Consultant Fragility and Resilience Expert for Southern Africa - RDTS (EOI) at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB)

African Development Bank Group (AfDB) - Established in 1964, the African Development Bank is the premier pan-African development institution, promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. There are 80 member states, including 54 in Africa (Regional Member Countries). The Bank’s development agenda is delivering the financial and technical support for transformative projects that will significantly reduce poverty through inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Expressions of Interest: Consultant Fragility and Resilience Expert for Southern Africa - RDTS

Location: Pretoria, South Africa  - Southern Africa Regional Business Delivery Office (RDGS)
Consultant Type: Individual Consultant
Job Family: Other
Department Issuing the Request: Transition States Coordination Office (RDTS)
Duration of the Assignment: Six (6) months full time (renewable based on budget and performance)
Tentative Date of commencement: 24th April 2023.

Brief Description of the Assignment
The consultant will support the operationalization of the Bank’s 2022-26 Strategy for addressing fragility and building resilience, in the context of the Southern Africa region. The incumbent is expected to:

• Undertake fragility and resilience related analytical and knowledge work in the region; Support political economy analysis for the Southern Africa region;
• Mainstream the analytical findings into the Bank’s operations, strategies, and policies in Southern Africa;
• Facilitate dialogue at the national and regional levels to identify operational entry points for building resilience in Southern Africa;
• Support capacity building on fragility and resilience issues for people, communities, and institutions in the region; and
• Contribute to partnerships and resource mobilization initiatives in the context of Southern Africa.

Background

• Over the past decade, Africa has seen enormous growth and transformation that has expanded opportunities and improved living conditions for millions of people. Yet, there are significant risks that this momentum could be undermined by important pressures including exclusion and poverty, youth unemployment, rapid urbanization, or climate change.
• These pressures are currently compounded by the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic and rising inflation that threaten to overwhelm existing institutional capacities for managing political, economic, social and environmental issues.
• Addressing these challenges is at the core of the mission of the African Development Bank Group (the Bank), a leading development institution on the continent.
• The Bank is focused on promoting economic development and poverty reduction; and engages with the full range and complexity of development matters in Africa.
• To achieve its mission, the Bank has integrated operations, lending directly to the public and private sectors through a variety of instruments. It also provides advisory services to Regional Member Countries (RMCs), Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and other regional bodies.
• The Transition States Coordination Office (RDTS) leads the Bank Group’s work on addressing fragility and building resilience in Africa. Its mandate is to place the Bank at the center of Africa’s efforts to address fragility and pave the way for a more resilient and inclusive development trajectory.
• A major part of RDTS’ activities involves the identification of the main drivers of fragility and opportunities for building resilience, including through economic, social, political and environmental dimensions. RDTS also plays a crucial role in mainstreaming fragility and resilience considerations in the Bank's strategies and programs, both at country and regional level, towards sustainable and inclusive development. Central to RDTS engagement is the systematic application of a fragility and resilience lens in Bank Group programming.
• As such, RDTS is responsible for the oversight and coordination of the operationalization of the Bank's 2022-26 Strategy for Addressing Fragility and Building Resilience in Africa. Therefore, fragility and resilience assessments are mandatory inputs to all the AfDB’s programming and operational documents.
• To achieve its mandate, RDTS leverages expertise from its pool of Fragility and Resilience experts and Consultants posted in Headquarters, as well as in the various Regional Hubs and Country Offices. It is in this context that the Bank seeks to recruit a consultant resilience expert to conduct these assessments and identify the opportunities to build and strengthen resilience in the selected countries in Southern Africa.

Southern Africa Region

• The Southern Africa region’s overarching development challenges include high levels of poverty and income inequality. About 46% of the region’s population lives on less than $2 per day. The region is also exposed to external shocks, especially climate change and commodity price volatility, and low industrialization and high unemployment.
• These development challenges are compounded by second-tier challenges such as (i) insufficient cross-border transport and ICT infrastructure connectivity, (ii) a regional power deficit for most of the countries that limits access to clean electricity for households and small businesses, (iii) poor linkages to markets such as unpaved roads and weak distribution channels, and (iv) persistent non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) and other obstacles to regional integration and corresponding trade and investment.
• These challenges were also exacerbated by the direct impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a reversal in growth trends as economies face collapse from declining exports, tax revenues and customs duties, and a general breakdown in trade and investment with the global slowdown in all major sectors. These issues will persist in the short- to medium-term and call for Bank support to mitigate the impacts at a regional level.
• Southern African countries have also harboured diverse forms of governance with implications for regional integration. On the plus side, Southern Africa performs better than other African regions in terms of governance and stability and is relatively peaceful. Notwithstanding recent progress in governance, Southern Africa remains a region in transition in terms of consolidating democracy and fostering a regional governance agenda.
• Southern Africa faces significant fragility risks at country and regional levels. The main drivers of fragility include political, economic, social, and environmental and climate change. These are manifested in conflicts and political tensions, migration, cyclical economic crises, and extreme weather events and other natural disasters. These risks have the effect of depressing domestic and foreign investment and contributing to regional development imbalances.
• Significant spill-over effects include displacement of people to other countries, with negative effects on international trade corridors and linkages, especially for the hinterland countries. While in some cases suffering from outflows, Southern Africa also attracts large inflows of migrants and displaced persons. This sometimes results from the internal displacement of persons within the region that is exacerbated by large inflows of migrants from elsewhere in Africa such as the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa. Economic stagnation and fragility in Zimbabwe and security concerns in Mozambique also continue to have serious implications and spill-over effects for the entire sub-region.

Activities and Deliverables:

• In the context of the Southern African region, the Consultant is expected to:
• Work closely with the Regional Coordinator to undertake fragility and resilience assessments; and contribute to various knowledge products, including Full-Fledged Fragility Assessments and Country Resilience and Fragility Assessments (CRFAs), to inform the implementation of the Bank’s commitments and action plan for addressing fragility and building resilience in Africa.
• In close collaboration with key Bank Sectoral and Operational Departments/Units, including Regional Delivery Hubs and Country Offices, participate in the preparation, peer-review, and readiness reviews processes of the Country Diagnostic Notes (CDNs), Regional Diagnostic Notes (RDNs) Country Strategy Papers (CSPs), Regional Integration Strategy Papers (RISPs), Project Concept Notes (PCNs), and Project Appraisal Reports (PARs) to ensure fragility and resilience are mainstreamed into Bank operations, strategies, and policies.
• This also involves being part of project teams, participating in various missions (identification, preparation, appraisal, supervision, completion, etc.), conducting fragility and resilience analyses, and providing expert input to key programming deliverables.
• Assist in the production of political economy analyses, as well as analytical and knowledge work in the region such as Economic Sector Work, policy briefs, or research papers.
• Facilitate dialogue at national and regional levels to identify entry points that can sustainably build resilience and strengthen social cohesion within and across borders. This should be informed by the findings of related analytical work and other Bank knowledge products.
• Support capacity building for individuals, communities, and institutions, to enhance their preparedness and readiness to manage political, economic, social, and environmental pressures and challenges that increase vulnerability.
• Contribute to partnerships building and resource mobilization efforts, especially for the African Development Fund (ADF) eligible countries of the region, during the replenishment and mid-term review discussions of the ADF in close coordination with relevant Bank units.
• Contribute, for ADF eligible countries, to the operationalization of the TSF programmatic approach, including the implementation of call-for-proposals for thematic and results-based investments and targeted capacity building programs.
• Perform any other assignments and tasks as may be assigned by the RDTS Lead Coordinator, RDTS and the Regional Coordinator, or as the business need arises.

Duration and Location:

• This is a full-time consultancy position for a duration of six (6) months, with the possibility of renewal subject to the performance and the availability of funds.
• The consultant will be based in Pretoria, in the Bank’s Regional Office in South Africa (RDGS).

Accountability and Reporting:

• The consultant will work under the supervision of RDTS Management and will report to the RDTS Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa and upon the specific tasks undertaken.
• The consultant will submit a monthly report on the activities carried out.

Qualifications Required
The Consultant, a national of one of the Bank’s member countries, is required to have the following Qualifications and Experience:

• A Master’s Degree or equivalent in fields such as Economics, Political Science, Social Sciences, International Relations, or related disciplines.
• At least five (5) years of relevant work experience in areas such as economic research, peace and state building, social cohesion, public-private dialogue, and management consulting. Strong experience in developing and delivering programs in fragility and resilience is also required, including assessments, modelling, sensitivity analysis, and applications.
• Experience in assessing, designing, developing, delivering and evaluating programmes, projects and interventions to address drivers of fragility and opportunities for building resilience in Regional Members Countries, Regional Economic Communities and other Specialized Agencies.
• Solid understanding of the context, dynamics and complexities of the region; and experience in designing and delivering mitigation measures including problem solving.
• Deep knowledge of macroeconomic, political economy and development issues of the Southern Africa Region.
• Excellent planning, organization, and writing skills.
• Demonstrated ability to multi-task and manage time effectively to deal with multiple demands and deadlines among competing needs and priorities.
• Ability to drive training programs, mobilize resource persons, apply innovative approaches, work independently and apply new methods to solve problems, while remaining efficient in a fast-paced, changing and challenging institutional environment.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and demonstrated ability to work across institutional boundaries within multi-sectoral teams in a productive way.
• Experience working with the Bank or other international donors.
• Fluency in English and/or French, with a good working knowledge of either language. A working knowledge of Portuguese will be an advantage.

Remuneration

• The Consultant will receive a monthly lump sum, based on their financial offer and in compliance with the African Development Bank’s Guidelines on Individual Consultants Remuneration.
• The Consultant is responsible for his/her own health insurance and accommodation costs. The Bank will cover full costs of any required trip/missions if needed and provide per-diem in accordance with rules governing consultant mission travel.

Application Closing Date
7th April, 2023 at 01:00 p.m. Abidjan time (GMT).

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their updated Curriculum Vitae (CV) and
Letter of Interest in a single PDF file (English or French) to: [email protected] and [email protected] using "RDTS Senior Consultant - Vulnerability & Resilience Assessment for Southern African Region" as the subject of the mail.

Click here for more information

Click here for the Job Description (PDF)

Note

• File Name: "[Last Mame], [First Name]" (e.g. Peterson, Anna).
• Please attach updated Curriculum Vitae (CV) on the basis of the template Here
• Candidates are encouraged to include references to proven analytical products developed under their previous working experience.
• We will contact you only if you are shortlisted for further consideration, and that, given the large volume of applications we receive, some time may elapse before the selection process is complete.
• Specifically mentioning Application for Fragility and Resilience Consultant for Southern Africa.
• Any questions and requests for clarifications may be sent to [email protected]