Urban Resilience Analyst

Background
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Africa is the most rapidly urbanizing continent in the world. Urbanization offers significant opportunities for economic and human development in many African countries. However, these opportunities are also vulnerable to risks and losses from disaster events. Over the next 30 years, Africa's population is projected to increase to 1.5 billion by 2025 and 2.4 billion by 2050. By 2050, 60% of Africa’s population will live in urban centres. However, the current trend of urban growth also shows that disaster risk in Africa is increasingly affecting urban spaces. Disasters have increased in the region since the 1970s with increases in human exposure to disaster risks largely driven by population growth particularly concentrated in cities, interwoven with the effects of fragility. Despite the significance of large-scale disasters, the impacts of everyday hazards (e.g. infectious disease linked to unsanitary conditions) and small-scale disasters (e.g. localized floods and shack fires) in the region cannot be underestimated. Especially at the city scale, understanding the linkages between the development process, underlying everyday risks and periodic disaster risk is vital if development is to contribute to reducing rather than generating risk. 

Rapid urbanization in Africa has meant that urban dynamics and growth patterns do not only contribute to the underlying drivers of disaster risk but also a significantly large proportion of people are exposed and regularly experience losses to disasters (from both natural and man-made hazards). Therefore disaster risk management and resilience-building in African cities demand requisite and urgent attention. In much of West Africa, deepening poverty levels, weak socio-economic development, high population density, environmental degradation, diseases, poor governance, conflicts, violence and other threats are major underlying factors that cumulatively increase the fragility of communities and nations. The low human development attributes culminate in high vulnerability and susceptibility profiles, with low adaptive and coping capacities for hazard risks such as flooding, storms, epidemics, and drought. Against these increasing vulnerabilities are limited and weak policies and capacities, which continue to pose a substantial challenge to effectively managing disaster and climate risks, including in the urban areas. With recurrent disasters, particularly in cities and urban centres, livelihoods deteriorate, pushing people deeper into poverty and food insecurity and undermining their resilience to future shocks and stresses, with varying impacts on different social groups. 

While there are established institutional arrangements for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) in many West African countries, many lack any specific focus on urban risk management. There is a general lack of understanding and absence of institutional frameworks and systems at the regional, national and sub-national/local levels for implementing effective urban risk management policies, programmes and initiatives. The growing trend of urban disasters means that national and local governments, city authorities and decentralised institutions including urban planning units, environmental management units, and other social service providers at the city level will have to understand, commit and factor long-term climate resilient investments into urban planning and implementation processes based on practical information that is user friendly and easily understood by political and decision-making bodies at the local government level. There is, therefore, need to support West African urban centres and demonstrate in a number of countries on appropriate models that African countries can adopt in reducing urban disaster risks, with special attention to urban communities and special needs of vulnerable people – including marginalised women, men, boys, girls, female headed households, and people with disabilities. If the underlying causes of the urban risks and disasters are not addressed in urban planning and infrastructure development processes, the risks accumulate and are compounded with even potentially higher economic and social costs from disasters in the future. 

To address this, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission seeks to strengthen regional and national urban risk management policies and plans and the institutional capacities of Member States to address urban risks. Broadly, the ECOWAS Commission has undertaken substantial efforts in addressing risks and building resilience of the region to shocks and stresses including the ECOWAS Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Plan of Action (2015–2030), the ECOWAS Regional Climate Strategy and Action Plan(2022), the Plan of Action of The ECOWAS Humanitarian Policy (2012 – 2017), the ECOWAS Policy for Disaster Risk Reduction (2006), the ECOWAS Disaster Risk Reduction Gender Strategy and Action Plan (2020 – 2030), and the Regional Resilience Strategy, currently under development. However, these currently lack a specific focus on urban resilience. Thus, for strengthening regional and national urban resilience, the ECOWAS Commission intends to work towards programmatic approaches for enhancing urban resilience. One of these ways will be operationalising in West Africa the continental framework of the Africa Urban Resilience Programme (AURP), developed by the African Union Commission (AUC) and technically validated by the African Union (AU) Member States and regional economic communities (RECs). 

The AURP aims to support resilience-building in the continent and promote the integration of climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) into development planning to achieve its development goals under Agenda 2063. The programme builds upon and complements other continental initiatives such as the Programme of Action (PoA) for the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030 in Africa, and the development of an overarching continental resilience framework, the ‘Africa Disaster Resilience Accelerator Programme’ (ADRAP), which is being developed. Furthermore, the AURP aligns with and supports the achievement of other developmental goals and targets such as the New Urban Agenda and the AU’s Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan 2022-2032. The AURP was developed with support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through its first phase of the regional project titled, “Strengthening capacities for disaster risk reduction and adaptation for Resilience in the Sahel Region: fostering risk-informed solutions for sustainable development” (hereafter, the Sahel Resilience Project).

The Sahel Resilience Project (2019-2025), funded by the Government of Sweden, is implemented by UNDP in partnership with the AUC, the ECOWAS Commission and other regional institutions such as the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), the AGRHYMET Regional Centre of the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), academia (PERIPERI U) as well as other UN Agencies (UN-Habitat, UN Women and UNDRR). The objective of the Sahel Resilience Project is building capacities of regional institutions and national governments in the Western Sahel (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal), including in the Lake Chad Basin, in the institutionalization of risk-informed development planning, programming and investment for gender-responsive resilience building.

Building on the above, under the auspices of the second phase of the Sahel Resilience Project, to support the delivery of the ECOWAS Commission’s broad ambition to build urban resilience in the region, the Project will augment the human resources capacity of the ECOWAS Commission through the appointment of an Urban Resilience Analyst, including supporting in operationalizing the AURP in West Africa. S/he will be guided by the Urban Resilience Advisor (also funded by Sweden through the Sahel Resilience Project), to collectively support the delivery of urban resilience agenda of the ECOWAS Commission and its Member States.

The Urban Resilience Analyst will provide dedicated support to the Urban Resilience Advisor, and contribute to urban resilience policy and programme development, implementation, partnership building, advocacy and resource mobilization efforts in support of the ECOWAS Commission.

The Urban Resilience Analyst will be based in the ECOWAS Commission’s Humanitarian Affairs Division of the Humanitarian and Social Affairs Directorate in Abuja, Nigeria and shall be responsible for supporting inputs into operationalizing the AURP towards ECOWAS’ regional programmatic efforts to build the resilience of its Member States to the losses from urban disasters. Under the supervision and guidance of the Urban Resilience Advisor, s/he will support the coordination and delivery of policy guidance to shape the implementation mechanisms of the AURP and the delivery of strategic programme activities in West Africa. 

The Urban Resilience Analyst will support scaling up of the urban resilience work being carried out in the Sahel region by UNDP in partnership with UN-Habitat through the Sahel Resilience Project Phase 1 and continued in Phase 2. S/he will also contribute to developing other AURP implementation mechanisms for the ECOWAS region, such as the Joint Regional Programme (JRP) on Smart Urban Resilience in Africa in collaboration with UNDP and UN-Habitat, and the AUC’s partnership with the GIZ-funded ‘Resilience Initiative Africa’ project (RIA). S/he will contribute to other functions of the Humanitarian Affairs Division in areas such as urban risk assessment, urban early warning and early action systems, urban recovery preparedness as well as integration of disaster and climate risks in urban planning through coherent policy, strategic and programme advisory services at the regional and national level, as per the requirements of the ECOWAS Commission.

Institutional Arrangement

The assignment will be based at the ECOWAS Commission premises in Abuja, Nigeria. The Urban Resilience Analyst will support the Humanitarian Affairs Division within the Humanitarian and Social Affairs Directorate, in the Department of Human Development and Social Affairs. He/she will be responsible for providing his/her own laptop and any necessary equipment or communication devices required to fulfill assigned duties. The Humanitarian Affairs Division of the ECOWAS Commission will provide office space and any additional administrative and logistical support needed to operate from their premises. 

The Urban Resilience Analyst will work under the direct supervision of the Director, Humanitarian and Social Affairs and day-to-day guidance of the Head, Humanitarian Affairs Division, ECOWAS Commission. S/he will report to the Project Manager, Sahel Resilience Project and will liaise with the UNDP team at the regional and country level, representatives of relevant technical and financial partners as well as the designated focal points in partner organizations for effectively fulfilling assigned responsibilities.
 

Innovation: Co-creation 

Business Direction & Strategy: System Thinking   

Communications: Advocacy strategy and implementation             

2030 Agenda: Planet: Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery         

2030 Agenda: Prosperity: Nature, Climate and Energy