Background Information - Pakistan
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PakistanUNOPS Pakistan (Project Office) is part of the South Asia Multi Country Office in the Asia Region.UNOPS commenced operations in Pakistan in 1999 and significantly up-scaled activities from 2005 onwards to support populations affected by and vulnerable to earthquakes. UNOPS opened a permanent office in Islamabad to support the Government of Pakistan and other partners to undertake humanitarian and reconstruction services, following int 2010 floods.
UNOPS Pakistan has been implementing projects in the areas of early recovery and reconstruction of community infrastructure, project management and related monitoring and verification, community development, fund management, and procurement. Supported strategically by a regional operational hub and UNOPS headquarters in Copenhagen and within the overarching framework of the ONE UN Programme, UNOPS Pakistan continues to deliver projects across the country under its core delivery practices of sustainable infrastructure, sustainable procurement, and sustainable project management.
Background Information - Job-specificIn 2022 floods, approximately 2.5 million houses were destroyed or damaged. Large parts of Sindh province have been among the most badly affected areas, along with Baluchistan, KPK and South Punjab. Housing reconstruction and rehabilitation will cost at least 8 billion USD, representing the largest proportion of construction and infrastructure.
Housing is a priority for people-centred recovery after the 2022 floods, restoring conditions for health, security, privacy, and accommodation for family life and livelihoods. The Government of Pakistan is undertaking a massive programme of financial assistance to all eligible households, enabling them to reconstruct or repair their destroyed or damaged homes. This investment aims to accelerate recovery and ensure families can rebuild according to disaster and climate resilient standards.
UNOPS in collaboration with other UN agencies and development partners plan to support the Government of Pakistan flagship programme and complement the large-scale financial assistance programme. Technical assistance has been identified as a key component of housing recovery, to ensure households can reconstruct and rehabilitate hazard and climate resilient homes affordably including housing water management, sanitation, cooking, thermal control and energy use. Technical assistance is necessary to guide and optimize proposed Government of Pakistan financial assistance to households and private investment by households themselves.
Currently, UNOPS is actively participating in following activities for Government led reconstruction program for affordable resilient housing and settlement reconstruction.
Technical Standards and Guidance
Technical Communication
Skills development: technical training
Develop curricula for construction
Supply chain Assessments
These above activities will contribute to planning and implementation of wide scale technical assistance by Government, non Government and civil society partners across all affected districts. Technical assistance activities initiated as part of flood recovery support should contribute to longer term resilience in housing, planning and the construction sector, including: Strengthening planning and building regulatory mechanisms, including codes, bye laws, enforcement and compliance to deliver safer and sustainable housing and settlements.
Pakistan is one of the countries which is severely affected by climate changes which includes hotter summers, regularly reaching over 40 degrees, droughts, aquifer depletion, unpredictable monsoon rains and storms.
UNOPS in partnership with the Ministry of Climate Change and the Ministry of Housing and Works, carrying efforts to increase the level of awareness and skills to design, construct and manage climate resilient housing and urbanization, through research and development, training and communication focusing on passive techniques in improving building performance and sustainable urbanization. The current program focus on
Analyse the current level of awareness and skills:
Develop and deliver technical education to support the Government of Pakistan and Pakistan Engineering Council Initiatives to advance and disseminate Green Building Guidance.
Establish UNOPS as leaders in climate change adaptation (CCA) in the built environment in Pakistan,
Articulate domains of technical expertise within the UN and develop collaboration between key UN agencies on CCA and housing in Pakistan and globally.
Link to, support and benefit from ongoing UN global initiatives on climate change and the built environment
Move UNOPS from a provision approach or direct construction in housing projects to an enabling approach based on increasing technical capacity,
Under the over all supervision of the Country Manager and in support with the Technical Advisor, Civil Engineer (Project Coordinator) will be responsible to provide engineering inputs for housing reconstruction and technical assistance and coordinate the activities under the climate change program.
The Civil Engineer (Project Coordinator) will be responsible for coordination with concerned Government, UN and Housing Sector stakeholders on the development and operationalization of preparatory and technical assistance activities.
- Liaise with concerned Government authorities (MOCC, MHW, HEC, PEC), Development Partners, (IFIs, UN agencies, humanitarian agencies), Technical Professional bodies, Academia and concerned stakeholders on building performance and damage analysis and on standard and guidance review and development.
- Liaise with Housing Sector stakeholders on the development of technical assistance sub strategy as part of overall Housing Recovery Strategy.
- Coordinate with trainers to conduct online and in person trainings.
- Provide support to technical advisors/consultants in reviewing national and relevant international standards, codes and guidance for flood, cyclone and seismic resilient housing construction and for building thermal and energy performance.
- Provide support to technical advisor/consults in desk analysis of CCA data in Pakistan on housing performance, housing energy consumption, energy costs, building lifespans, settlement and urbanization
- Provide support to technical advisor/consultant in desk review of current curricula and training CCA content in Pakistan and relevant global reference materials.
- Propose standards and guidance for housing reconstruction, rehabilitation, retrofitting and improvement measures in collaboration with Housing Sector stakeholders.
- Provide support to technical advisors to review and develop the skills development training curricula for resilient housing.
- Provide data to supply chain consultants to devise and carry out construction supply chain analysis including of renewable materials (wood etc), extracted materials (sand etc), production and fabrication of materials and components, fixtures and fittings, required for housing reconstruction.
- Participate and represent UNOPS in technical working groups.
- Coordinate to develop and design the demo house. Devise and conduct training on demo houses with the help of technical staff.
- Provide support to design and execute/monitor the construction of energy efficient roofs.
- Support the technical advisors/consultants in the collection of data for project proposal development.
- Support the review of requests from clients / partners for new activities.
- Carry out capacity assessments of potential client / partner agencies.
- Contribute to the consolidation, dissemination and sharing of best practices and lessons learned for development planning and knowledge building.
- A Master’s degree preferably in Civil Engineering or related field is required.
- A combination of Bachelor’s degree preferably in Civil Engineering or related field with 4 years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of the education requirements outlined above.
- A minimum of 2 years of experience, related to the project requirements, in civil engineering is required.
- Work experience in post-conflict/ fragile environments is desirable.
- Some experience in the UN system organizations and/or a developing country is desirable.
- It is expected that the Civil Engineer is an active member in a professional engineering body
- Full working knowledge of English is essential.
- Knowledge of a local language is an asset.
