Senior Environmental Expert

Position

Senior Environmental Expert

Input/contract duration

May 2021 till October 2021

Location

MM Office, Sanepa with frequent visits to the field as required

Total number of days of input

50 working days (estimate)

Reporting to

Senior Infrastructure Manager

Purnima background:

Mott MacDonald is managing the FCDO-funded programme: ‘Purnima: UK Support to Post-Earthquake Recovery in Nepal’ in four Districts (Gorkha, Dhading, Nuwakot, and Rasuwa). This programme aims to achieve long-term positive change in the lives of people in earthquake-affected regions of Nepal.

The implementation phase of the programme has commenced in July 2018 for a 4.5-year covering 41 rural and urban municipalities. It comprises different Output Areas as follows:

• -Support and capacity building to Government at central, district and local level in reconstruction planning.
• -Reconstruction of rural infrastructure, including rural water supply schemes, foot trails, footbridges and schools.
• -Mobilizing and managing a Challenge Fund to leave no-one behind in the reconstruction and economic recovery effort by working together with local governments, private sectors and vulnerable groups and communities.
• -Monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Purnima has linked these outputs into two thematic areas: “build back better” and “leave no one behind” so that reconstruction benefits everyone and they are in a better state than before the earthquake. The impact of the earthquake was felt most severely by women and the most vulnerable members of society. It is essential the gender equality and social inclusion issues are covered explicitly in all output areas and mainstreamed across activities undertaken through the programme. The project also aims to stimulate transformative change for women and girls, in social, economic, and political arenas by mainstreaming transformative change across all output areas activities.

Background to OA2:

Output Area 2 (OA2) of the Purnima Programme includes the construction of four infrastructure components 1) Rural WASH schemes, 2) Trail bridge 3) Foot trail and 4) School building 5) Installation of WASH facilities to quarantine and isolation facilities. These components are all currently in different phases – planning, detailed design, construction and post construction (monitoring of sustainability of constructed assets). The implementing parties for each of the components vary and include a range of primary and secondary partners.

Ensuring environmentally sound design and implementation of these rural infrastructures at all stages of their implementation is crucial for long term sustainability and ensuring no adverse impact to the environment.

While implementing partners are also responsible for ensuring climate resilience and environmental sustainability of the rural infrastructures, Purnima needs to ensure that the partners environmental assessment and actions are appropriate and adequate.

Therefore, Purnima intends to hire a senior environmental expert with intermittent inputs to support and advise Purnima to ensure environmental sounds in its all rural infrastructures under output area 2. 

Objective:

The key objective is to provide expert advice to Purnima for assuring all the rural infrastructures undertaken by Purnima to comply with environmental policy and act of Nepal and meet Mott MacDonald’s and Purnima environmental sustainability standards. 

Activities:

1. For all types of infrastructure under OA2, review and update the Purnima Programme Environmental Guidelines document (drafted in March 2018), to:
   1. Be aligned with all the legal requirements of the existing Environmental Acts, laws, legislations, regulations and frameworks in Nepal – notably the Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1997 and the Environment Protection Rules (EPR), 1997 and Amendments.
   2. Reflect the Mott MacDonald standards of environmental sustainability beyond the legal requirements of the Nepali law. 
   3. Assess the level of integration of the climate change resilience and adaptation measures in the guidelines and suggest improvements for a stronger focus on climate change aspects.
2. For each of the infrastructure components under OA2, review the existing guidelines, checklists, assessments and working method used by the Purnima partners (and their downstream partners as applicable) to assess the climate change resilience/adaptation and environmental sustainability as well as the environmental impacts and risks. Provide expert advice to improve those documentation and procedures as appropriate, and in line with the suggested improvements to the Purnima environmental guidelines document. Information to be collected from existing documentation as well as speaking to Implementing partners.
3. For each of the infrastructure components, review on a random basis the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of schemes and any other relevant documents or tools to provide feedback on the environmental compliance in terms of the incorporation of  environmental sustainability and climate change resilient and adaptation measures in the designs of the schemes.
4. Review on random basis the environmental assessment, disaster risk assessment, climate resilient water safety plan (in case of WASH schemes) and provide appropriate feedback.
5. Make site visits for each of the infrastructure components under OA2 to observe and feedback on the implementation of environmental sustainability and climate change resilience/adaptation measures in the designs and mitigation measures adopted by the implementing partners.
6. Make site visits for critical WASH schemes (landslide areas, water source, deep boring) and provide expert advice to improve the environmental compliance during planning/designing, construction period and post construction including source protection measurements.
7. Any other activities that might be required as part of the project.

Outputs

• -Revised version of the Purnima Programme Environmental Guidelines document, including all the agreed and approved changes to be incorporated as a result of the review (Activity 1; estimate of 5 working days).
• -Report detailing the results of each of the implementing partners environmental guidelines/checklists etc. and highlighting observations and recommendation for changes (Activity 2; estimate of 10 working days).
• -Short report after each document review / site visit highlighting observations and recommendation for changes (site visits, DPR review, other activities fallen in each month) (Activities 3, 4, 5 and 6; estimate of 35 working days).

Candidate Specification

Required Qualification and Experience:

• -Master’s degree in environmental sciences, climate change or a relevant field;
• -At least 7 years’ experience of relevant work experience in rural development in Nepal, including capacity development, and institutional strengthening and delivery;
• -Demonstrated understanding of the challenges of post-earthquake reconstruction and recovery;
• -Strong communication, interpersonal and leadership skills, but also a team player with the willingness to learn and support the learning of others;
• -Fluency in written and spoken Nepali and English is essential. Fluency in relevant local languages spoken in the project area will be a strong asset.