The UNDP is a leading global practitioner in the field of disaster risk reduction (DRR) and has been working in several disaster-prone countries on disaster risk management, including disaster risk assessment, disaster risk governance and mainstreaming, disaster preparedness and early warning, and disaster recovery. In June 2017, the Government of Japan and UNDP in Asia-Pacific collaborated on a regional project implemented in 18 tsunami prone Asia-Pacific countries for 18 months. The “Partnerships for Strengthening School Preparedness for Tsunami in the Asia Pacific Region” aimed to mitigate the impact of tsunamis by enhancing school preparedness by collecting risk data, conducting tsunami education campaigns, reviewing or developing school disaster preparedness plans, designing drill scenarios and conducting safe evacuation drills. It focused on schools located in tsunami prone areas. The first phase of the project saw the successful conduct of tsunami drills in the 6 schools of Tacloban City, Leyte and Salcedo, Eastern Samar mobilizing more than 9,000 students and teachers. An instructional video produced from the first phase was distributed to the different schools in Eastern Visayas. The second phase reached out to more schools in different parts of Eastern Visayas and Siargao Island in Mindanao. More than 10,000 students and teachers participated in the earthquake-tsunami drill conducted in the 7 schools of Abuyog [Leyte], 4 schools in Tacloban City [Leyte] and 5 schools in Salcedo [Eastern Samar]. To test response-preparedness of schools and local government units, an Eastern Samar-wide [facing the Pacific Ocean] simultaneous tsunami evacuation drill was conducted in September 2019. A total of 40,820 [20,361 female and 20,399 male] students and 1,312 teachers from 103 public and private schools from 15 municipalities participated in this event. On the occasion of the World Tsunami Awareness Day, an island-wide tsunami evacuation drill was held in Siargao Island, Surigao del Norte [in Mindanao] involving 15,351 [7,668 male; 7,683 female] students from 55 schools in the 8 island municipalities. The Tsunami Project Phase 1 & 2 implementation in the Philippines revealed gaps in the overall school preparedness for tsunami, opportunities to fill up the gaps as well as lessons learnt. School administrators and DRR focals said that the drills surfaced rooms for improvement in the schools’ preparedness plans, particularly in plotting out evacuation routes. Local government units have shown interest in working with schools in the long-term in identifying primary/alternate routes to higher and safer grounds and in maintaining the readiness of these evacuation routes and sites. At the Division level [province and city] of the Department of Education, it saw the need to institutionalize the conduct of tsunami drills in tsunami prone schools, on top of the national-led school-based quarterly National Simultaneous Earthquake Drill. Under the Early Recovery Programme of UNDP CO, an IC will be engaged to advocate adoption of lessons learnt from the project into the official policy of the national Department of Education [DepEd, particularly with its DRRM Service] and other relevant agencies such as the Capacity Building and Training Service [CBTS] of the Office of Civil Defense [OCD], the National DRRM Council, the Department of Interior and Local Government [MILG] among others. This shall be guided by the Safe Schools Framework. Institutional Arrangement The Climate Action Team Leader shall directly supervise the IC. The IC is expected to liaise/interact/collaborate/ meet with different Government institutions, stakeholders and UNDP Climate Action Team for the duration of the engagement. Duration of Work The target date for the start of work is within November 2020 and its completion is on February 2021 for a maximum of 60 working days Duty Station The duty station is in Manila. However, the IC is not expected to report on a daily basis to the UNDP Country Office in Mandaluyong City but shall work remotely in the conduct of his/her work and on on-call. The IC is also expected to attend face-to-face meetings with government counterparts if allowed. |