Consultant: Senior International Project Advisor (SIPA)

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s more than 1.6 million km2 of land and water support a rich and varied diversity of life. Biogeographically, much of the country lies in the Palearctic realm, although areas of the southwest and southeast support fauna characteristic of the Afro-tropical and Indo-Malayan sub-tropical realms, respectively. Iran is considered to be a bridge between four major plant geographical regions—Irano-Turanian, Euro-Siberian, Saharo-Arabian and Sudanian. This position at the confluence of various faunal and floral regions has bestowed upon the country important levels of biological diversity. Thus, for example, in addition to being a speciation centre of Holarctic desert flora, Iran supports some 8,200 plant species nationally, almost 2,500 of which are endemic. Studies have confirmed the presence of more than 500 species of birds, 160 species of mammals and 164 species of reptiles (26 of which are endemic).

Surprisingly perhaps for a country dominated by arid and semi-arid regions — over 60% of its land is classified as such — Iran possesses a large number and wide variety of wetlands. Over 1,000 have been identified thus far. Iran’s wetlands are of tremendous national, regional and global significance. According to a definitive study on wetlands of the Middle East, Iran supports 63 wetlands that meet one or more Ramsar criteria for international importance. Iran’s wetlands represent vital staging and wintering areas for millions of migratory waterfowl using the West Siberian-Caspian-East African and Central Siberian-Indus-South Asian flyways, and also support large breeding populations of many species. Several million waterfowl utilize the wetlands as wintering habitat, while perhaps as many birds again use the wetlands as staging areas on their way to and from wintering areas further to the southwest or southeast. Iran’s wetlands are very important for seven species of birds listed as globally threatened in IUCN’s List of Threatened Animals.Funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Government of the I. R. Iran and UNDP, the Conservation of Iranian Wetlands project aims to catalyse the sustainability of Iran’s system of wetland protected areas (WPAs), thereby enhancing its effectiveness as a tool for conserving globally significant biodiversity. The project’s objective is to assist Iran systematically remove or substantially mitigate threats facing globally significant biodiversity and sustainability at two demonstration sites, namely Lake Uroumiyeh in the Northwest and Lake Parishan in the South, while ensuring that the lessons learned through these demonstrations are absorbed within wetland protected area (WPA) management systems throughout Iran and most particularly at a set of target replication sites.  Given that a range of similar threats, root causes and barriers face protected wetlands across Iran – particularly the tendency for key threats to originate within a wider watershed area outside of WPA boundaries – a demonstration of their removal will be of broad relevance and potential replicability.

Lake Uromiyeh and satellite WPAs: The Lake Uromiyeh Basin (LUB) is a 51,876 km2 closed drainage basin located in the uplands of northwestern Iran. Some 33,500 km2 of the basin consists of mountainous areas, reaching a maximum elevation of 3,608 metres. LUB’s area is distributed amongst three provinces: West Azarbaijan (51%), East Azarbaijan (39%) and Kurdistan (10%). Some 1,500 species of vascular plants have been recorded within the LUB, distributed among 85 families and representing about 15% of the total number of flora species found in Iran. At least 290 of these species are recognized as ecologically important (rare and/or endemic). Most of this plant diversity is found within the meadow and grassland vegetation of the mountainous areas, which represent one of 234 sites of global plant importance defined by IUCN / WWF’s Centres of Plant Diversity project.

 While the activities being supported by the project will involve actions throughout the LUB, the majority of such activities, and the area of biodiversity concern for the project, is the Lake Uroumiyeh Ecological Zone.  In particular, the southern portion of the Lake itself, together with 1-2 of the satellite wetlands, will be of special interest due to their importance for biodiversity.

Lake Uromiyeh, located between East and West Azarbaijan, is considered one of the world’s premier examples of a deep (5-8 m) hypersaline lake. It is by far the largest inland lake in Iran and is the largest permanent salt lake in the Middle East.

The Senior International Project Advisor (SIPA) will represent the primary source of international technical support for project implementation. The SIPA will monitor and support the implementation of all project components, by means of 3-4 visits per annum to Teheran and to the project sites. This in-country support will be supplemented by periodic home-based support, which will include responding to technical queries, commenting on technical reports, etc. Despite his/her part-time status, the SIPA will be considered as a member of the Project Co-ordination Unit (PCO), and as such will work closely with the National Project Manager (NPM). The SIPA will be contracted by, and will report to UNDP Tehran.

Timing, duration and duty stations

The SIPA will be recruited by UNDP on a retainer basis for a pre-determined number of months annually. A total of 4 months support over the life of the project is envisaged. The majority of support will be provided during missions, timed to coincide with major project monitoring events, such as the annual meeting of the Project Steering Committee (PSC). This will be supplemented by ad-hoc, home-based support.

It is expected that approximately 60% of the time spent in country will be spent at the project demonstration sites, working out of the PCO sub-offices there, with the remaining 40% spent in Teheran.

Description of work responsibilities

Overall, the SIPA will have the following general responsibilities:

• To ensure that the project maintains strategic direction during implementation and that it becomes an active member of a learning network of GEF projects.
• To sharpen the project’s focus on quality outputs, and to emphasize a learning and adaptive approach to project management and implementation.
• To introduce international best practices to project managers by serving as a conduit for ongoing UNDP/GEF best practice input to project implementation, monitoring and evaluation. This will include the development of linkages between the project and other UNDP/GEF projects implemented in the Middle East, as well as in other parts of the world.

The SIPA will have the following specific responsibilities:

• To liaise with Government, the PCO and UNDP in order to identify, and find solutions to, problems and challenges facing project implementation;
• To promote inter-sectoral coordination and working at both national and local levels;
• To review the progress of project implementation as compared with the defined baseline and with respect to benchmark indicators highlighted in the Logical Framework Matrix (LFM) To facilitate a learning and adaptive approach to project management and implementation by asking questions of key project personnel, including: “What are we learning and how are we incorporating it into our project implementation process?” and “Are we meeting our indicators of success?”
• To lead an annual project management and evaluation exercise.
• Upon request of the NPM, to revise, update, and/or prepare detailed Terms of Reference for positions as they come up for hire during project implementation;
• To support the development and dissemination of a lessons learned/best practices handbook derived from the project.
• To ensure good coordination with all project partners, in particular the co-financing Dutch-Iranian (MOE) Integrated Water Resources Management Project for the Lake Uromiyeh Basin.

Ad-hoc home-based support will include the following:

• Providing technical comments on draft sub-contracts and consultancy reports produced under the project.
• Responding to technical queries from project partners. Other support as requested by the NPM, within the constraints imposed by the availability of working days.

• Advanced qualifications and working experience in ecosystem-based management of water resources and wetlands.
  Ability to work in the English language.
• Detailed knowledge of project design and implementation arrangements and experience with key stakeholders.
• Proven experience in successfully working with adaptive management/monitoring & best practice assessment, reliability, initiative, thoroughness and attention to detail.
• Well developed leadership, inter-personal, communication and negotiating skills, as well as a proven ability to work effectively in groups.
• Previous work experience in the Middle East.

• At least five years of experience with technical co-operation project development and implementation.
• Post-graduate university education.