18 October 2020

Call for Expression of Interest

Source(s): United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction - Regional Office for Arab States

Peer Reviewers for The Regional Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction in the Arab Region (RAR 2021)

Objective:

The objective of this Call for Expressions of Interest is to set up a list of external experts – Peer Reviewers - for the review of the “Regional Assessment Report (RAR) on Disaster Risk Reduction in the Arab Region”. The report is being developed by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (i.e. UNDRR)’s Regional Office for Arab States with several regional UN and non-UN entities, for publication in 2021.

Experts who meet the requirements defined in Sections IV and V will be considered for potential reviewers of the RAR 2021.

The peer reviewers will be required to review the English Draft version of the RAR 2021 (174 pages).

Duration of Peer Review Process:

The Peer Review Process will start on Sunday, 1 November 2020 and end on Monday, 30 November 2020.

Application Process:

Interested candidates are invited to fill the attached Expression of Interest Form and send it along with their CVs to UNDRR at [email protected] by 17:00 pm Cairo Time on Tuesday, 27 October 2020.

Inclusion Criteria:

The minimum required qualifications of the external expert - Peer Reviewer are:

Education:

a) for research experts: Masters’ or PhD

b) for DRR experts: university degree combined with relevant experience

Work experience: 10 years’ experience in DRR (universities, research organizations, labs) or project management (leadership role in implementing DRR programmes/projects within industry or research organizations).
At least 5 years of previous experience in contributing to or reviewing DRR-related reports and publications.
Ability to work in English.

Assessment criteria

The candidates will be assessed based on the following criteria:

Areas of expertise (DRR, development, social studies, environmental science, etc.).
Education (bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, PhD degree).
Work experience (at least 10 years).
Type of work experience (academia, research, industry, government, consulting, NGO)
Scientific experience (journal publications, conference publications, other scientific results).
Peer review experience.

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Background

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (Sendai Framework) emphasizes that risk is everyone’s business – explicitly identifying the need for all-of-society and all-of-State institutions’ engagement. It emphasizes that risk must be understood in broad terms – contextually and temporally. Particularly, it puts the onus on all of us to understand the nature of risk – that death, loss or damage (impacts that define a disaster – that are the disaster) are a function of the context of hazard, vulnerability and exposure.

The Regional Assessment Report (RAR) attempts to provide an understanding of the regional risks and progress in risk reduction in the region, while highlighting the key issues and challenges. The report is aligned to the key messages that the Global Assessment Report 2019 (GAR19) calls for. It emphasizes the importance of understanding better the systemic nature of risk to develop effective strategies to enhance the scientific, social and political cooperation needed to move towards systemic risk governance. Like the GAR19, it reinforces the message that we need to reduce vulnerability and build resilience if we are to reduce risk.

The RAR is composed of the following eight chapters:

Overview of Disaster Risk in the Arab Region.
Regional Progress in Disaster Risk Reduction.
Building Coherence in the Arab Region between the International Agendas: Climate Change, Disaster Risk Reduction, and Sustainable Development Goals.
Vulnerabilities to and Capacities in Disaster Risk Reduction: Addressing Structural Drivers, Impacts on and Empowerment of Affected Populations.
Urbanization Trends and Urban Resilience in the Arab Region.
The Disaster-Conflict-Fragility Nexus.
Food Security Risks Under Growing Water Scarcity
Creating an Enabling Environment for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Scope of work:

The general functions and responsibilities of the Peer Reviewers (experts) are:

Each Peer Reviewer must undertake the evaluation of the RAR based on the below criteria. The review must give concise, pertinent and well justified comments for each criterion below, and must reflect the strong and weak points in the comments on the RAR.

Criteria: Key Common Aspects to review in Each Chapter

Ensure alignment of the RAR 2021 terminology with the Report of the Open-Ended Inter-Governmental Expert Working Group on Indicators and Terminology related to Disaster Risk Reduction:

https://www.preventionweb.net/files/50683_oiewgreportenglish.pdf

Ensure a balanced geographical approach with balanced analysis and recommendations at the different levels (community, local, national) and DRR stages (prevention, mitigation, response, recovery). Hence, the below is strongly recommended:

In reviewing progress and discussing case studies, try as much as possible to ensure a geographical balance between countries in the region.

Ensure that the review of progress, analysis and recommendations, and other sections (as applicable) address the different levels, i.e. national, local, sectoral, community/CSO levels. This includes a balance between urban-rural (where applicable) and between private - public. This is particularly true as more progress has been achieved in having multi-sectoral progress rather than multi-stakeholder one. Therefore, the need for this should be clear in all the chapters.

Ensure that the chapter reviews, analyzes, critiques and recommends practices in all stages of the DRM cycle; namely prevention, risk reduction, preparedness, response, early recovery and Building Back Better (BBB) in recovery. This is particularly true as little has been done on risk reduction and BBB for example.

Ensure that the review of the past period (2005-2015) account for the three above points but be categorized under the five HFA priorities.

Ensure that the policy recommendations account for points 1 to 3 above but be categorized under the SFDRR priorities.

Review the following emerging best practices:

Chapters address systemic risk as possible, its complexity, dynamic nature, system-crossing nature, etc. (Refer to GAR19, Chapter Two)
Chapters ensure linkage to the 6 global agendas where applicable.
When discussing Early Warning Systems (EWSs), ensure that the discussion analyzes the 4 main components that make these EWSs people-centered.
Chapters address COVID-19 where possible and relevant.

Each Peer Review must submit, in writing, constructive, objective comments on the RAR’s content with the aim to enrich the content in terms of its discussion of DRR themes and issues in the region and address critical gaps that the Peer Reviewer identifies for each of the eight chapters.

Submit a written evaluation and written comments to UNDRR at [email protected] at the end of the Peer Review Process and no later than 17:00 pm Cairo Time on Monday, 30 November 2020.