Background

An estimated 688,000 Rohingya community, have been fled forcibly due to violence from Myanmar into Cox's Bazar and the Chittagong Hill Tracts since 25 August 2017. The cumulative total of Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN) since 1978, 1991, and 2016 movements on top of 2017 movement is, according to the Government of Bangladesh 908,000, which is almost equal to the 1.2 million total population of Cox's Bazar. The rapid influx of FDMN into areas with high baseline levels of poverty and environmental vulnerability has put immense strain on infrastructure, services and the host population. There have been observations that conflict and social tension is rising gradually, within the camps between Rohingya, between Rohingya and host community, as well as inter-community tensions, including at household level, outside the camps. Both in 2017 and 2018 there have been high profile killings of camp community leaders as part of factional infighting in the Rohingya community.

A UNDP mission in early January 2018 highlighted that although voluntary repatriation of FDMN to Myanmar is expected to begin shortly, the pressure of the exponential increase of population in the area is increasingly being felt by the local population and institutions. The scale and speed of the FDMN influx into Bangladesh over the past few months put immense strain on infrastructure, services and the host communities, overwhelming existing response capacities. Sub-district (Upazila) offices find that their workload has increased to respond to the requests from the Camp-in-Charge (CICs) which means they cannot deliver their services (fire and police especially) as normal. Roads and schools have been affected by changed and higher volume of use and need to be rehabilitated. Assessments have highlighted risks faced by the FDMN, many of which also affect the wider population in the area, including protection issues (e.g., human and drug trafficking, domestic violence), public health (e.g., limited access to health services, increased risk of epidemics due to lack of water and proper sanitation), increased risk of natural disasters (e.g., because of widespread deforestation), and social cohesion (e.g., increasing inter- and intra-community disputes).

Considering the urgent humanitarian crisis and meeting essential services of the Rohingya and local host communities, UNDP initiated to work intensively through different long-term projects for both communities. The Community Recovery and Resilient Programme (C2RP) is one of them and the C2RP aims to address the impact of the influx on host communities focusing on livelihoods and social cohesion. Amongst its objectives, C2RP aims to provide district and sub district governance support, facilitate participatory and inclusive local governance processes, support improved service delivery in host community areas, inclusive development of community infrastructure. The project will be implemented in two Upazilas namely Ukhiya and Teknaf under Cox's Bazar district with five affected unions. As the C2RP project is working to strengthen the capacity of the host community and government intuitions as well as local government institution to protect the host community and also to establish social peace so, need a national expert to support the Local Government Institutions (LGIs) to come up with a plan which is prepared in consultation and participation of the community members. Against this backdrop, C2RP project intends to hire two consultants to support the project for efficient engagement of the community and effective implementation of the project at the community level.

Description of the Assignment

The consultant for the proposed assignment would be engaged in mobilizing the community and form community groups/ circles as proposed in the activity plan, as well as to provide programme and logistic support to implement the component based activities at the community level in cox’s Bazar. The community mobilizer will also conduct community level awareness, FGDs, campaign and keep a directory of local level stakeholders. The Mobilizer also will ensure proper documentation of the activities at the community mobilization activities and to help the line manager in the preparation of monthly and weekly reports that includes statistical information to the line manager as/ and when required for the decision making purposes.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of works: The Project has several components where the community, government and local government institutions has scope to involve and implement the programme activities to support the communities in Ukhia and Teknaf of Cox’s Bazar.

Specific objectives:

• Contribute to design and implementation of outreach activities to provide inputs to outreach community mobilizer and project team;
• Support to engage and keep the community updated about the project;
• Connect with and engage individuals and groups relevant to the scope of the project work, maintain a directory of local level stakeholders, and connect to the mapped the activities complementing to the other development activities been carried away by UN agencies;
• Support to maintain a data base of the local level community and the members as well as to keep close contact with them.
• Support to organise and participate in all project events (practical trainings on collaboration between the local government and communities, local justice and formal justice mechanism, consultations with communities, etc.);
• Respond and adjust to a flexible activity scheduling, logistical constraints related to the social dynamics in Cox’s Bazar involving the community and its expectations;
• Prepare event wise report and a total report on the assignment and ensure proper documentation of the activities at the community mobilization activities and to help the line manager in the preparation of monthly and weekly reports that includes statistical information to the line manager as/ and when required for the decision making purposes.

Competencies

Professional Competencies

• Strong background in promotion of peace and human rights, Demonstrated knowledge on community-sensitive mechanisms in Bangladesh;
• Excellent writing, IT and communication skills.

Behavioral Competencies

• Good interpersonal skills;
• Ability to take initiative and promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture in the office;
• Ability to establish and maintain good working relationships to facilitate work goals;
• Demonstrable capacity to build knowledge through using various sources;
• Ability to plan, organize, implement and report on work;
• Positive, constructive attitude to work, effective problem solving, self-improvement, analysis and synthesis;
• Openness to change and ability to responds positively to feedback and differing points of view and integrates & updates accordingly; adaptability, creativity;
• Excellent presentation and facilitation skills;
• Demonstrates integrity and ethical standards;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Exhibit strong teamwork skills in a complex environment.
• Confident in demonstration of work;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure.
• Note: The individual consultant who does not meet the above eligibility criteria shall not be considered for further evaluation. Necessary documentation must be submitted to substantiate the above eligibility criteria.

Required Skills and Experience

Expected Qualification and Experiences of the Consultant

Educational Qualification: Minimum Bachelor Degree in Economics, Development Studies or any other social science related field for the assignment.

Experiences: Minimum 2 years of relevant working experience in the area of capacity development, community mobilization, social cohesion.

Source:https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=82941