Community Mobilizing Associate

Job Title: Community Mobilizing Associate

Type of Contract: National Personnel Services Agreement

Duty Station: Gaza Strip

Duration of Contract: 6 months     

Closing Date:   Before: 25/09/2024- 6:59

Background

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core principles at UNDP:  we value diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, we foster inclusion as a way of ensuring all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, and we ensure equity and fairness in all our actions. Taking a ‘leave no one behind’ approach to our diversity efforts means increasing representation of underserved populations. People who identify as belonging to marginalized or excluded populations are strongly encouraged to apply. Learn more about working at UNDP including our values and inspiring stories.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

UNDP’s Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP) was established through a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20 December 1978, calling upon UNDP “to improve the economic and social conditions of the Palestinian people”. Since its establishment, UNDP/PAPP has delivered over USD 1.7 billion in development assistance to the Palestinian People. 

UNDP’s Palestinian Programmatic Framework (PPF) 2023-2025 sets out a vision of “a world in which all Palestinians can enjoy a dignified life and fulfil their own vision of a unified, peaceful and free society”.  The PPF is centered around the concept of ‘Transformative Resilience’ and its three elements: a cohesive Palestinian identity, self-reliance, and ownership and leadership.

Over the next three years, UNDP/PAPP will build on its experiences and achievements to make critical contributions to the priorities defined by the Palestinian national development plans and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), through interventions in three programmatic priority areas:  i) democratic governance and quality services; ii) inclusive economic opportunities; iii) sustainable natural resources management.

Under the Early Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience programme in Gaza, UNDP will conduct the Damage Assessment in the Gaza Strip to assess damages in housing, public and social infrastructure, education, health, transportation and other facilities that have incurred damages, and identify and quantify rubble removal requirements. In addition, UNDP will implement the Emergency Removal of Post-war Generated Debris in The Gaza Strip. However, UNDP will engage the communities within the proposed activities to be implemented where the Community Coordinator will be following up on the community participation and engagement including consultation, discussions on plans and ongoing activities, and receiving feedback from the targeted communities. One of the Lessons Learned from previous/ongoing debris management​ is Community-Centric Approach where Engaging community incorporates local citizen perspectives, identifies and addresses specific concerns, and fosters a safety culture through education and awareness campaigns. In addition to the importance of Social Assessment to be done at the time of Technical and Engineering Assessment for the damaged housing units considering social criteria such as PWD, unemployment status, Elderly, etc.

As part of this programme, providing emergency response and relief interventions to alleviate the catastrophic suffering and socio-economic impact on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is paramount. Against the backdrop of the unprecedented and protracted internal displacement in the Gaza Strip, UNDP/PAPP seeks to actively contribute to address the urgent and widespread needs for decent transitional shelter for IDPs – through the below-outlined programmatic interventions. 

The Community Mobilizing Associate is assigned to the Early Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience Programme in Gaza which is designed to be implemented at scale in response to the unprecedented damages and needs - will create linkages both with the ongoing humanitarian needs and longer-term reconstruction priorities. In doing so, it seeks to support sustainable and community-led approaches to respond to the critical and immediate needs of the population, while eventually contributing to a future vision of Gaza that embeds a cohesive Palestinian identity, self-reliance, ownership and leadership, which are key elements of Transformative Resilience - at the heart of UNDP/PAPP’s vision in the oPt, UNDP’s goal is to empower the Palestinian People to establish a viable State that is able to realize the right to development for its people and support their socio-economic resilience. 

ONLY CURRENT PALESTINIAN NATIONALS AVAILABLE FOR EMPLOYMENT IN GAZA STRIP AND WILLING TO WORK AND TRAVEL THROUGHOUT VARIOUS CITIES IN THE STRIP ARE ELIGIBLE TO APPLY FOR THIS POSITION. ALL OTHER APPLICANTS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. 

Duties and Responsibilities

The incumbent will undertake the following:

1. Coordination of resilience/community infrastructure activities:

• Supervise and guide the work to accompany the proposal development and community engagement process, in close coordination with the Project Manager.
• Support the entities and community in identifying and prioritizing their social needs and activities, and development of operationalization of the “resilience plan” for the implementation of community and social activities, relevant to the specific context, to complement, sustain, and build ownership around the community infrastructure initiatives.
• Develop SOPs and questionnaires to be used to analyze the situation within the different targeted communities.
• Ensure sustainable implementation of community infrastructure interventions including the rehabilitation/reconstruction of damaged housing units as well as the installation of prefabricated units for social services.
• Support the Project Manager in the day-to-day management of the project, including ensuring timely and quality delivery of results. Assist in the support of the Gaza team in preparing the monthly reports as well as presentations on the projects’ updates.
• Organizing and conducting field visits regularly and establishing networks with all relevant stakeholders through regular meetings.
• Gather lessons learned and best practices and share them with the UNDP Project Team.
• Assist the Project Manager in ensuring the development and implementation of relevant Quality Assurance plan(s).
• Drafting of knowledge management products, carry out needed data collection and reporting along with other tasks that may be required.

2. Support the implementation of social activities focusing on communities’ engagement:

• Development of full proposal and monitor the community engagement process ensuring the active involvement and participation of the community members including women, youth, people with disability, and other vulnerable groups, and documenting the process through (field visit reports, photos, short-interviews and quotations from the community members). 
• Conduct regular visits to the selected communities across Gaza and monitor the implementation of the social and community activities implemented for the affected communities and targeted beneficiaries.
• Prepare questionnaires to measure the satisfaction of targeted communities on the infrastructure activities including rehabilitation/reconstruction, installation of prefabricated units as transitional housing units and social service units, and the Rubble Removal and Demining interventions including the reuse of crushed debris for roads and other purposes.
• Support the implementation of the community infrastructure component including assisting the project management in ensuring community engagement and participation.
• Provide support to the Community Representative Committees in the development of resilience plans including social cohesion activities catered to community needs. 
• Organize and conduct field visits on a regular basis to the targeted communities to monitor progress and support adjustments in the design of the social cohesion interventions.
• Monitor the project’s assumptions constantly and assess the risks and propose revisions in the action plan to the Project Manager, if necessary.
• Monitor the bottlenecks, problems, unexpected deviations and possible delays constantly and propose revisions in the action plan to the Project Manager, if necessary.
• Support the Project Manager in monitoring financial, procurement and administrative processes.

3. Facilitation of dialogue among stakeholders and community engagement in social activities:

• Connect with and engage individuals and groups in the community within the infrastructure activities including rehabilitation/reconstruction, installation of prefabricated units as transitional housing units and social service units, and the Rubble Removal and Demining interventions including the reuse of crushed debris for roads and other purposes.
• Leverage existing community planning exercises and ensure their inclusivity and the community active participation in decision-making.
• Ensure the mainstreaming of gender, environment and digitalization across all activities in the community.
• Facilitate workshops on common topics between different entities/communities to strengthen knowledge exchange. 

4. Contribute to the roll out of the project’s communication and visibility plan:

• Supporting the project’s media, communication and visibility related activities (drafting of short stories, media briefs, press releases, …etc.).
• Field visits for donor representatives, UNDP visitors and government officials; interpreting and translating key documents.
• Perform other related duties, as required by the functional supervisor. 

5. Support the drafting of regular updates on the resilience/community infrastructure component and the finalization of donor progress reports:

• Draft lessons learnt and best practices.
• Draft visibility and communication materials including press releases, success stories, quotations, media briefs and others. 
• Support the Project Manager in the preparation of donor reports and other ad-hoc reporting requirements related to the resilience/community infrastructure component. 

6. The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

Under the guidance of the Programme Analyst and the direct supervision of the Project Manager, the Community Mobilizing Associate will be a key member of the Project Implementation Unit, complementing the technical work of the engineers in the Gaza Strip, with capacity building support to the partners and community engagement activities with local representatives.  The incumbent will be supervising 5 National UNVs.