Designated Mentors under the International Centre for Local Democracy – United Nations Capital Development Fund: International Training Programme (ICL

UNCDF is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 48 least developed countries. It creates new opportunities for poor people and their communities by increasing access to microfinance and investment capital. UNCDF focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict or crisis. It provides seed capital – grants and loans – and technical support to help microfinance institutions reach more poor households and small businesses, and local governments finance the capital investments – water systems, feeder roads, schools, irrigation schemes – that will improve poor peoples’ lives. UNCDF works to enlarge peoples’ choices: it believes that poor people and communities should take decisions about their own development. Its programmes help to empower women – over 50% of the clients of UNCDF-supported microfinance institutions are women – and its expertise in microfinance and local development is shaping new responses to food insecurity, climate change and other challenges. All UNCDF support is provided via national systems, in accordance with the Paris Principles. UNCDF works in challenging environments – remote rural areas, countries emerging from conflict – and paves the way for others to follow. Its programmes are designed to catalyze larger investment flows from the private sector, development partners and national governments, for significant impact on the Millennium Development Goals, especially Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger, Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women, and Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability. Established by the General Assembly in 1966 and with headquarters in New York, UNCDF is an autonomous UN organization affiliated with UNDP. The ICLD-UNCDF ITP - “Towards Local Democracy and Local Development through Local Government is a joint venture between the UNCDF and ICLD. Its main objective is to foster institutional change through capacity building and individual learning in a number of areas relevant to local development in the participating countries namely Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It will draw from the experiences of Sweden and the participating countries in the context of a facilitated collaborative learning process using the International Training Programme (ITP) methodology. The ITP methodology is designed to facilitate capacity development for middle or senior level managers as change agents that drive impactive institutional and policy reform processes. After completing the programme, the participants are expected to have acquired improved knowledge and capacity in the following specific areas: Understanding and using relevant tools to support local development; Nature, scope and purpose of local governments; Different approaches to implementing decentralized governance reform processes; Drawing and learning from experiences, methods and tools for driving change for local development and local democracy; Developing and expanding networks in support of local development and decentralized governance at different levels; and, Developing a shared understanding and utilization of gender enabling approaches to local development and decentralized governance. The ICLD –UNCDF ITP has been designed to address the capacity challenges faced by local governments in southern and eastern Africa in discharging their critical roles and responsibilities as the key entry points and platforms for integrating sectoral and multi-stakeholder inputs into coherent interventions that support sustainable local development, poverty reductions and the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals and beyond. A number of local governments in the region, an indeed in the whole of Africa have significant administrative and technical responsibilities decentralised to them without the requisite resources and competencies enabling them to fully discharge these responsibilities. This results in unfunded mandates. There is also abundant evidence that most, if not all countries in Africa, despite their level of decentralisation, are faced with the problem of lack of adequate absorptive and generative capacity in the local government sector. The local government delivery gap is huge and requires urgent attention. The scope, purpose, content and structure of the ICLD-UNCDF ITP are detailed in Annex 1 of these ToRs.

Duties and Responsibilities

The design of the ICLD-UNCDF ITP includes the designation of mentors who are expected to perform the following functions: Provide support to participants in thinking through and shaping the content of their change projects consistent with the stated scope and purpose of the ICLD-UNCDF ITP; Develop a template and/or plan to guide the participants in undertaking their change projects through planned interactive sessions to be determined between the designated mentors and their participants; Produce and submit bimonthly progress reports to the Management Committee of the ICLD-UNCDF ITP focusing, inter alia, on progress made by participants on their change projects, content, administrative and operational challenges and specific corrective actions to be taken; Participate in the preparation and inform the content and structure of critical reflection sessions or workshops to track, support and improve the capacity of participants in managing their change projects generally and informing value added programmatic content, design and management; and To act as a pool, repository and sounding board for technical knowledge, assistance and advise in developing platforms to upscale and mainstream the ICLD-UNCDF ITP into national and regional frameworks for sustainable human skills development in the local government sector. Below is schematic road map complete with specific areas of and approximate times allocated to different interventions during the different phase of the ICLD-UNCDF ITP to act a s guide to the designated mentors:-

Competencies

Excellent drafting and writing skills as well as strong analytical aptitude, communication and presentation skills are required; Good interpersonal skills; Understanding of national development and local government administration and management discourse in a developing country context generally and in southern Africa in particular is essential; Computer and internet expertise is mandatory; Be an effective advocate of and able to articulate an agenda for policy, organizational and process change; Should demonstrate leadership, interdisciplinary team working and coordinating skills; Should respond positively to critical feedback and differing points of view; and Proficiency in written and spoken English.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Masters degree, preferably in development economics, public policy and administration, or other relevant socioeconomic sciences and/ or development studies. Experience: Minimum 10 years experience working in local government administration and management, and development studies related to policy development and management, regional and urban planning and sustainable local developmen. Solid understanding of issues related to social and economic development, decentralization, local government, gender equitable local development, local government finance, governance and accountability and policy and institutional change management processes as key components of a capacity development agenda. Very strong research & development record, including baseline surveying, gender-sensitive, interdisciplinary and multi-scale analyses as well as policy research and evidence-based policy development. Strong track-record in technical, policy-and development-oriented publications. Language: Excellent command of written and spoken English. Women are strongly encouraged to apply. UNCDF will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest. This contract announcement is also available on http://www.uncdf.org/

Designated Mentors under the International Centre for Local Democracy – United Nations Capital Development Fund: International Training Programme (ICLD-UNCDF ITP) - “Towards Local Democracy and Local Development through Local Government”