster that hit the country in the last decades. Existing educational infrastructure in KP is facing wear and tear of the years' neglect which is further aggravated by conflicts, and natural disasters.. Of the approximately 7.1 million children between the ages 5-16 in KP, around 2.5 million children are out of school, owing to the grossly ill-equipped public schooling system to meet the needs of a growing population.
UN-Habitat is in agreement with ECHO to implement For the year 2017, ECHO has allocated 1 million for Disaster Preparedness/Disaster Risk Reduction (DP/DRR) and therefore UN-Habitat has picked the implementation of Pillar I - Safe Learning Facilities, focusing on infrastructural and non-infrastructural changes regarding retrofitting, repairing, and strengthening of existing school buildings to meet the international standards of disaster resilience under the larger DRR framework of ECHO..
Duties & Responsibilities
Under the overall supervision of the Project Manager, the incumbent will have the following duties and responsibilities:
- Conduct field surveys/assessments.
- Provide guidance to Project Manager on technical elements in both qualitative and quantitative survey tools.
- Provide guidance for supervising and monitoring all technical aspects of the project activities.
- Supervise site implementation activities and assist towards developing specifications for engineering goods and services
- Formulate and manage hazard resistant technical trainings for the staff, implementing partners, local authorities and community and maintain the records of the events.
- Analyze implementation work plans and make recommendations for improvements as necessary
- Provide guidance to field staff for construction methodology of various structures including Building units, community infrastructure, receive its inputs and act in consequence in coordination with the Project Manager.
- Support the Project Engineer in the development of the guiding booklets, tools, methodologies and other implementation of project activities.
- Maintain a regular liaison with the implementing partner for the technical backstopping.
- Ensure adherence to UN-Habitat operational policies, procedures and standards of conduct.
- Perform any other task assigned by the supervisor.
Required Qualifications & Experience
- Diploma in Civil Engineering with minimum 3 years relevant experience.
- Strong knowledge of construction practices and survey tools
- Experience in conducting technical surveys is an advantage.
- Knowledge of UN rules and regulations is an advantage.
- Knowledge of MS-Office applications.
- Knowledge of project area and community is essential.
- Past experience in emergency and post disaster area is preferred.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
- Ability to work under pressure and difficult conditions.
- Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN values and ethical standards.
- Ability of work effectively and harmoniously with colleagues.
- Displays culture, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
- Shares knowledge and experience and contributes to UN-Habitat practice areas and actively works towards continuing personal learning and development.
- Ability to work with minimal supervision.
- Focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to critical feedback
- Builds strong relationship with clients and external actors
- Proficiency in English and Urdu is essential. Knowledge of local languages is an advantage.