Cambodia: Environmental Lawyer and Advisor

Sep 12, 2015 | UNDP
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Background

Sustainable natural resources and environment is integral for Cambodia to sustain its economic growth and its growing population. Yet the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) currently faces several major challenges as exemplified by the fact that Cambodia is ranked 145 out of 178 countries for the Environmental Performance Index (Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, 2014).

At present, Cambodia has a number of governmental bodies and laws for the governance of natural resources and the environment. The Ministry of Environment is one of the governmental bodies with a central mandate to ensure conservation and management of natural resources and environment. Over recent years, however, the MoE has faced significant constraints in addressing the emerging environmental issues and challenges due partly to its outdated organizational structure, priorities and strategic plans, and due partly to insufficient human and technical resources. Besides this, there had been no inter-ministerial governmental bodies or legal principles that provide overarching guidance and direction towards the aim of sustainable development. Nor did the mandates and regulations of existing ministries adequately correspond to emerging challenges.

In order to tackle these challenges, the RGC embarked upon environmental governance reforms in November in 2013 with technical assistance from UNDP Cambodia. The governance reforms build on three pillars of activities (See the attachment, concept note for environmental governance reforms for more information about each activity):

  • MoE modernization to address emerging environmental challenges and to enhance technical capacity to implement a service-delivery culture. In May, 2015, the RGC officially released a sub-decree on the new structure of MoE which builds on following four pillars, (1) Environmental Knowledge and Information, (2) Environmental Protection, (3) Nature Conservation and Protection Administration and (4) Administration and Finance. The MoE identified 7 priority activities  for further actions;
  • Establishment of the National Council of Sustainable Development (NCSD) to facilitate inter-ministerial political dialogues and decisions to achieve sustainable development. In May 2015, the RGC issued a royal decree on the NCSD. The NCSD is an inter-ministerial institutional body, composed of high level decision makers from all ministries in Cambodia. Its main task is to ensure sustainability in development across all the economic, social and development sectors;
  • Development of an Environmental Code to provide overarching guidance and direction towards the aim of sustainable development, and bring clarity in terms of jurisdictions and mandates among line ministries to ensure efficiency, and effectiveness in achieving the goal.  In March, 2015, the Minister of the MoE made an official announcement of its goal to develop an Environmental Code.

Duties & Responsibilities

Scope of Work:

This assignment of the environmental law advisor is specifically designed to support the development of an Environmental Code. The creation of the Environmental Code will proceed in four phases:

Phase I: Defining overarching principles:

This process entails 1) analysis of existing policies, laws and regulations and relevant international experience to identify best principles and standards for environmental management in Cambodia, and 2) compilation of these overarching principles into a government decision to be endorsed by the Prime Minister.   This decision will then frame the further development of the Code.

Phase II: Background research: this process involves:

  • Analysis of status of existing ecosystem services (e.g. forests, water, lands), their current management arrangements of different ministries based on collection of field data and remote sensing images;
  • Creation of integrated ecosystem maps including proposals for improved inter-ministerial coordination, management and ecosystem resilience tracking techniques; 
  • Analysis of existing sector policies, laws, regulations, jurisdictions and mandates to identify overlaps among relevant ministries, gaps against overarching principles, and opportunities for application of international best practices in policy and implementation; and
  • Development of draft materials for awareness raising, capacity building and training. 

Phase III: Proposals for statutory changes and implementation framework:

Building on the background research results, this entails developing proposals for changes to existing legislation and adoption of innovations to the overall environmental framework.  This will include amendments to existing law and creation of new law such as EIA. This phase will also include development of a number of innovative tools ranging from enforcement to citizens’ rights to green tax policy, climate change mitigation and many others.  These proposals will be presented to the inter-ministerial working group and the Prime Minister for comments and eventual endorsement.

Phase IV: The Environmental Code:

Based on the work of phases I-III, the Code will be compiled into an integrated whole and presented to government for approval and adoption.  Afterwards, a national and sub-national training and capacity building program will be conducted to expedite implementation.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The consultant’s primary responsibility will be the overall management and coordination of the Environmental Code project.  The consultant will provide a wide range of services during each phase to accomplish this aim. The consultant will also coordinate the integration of the Code project into the other aspects of technical assistance to the Ministry described in Section 2 of this Terms of Reference, and will provide assistance to these other aspects as may be required from time to time. The specific deliverables set forth below may be modified depending on the progress of the project.

Phase I

  • Supporting the creation and routine functioning of the Technical Working Group;
  • Providing inputs into the TORs of the various sub-TWGs, and assisting in their establishment, staffing, and routine functioning, and providing management and guidance support to them as required;
  • Identifying international experts to support the project and integrating them into the project structure as appropriate;
  • Coordinating the integration of the inputs of the sub-TWGs into a draft government decision on overarching principles for the Code;
  • Conduct of a national workshop to present the draft government decision;
  • Finalization of the EIA Law, including a final public vetting of the draft Law and consideration of comments, and preparation for its inclusion into the Code;
  • Initiation of research by the sub-TWGs into jurisdictions and mandates under existing law.

Phase II

  • Oversee and assure the quality of initial legal reviews by experts and lawyers on existing sectoral policies, laws and regulations and other potentially applicable topics;
  • Coordinate and assure the quality of the research and preparation of initial findings of the sub-TWGs regarding jurisdictions and mandates;
  • Conduct national and provincial level workshops to present the draft findings on jurisdictions and mandates and ensure incorporation of comments to draft findings;
  • Finalize the findings regarding mandates and jurisdictions;
  • Oversee and assure the quality of the process of GIS ecosystem mapping and integration of the outputs into the Code development process.

Phase III

  • Coordinate the research and preparation of initial proposals for legislative enactment on sector by sector issues and other related innovations and mechanisms for inclusion in the Code;
  • Coordinate national and provincial level workshops to present the draft findings on these legislative proposals;
  • Finalize the proposals and consolidate them into a draft for consideration by the inter-ministerial working group.

Phase IV

  • Finalize a complete draft of the code for presentation to the Minister;
  • Support the process of inter-ministerial review and revision;
  • Coordinate all final revisions to the Code;
  • Plan for future sectoral elaboration and implementation work and implementation and capacity building efforts.

Institutional Arrangement:

  • Environmental law advisor shall work under and have regular monthly meetings with the MoE advisors and UNDP colleagues to policy advisors assigned to work on the Environmental Code to inform the progress of the works;
  • The consultant shall report on/submit the above deliverables to the team leader of Environmental Code to advisors of the Ministry of Environment as well as to the Policy Advisor of UNDP Cambodia;
  • Over the course of this assignment the Environmental law advisor will liaise with relevant departments/divisions of MoE, General Secretariat of the NCSD and relevant stakeholders. The Advisor will work closely with the Environmental and Sustainable Advisor for MoE modernization and NCSD;
  • The policy unit of UNDP Cambodia is expected to provide the overall supervision and monitoring the performance of the consultant, coordination for the participation from relevant stakeholders to ensure the quality control of the consultant’s outputs;
  • S/he needs to maintain daily communication with the UNDP Country Office as and when problems emerge during the consultancy period, especially if they affect the scope of the job.

Duration of the Work:

The proposed duration of this assignment of 272 days spreading over two year period from September 1, 2015 to July 31, 2017.  The assignment is a combination of home-based and in-country missions (Cambodia). The Environmental and Sustainable Advisor is required to make at least 8 trips to Phnom Penh, Cambodia with up to 137 working days during the missions.

Duty Station:

The duty station of this assignment is a combination of home-based and in-country missions. The consultant will perform duties from her/his home country through email, telephone/Skype correspondence. The consultant will be responsible for her/his own local transportation arrangement.

Competencies

Functional Competencies:

  • Good analytical and communication skills, including the ability to draft and to articulate ideas in a clear and concise manner;
  • Proven written and analytical skills in producing high quality policy documents;
  • Sound knowledge of Environmental Impact Assessment Law, other Cambodian environmental legislation and climate change issues.

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
  • Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
  • Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • A minimum, Master’s degree or equivalent in environmental law or a related field.

Experience:

  • A minimum of 15 years of experience in legal review and advisory services in the field of natural resource management and environment;
  • At least 7 year of working experience with developing national laws, policies and strategies in the field of environment, and natural resources management in developing countries;
  • Prior experience in working with the Ministry of Environment in Cambodia is a plus.

Language:

  • Fluent in English.

Important note:

Interested offeror is strongly advised to read the Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice, which can be viewed at http://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=24505 for more detail about term of references, instructions to offeror, and documents to be included when submitting offer.

Documents to be included when submitting the application:

Interested offeror/individual must submit the following documents/information.

UNDP reserves right to reject any applications that is incomplete.

Please be informed that we don’t accept application submitted via email.

Interested Offerors are required to submit application via UNDP jobsite system, because the application screening and evaluation will be done through UNDP jobsite system. Please note that UNDP jobsite system allows only one uploading of application document, so please make sure that you merge all your documents into a single file. Your on-line applications submission will be acknowledged where an email address has been provided. If you do not receive an e-mail acknowledgement within 24 hours of submission, your application may not have been received. In such cases, please resubmit the application, if necessary. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.

Any request for clarification/additional information on this procurement notice shall be communicated in writing to UNDP office or send to email dalis.heng@undp.org and cc procurement.kh@undp.org. While the Procurement Unit would endeavor to provide information expeditiously, only requests receiving at least 5 working days prior to the submission deadline will be entertained. Any delay in providing such information will not be considered as a reason for extending the submission deadline. The UNDP's response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of inquiry) will be posted in Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice page as provided above. Therefore, all prospective Offerors are advised to visit the page regularly to make obtain update related to this Individual Consultant (IC) Procurement Notice.