INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL ADVISOR FOR POVERTY-ENVIRONMENT INITIATIVE (PEI)/PRO-POOR GROWTH PROGRAMME TANZANIA

Background

In 2012, the Tanzanian population was about 45 million. This number is steadily growing with an annual population growth rate of 2.9 percent, which is amongst the highest in the world. The majority of the population lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture as source of income and livelihood. Thus, about 75 percent of the labor forces are employed in agriculture, hunting and forestry. At the same time the average income of households engaged in agriculture is lower than in most other sectors.

Tanzania is endowed with a significant variety of natural resources including land, rivers, lakes, ocean, forests, woodlands, wild animals, and wetlands. Apart from these regenerative natural resources, Tanzania is rich in a variety of non-regenerative natural resources including such minerals as gold, diamond, iron, coal, nickel, Tanzanite, uranium and the recently discovered offshore and on-shore deposits of natural gas. The 2012 national account shows that Tanzania’s mining have contributed 3.2 to 3.5 percent to the country’s GDP since 2006. However, this contribution is expected to increase: according to the Development Vision 2025, the sector is expected to provide 10 percent of the GDP in the near future. The mineral exports constitute over 52 percent of Tanzania’s total exports.

Thus, Tanzania’s rich natural resources constitute a major asset and opportunity, which is fundamental for growth and economic development, including poverty reduction. The failure to realize the full potential value of natural resources and environment to the economy of the country and the livelihoods of population contributes to Tanzania standing as one of the world’s poorest countries. It currently ranks 151 of 185 countries in terms of human development.

The performance of the Tanzanian economy has remained strong, recording a growth of 7 percent a year since 2000. However, this growth is not sufficiently broad based, and poverty levels still remain high. At the same time environmental degradation has not been reversed and abated. According to the 2007 Household Budget Survey (HBS), the incidence of poverty has declined only marginally from 35.7 percent in 2001 to 33.6 percent in 2007. Likewise, the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) calculated from the Demographic and Health Study (DHS) 2010 shows that the percent of poor people (as per Head Count Ratio) was 65.6, while the percentage of people living in severe poverty was 33.4 percent. The percentage of the population vulnerable to poverty was 21 percent. Among the regions with the highest levels of poverty are: Dodoma, Lindi, Tabora, Shinyanga, Kigoma, Mara, Rukwa, Mwanza, Kagera, Singida, Manyara and Mtwara.

The new official poverty figures announced by Government on 14 November 2013 indicated a rate of poverty incidence of 28.2 percent in 2011/2012 using a basic poverty measure line of Tshs. 36,482 which translates roughly to $1.36 per adult per day at 2005 purchasing power parity (PPP). Although this figure indicates a decline in poverty incidence from 33.6 percent in 2007, changes to the survey instruments and poverty estimation methodologies mean that caution should be applied when comparing the two sets of figures.

The Government of Tanzania has taken a number of policy and programme initiatives to spur economic growth, respond to the poverty situation and ensure the country’s improved management of the environment and natural resources (ENR) sector. Since 2010, the government under the leadership of Ministry of Finance (MoF) and President’s Office Planning Commission (POPC) has been implementing MKUKUTA II and FYDP. The MKUKUTA I and II entail goals and objectives that focus on pro-poor growth, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability and gender. In Tanzania the five year plan and long term development plan have been given additional attention and further focus on economic growth and to realize the targets set in TDV 2025. MKUKUTA II remains the main framework for poverty eradication while FYDP focuses on strategic growth aspects. Hence the sector/districts strategies, plans and Medium Term Expenditure Frameworks including budget guidelines are guided by MKUKUTA II and FYDP and they incorporates cross cutting concerns such as environment and gender issues.

The MKUKUTA II and Five-Year Development Plan are coming to an end next year (2014/15) and a year after (2015/16) respectively. The government has already produced the first document for the post 2015 development agenda and will be preparing new national development frameworks in the context of Post 2015 that will guide the country for the coming years. Obviously, there are challenges in translating development plans into effective programmes as well as ensuring coherence and co-ordination between different implementation levels such as Central Ministries – POPC, MoF, VPO and PMO, Line Ministries, Departments, Agencies and Local Authorities. These challenges include ensuring sufficient budget and other investment allocations consistent with national development plans and increasing and more effectively using revenues from natural resources.

The 2012 policy dialogue on inclusion of environmental sustainability into budget guidelines and environmental fiscal reform revisited the budget guideline from financial years 2006/2007 to 2011/2012 with regard to, how environmental issues have been featured in the budgeting system in Tanzania and to suggest, how this could be improved. It was identified that the challenges of establishing a Multi-sector approach makes it difficult to navigate from the budget guidelines to the budget speeches and implementation. Also, it was noted that the budget guideline and budget speech, are not well aligned. Therefore, environmental fiscal reforms need to be undertaken to generate increased revenue mobilization and to create incentives towards sustainable resource use.

Pro-Poor Growth and Poverty-Environment Initiative in Tanzania

Among the programmes that have been established to support national efforts to mainstream poverty and environment in national development frameworks is the UNDP/UNEP supported Pro-Poor Growth and Environment Sustainability Project. The project aims to increase the contribution of environment and natural resources to national development goals, including poverty reduction, sustainable economic growth and the broader achievement of MDGs, in particular MDG 1 on hunger and food security.

The Poverty Environment Initiative (PEI) is contributing to that project through country led supports to mainstream poverty-environment objectives into national development policy, planning and budget processes.

Key objectives of PEI Africa country programmes include:

1) Integration of poverty-environment (p-e) objectives in national development plans and sector strategies; and
2) Capacity building programmes to enable national governments to better integrate p-e objectives in national, sector and district plans. It is a catalytic programme that advocates for increased resource mobilization and investments in pro-poor sustainable ENR use.

As part of the Pro-poor Economic Growth and Environmentally Sustainable Development programme, the Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI) 2014-2017 component will be focusing on enhancing national and district (Local Government Authorities) capabilities to mainstream and implement environmental sustainability, poverty reduction, gender and climate change issues into development plans and develop better architecture for financial mechanisms in Tanzania.

Tanzania has implemented the UNDP-UNEP supported Poverty-Environment Initiative programme (PEI), since it was launched in 2003/4. Since then substantial progress has been made to mainstream poverty-environment in national development frameworks, in budgeting processes and in monitoring and evaluation. See http://www.unpei.org/what-we-do/pei-countries/tanzania. Despite these efforts the implementation of the interventions remains a major challenge, mainly because the budget resources and re-investment in relevant sectors have continued to be inadequate. Therefore, the Districts focus as a pilot part of this initiative is important to demonstrate concrete development results that can be scaled up in line with national and sectors policies.

Deliverables:

The PEI Tanzania component of the Pro-poor growth program is implemented in a timely manner, with quality outputs and a stronger focus on poverty elements including poverty-gender impacts;
Monitoring and Evaluation Framework improved for tracking progress on the implementation of poverty-environment objectives in strategic documents and policies;
Training courses on poverty-environment modules, and natural gas, are conducted;
Value-adding partnerships with in-country donors and private sector institutions established;
South-South cooperation mechanisms under PEI and the Pro-poor Growth Program strengthened.

Timing and Management Arrangements

The International Technical Advisor (ITA) will take up the assignment on 1st October 2014 and will be based in the Ministry of Finance, Poverty Eradication Unit. The ITA will be under the direct Supervision of the Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Responsible for Policy and will be working closely with President’s Office Planning Commission (POPC), UNDP and PEI Africa.

The ITA will be responsible for the provision of guidance and technical advisory services for the implementation of the Pro-poor economic growth programme 2014-2017 and MoF strategic work on budgeting, M&E and extractives. The overall objective is to ensure timely and results-based implementation of the pro-poor growth programme.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide technical guidance to ensure that the implementation of the pro-poor growth program in Tanzania contributes to strengthen policy formulation, budgeting and management of ENR:

Provide substantive policy advisory support to the government of Tanzania – e.g. Ministry of Finance, sector ministries, and POPC;
Contribute to national and sectoral review of policies, strategies and plans focusing on next development frameworks (The five-Year Development Plan and the MKUKUTA II) and the integration of poverty-environment objectives;
Support the government on research for development work in collaboration with the Environment for Development (EfD)/University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF) for strengthening institutional capacity to improve budgetary and other investment allocations, revenue and public financial management from ENR including extractives industries.

Ensure the PEI Tanzania component of the Pro-poor growth program is implemented in a timely manner, with quality outputs and a stronger focus on poverty elements including poverty-gender impacts:

Improve co-operation with in-country donors (traditional and non-traditional),private sector institutions including through participation in donor and government-donor working groups, improving the private and public partnership and encouraging the private sector to mobilize additional resources for implementing poverty-environment objectives on the ground;
Support coordination mechanisms among Government Ministries, Departments and Local Authorities in ensuring that poverty and environment issues are mainstreamed in development policies programmes and plans;
Support effective coordination and synergies among UNDP projects i.e. on poverty, environment, climate change, pro-poor growth and extractive industries.

Support capacity development on poverty-environment-gender nexus and natural gas:

Provide support for use of economic tools for poverty-environment assessment with a focus on poverty elements in policy and programme design and implementation;
Provide guidance on design of Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, for tracking progress on the implementation of poverty-environment objectives, particularly as reflected in strategic documents, policies designed by POPC, sector ministries plans and districts development plans;
Support strengthening of the South-South cooperation mechanisms under PEI and the Pro-poor Growth Program.

Impact of Results

The key result will be the successful implementation of the Pro-poor Growth Program, PEI Tanzania component 2014-2017 such that increased investment for implementation of poverty-environment objectives has taken place under the guidance of strong policy documents.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity;
Demonstrating corporate knowledge and sound judgement;
Self-development, initiative-taking;
Acting as a team player and facilitating team work;
Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively;
Creating synergies through self-control;
Managing conflict;
Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others;
Informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies:

Results-Based Programme Development and Management:

Contributes to results through primary research and analysis

Assesses project performance to identify challenges and success factors and incorporates best practices into project work;
Researches linkages across programme activities to identify critical points of integration;
Monitors specific stages of projects/programme implementation.

Building Strategic Partnerships:

Maintaining a network of contacts

Maintains an established network of contacts for general information sharing and to remain up-to-date on partnership related issues;
Analyses and selects materials for strengthening strategic alliances with partners and stakeholders.

Innovation and Marketing New Approaches:

Enhancing processes or products

Generates new ideas and proposes new, more effective ways of doing things.

Resource Mobilization:

Providing inputs to resource mobilization strategies

Analyses information/databases on potential and actual donors.

Promoting Organizational Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

Basic research and analysis

Generates new ideas and approaches, researches best practices and proposes new, more effective ways of doing things.

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise:

Fundamental knowledge of own discipline

Understands and applies fundamental concepts and principles of a professional discipline or technical specialty relating to the position;
Possesses basic knowledge of organizational policies and procedures related to the position and applies them consistently in work tasks;
Strives to keep job knowledge up-to-date through self-directed study and other means of learning;
Demonstrates good knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments.

Global Leadership and Advocacy for UNDP’s Goals:

Preparing information for global advocacy

Identifies and communicates relevant information for advocacy for UNDP’s goals for a variety of audiences.

Client Orientation:

Establishing effective client relationships

Researches potential solutions to internal and external client needs and reports back in a timely, succinct and appropriate fashion;
Organizes and prioritizes work schedule to meet client needs and deadlines.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master degree in environmental economics, natural resources, environment or development economics and solid experience on poverty reduction in developing countries.

Experience:

Minimum 7 years work experience in related fields such as integrating ENR sustainability in poverty reduction strategies and budgets, private sector investment on ENR in developing countries;
Good experience with developing countries on budget processes, Public Expenditure Environment Reviews, Public Financial management preferably with ministries of finance, ministries of planning;
Demonstrated experience in poverty assessments, including gender elements, and incorporation of poverty reduction in programmes and projects. Experience with multi-dimensional poverty indicators preferable, Poverty Environment Indicators;
Substantive and proven experience with programme and project design and management;
Experience with capacity building in developing countries;
Good understanding of international experience and best practices in the mainstreaming of cross-cutting issues into national development processes including budgets;
Strong pro-active leadership skills, including strong interpersonal skills with ability to multi-task and maintain effective work relationships in a multi- cultural environment;
Excellent communication skills with ability to express ideas clearly, concisely and effectively, orally and in writing;
Good understanding of the poverty-environment context in Tanzania and Africa;
Experience of working with UN systems and/or other development partners.

Language:

Fluent spoken and written in English required;
Fluency in Kiswahili will be added advantage.

Click here for important information for US Permanent Residents ('Green Card' holders).

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

APPLY NOW