Експерт/ка з соціальної згуртованості, культури та залучення громадян

Social Cohesion, Culture, and Citizen Engagement Expert for Ukraine’s Cohesion and Regional Development project (UCORD)

NIRAS is looking for a Social Cohesion, Culture, and Citizen Engagement Expert for Swiss-Ukrainian UCORD project.

Duration of assignment: 01.12.2023-30.11.2024 with a possibility of prolongation
Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
Expected start date: 01st of December 2023
Description of the assignment context

The Ukraine’s Cohesion and Regional Development (UCORD) is a Swiss-Ukrainian project implemented by NIRAS Sweden AB with the support of Switzerland.

The overall goal of the project is that citizens, businesses and public authorities contribute to and equally benefit from effective and coherent regional development that fosters improved quality of life, resilience, peace and social cohesion in Ukraine.

The project consists of three components: 1) Support to regional development agencies, 2) Improved public services delivery with a focus on environment, 3) Social cohesion through culture.

Tasks

• Provision of technical assistance and capacity building to partner institutions at the national and regional levels, ensuring sustainability, effective upscaling and dissemination of project results
• Insure liaison with MinCulture and other project stakeholders under component 3
• Support MinCulture conduct national and regional dialogues to facilitate the integration of culture into development policies at all levels as a driver and enabler for social cohesion and democratic governance
• Support in management and coordination of activities under component 3
• Facilitate coordination between RDAs and new eco system enablers including the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, Ukrainian Book Institute, State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine, development partners and businesses to promote cultural and touristic magnets for regional growth
• Support the RDAs establish and facilitate a community leaders circle
• Design a training programme to enable hromadas mainstream social cohesion in their work
• Support the RDAs to test new methods to develop integrated strategies and actions
• Capacity building of the RDAs to lead the development of regional cultural initiatives and strengthen CCIs
• Support in management of the work of the Technical Working Group of component 3
• Provision of technical assistance and capacity building to partner institutions at the national and regional levels, ensuring sustainability, effective upscaling and dissemination of project results
• Ongoing monitoring of progress and achievement of planned outputs and outcomes of component 3 in line with the result framework
• Constant monitoring of the national and regional contexts, identification of new development opportunities that can be covered by the project to amplify the project impact
• Ensure know-how exchange, sharing of experience and good practices within SDC Governance Network
• Ensure integration of gender and other cross-cutting aspects into project planning and activities
• Provide other services of relevance for the implementation, as stated in the contract with SDC

Qualifications

• Profound knowledge and understanding of Ukraine’s political context, governance system and key reform priorities (in particular in culture, social cohesion, local self-government, decentralization, regional development and cohesion, public services provision)
• Strong familiarity with pertinent legislation and policies, as well as good practices in the above areas
• Min 5 years of experience in cultural policy advice, facilitation, advocacy and support in implementation of complex reforms
• Proven ability to work with a wide range of stakeholders (government, parliament, regional and local authorities, local self-government associations, private sector, civil society, international development partners, international financial institutions, etc.)
• Min 5 years of demonstrated experience with capacity building programs/coaching in the areas of social cohesions, conflict sensitivity, culture, creative industries, decentralization, local self-government, regional development and cohesion, public services provision at multiple governance levels
• Competence in consolidating data and writing evidence-based, results-oriented reports
• High level of understanding of conflict-sensitive and culture-sensitive topics
• Strong communication skills and fluency in written and spoken Ukrainian and English

Evaluation of response & selection

Interested applicants should send their proposals to NIRAS no later than October 19th, 2023 9 a.m. Kyiv time.

Applicants must be independent and free from conflicts of interest in the responsibilities defined by the Terms of Reference.

The proposal should contain the following documents:

1. a) A short explanation of the applicant’s suitability for the assignment (maximum one A4-page)
2. b) Up-to-date CV indicating relevant experience and qualifications, indicating at least three contact references.

The proposal should be submitted in English.

The selection will be done based on the expert’s competence and suitability – based on the requirements described above. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted to be followed by an interview with selection panel.

Proposals and questions should be sent by email to: [email protected].