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ORGANIZATIONAL LOCATION:
UN-HABITAT
DUTY STATION: Nairobi
FUNCTIONAL TITLE: Consultancy to develop GLTN training strategy
GRADE: P4 (Equivalent)
POST DURATION: 2 months spread over 4 months
CLOSING DATE: 12 January 2011
BACKGROUND
In 2006, UN-HABITAT facilitated the establishment of the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) which is a partnership of bilateral donors (e.g., Sweden, Norway), intergovernmental organizations (e.g., the World Bank, FAO and IFAD), civil society organizations (e.g., Huairou Commission), academia and research (e.g., University of East London, University of Twenete), international professional organizations (e.g., International Federation of Surveyors- FIG), etc.
The GLTN aims to improve global coordination on land by embracing and promoting a shared agenda and multi-faceted partnerships through the network itself and by strengthening other land networks. It envisages to contribute to the implementation of pro-poor land processes and outcomes to achieve secure land rights for all. The GLTN and its partners have agreed that these can be achieved by establishing a continuum of land rights rather than exclusively focusing on individual land titling; developing pro-poor and gendered land tools; promoting and disseminating existing innovative land initiatives; supporting grassroots participation in land matters; and improving the general dissemination of knowledge on how to improve access to land and implement security of tenure. More information on these and other relevant themes is available at: www.gltn.net.
Land training as a part of the GLTN agenda
Training is one of the first and foremost vehicles chosen to take the GLTN capacity development agenda forward. The GLTN launched its training activities in 2007 with a creation of a staff position in Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) of UN-HABITAT and the subsequent allocation of funds for training activities.
In the GLTN context, the goal of training is closely linked to achieving the Network’s agenda. Though the GLTN lacks a clearly spelled out training strategy, what the network aims to achieve and what training activities have been implemented can be summarised as under:
* to facilitate the development, piloting and dissemination of innovative, pro-poor, gendered and sustainable land tools. This means after development and piloting, land tools will move to the training domain for scaling-up through sensitization, awareness creation and human resource development.
* to bring about innovative training and education in the land sector. This can be achieved by:
* positively influencing the curricula of land training institutions and helping them to move away from only technical knowledge and skills oriented training and expand into hitherto neglected ‘soft subjects’ like governance, gender, grassroots participation, etc. and enhance pro-poor analytical capabilities.
* entrenching training activities of the GLTN in the regular and occasional course offerings of formal training providers (e.g. adult education or on-the-job training) as a means to sustain initiatives.
* to usher in better knowledge management (networking, documentation, etc.) and
* to enhance citizen and civil-society engagement.
Training Evaluation
Event evaluations of training events have shown that training delivery has invariably been very effective. The training events have always concluded with action planning as a means to replicate initiatives and transfer knowledge. As a result, many excellent, albeit ambitious, individual and group action plans have been formulated. Some of these have led to notable activities including curricula related interventions as well as country level training events. Many of them haven’t been implemented.
Formal and informal follow-ups of post training activities have shown that lack of satisfactory implementation is attributed to several factors: lack of financial resources, group dynamics, lack of support from superiors at work place, demanding professional life and lack of time, risky nature of subject matter to be handled, etc.
In 2009, the training activities of the GLTN, like all other activities of the network, were subject to a rigorous mid-term assessment which among other things has identified limited impact of the training activities as a potential challenge. Further, the assessment recommended the development of training strategy as a mean to begin to enhance training impact. This consultancy is thus responding to this recommendation and is expected to start off a process that would eventually lead to a better impact of GLTN’s trainings.
Objective and scope of the consultancy
The objective of this consultancy is to develop a training strategy for the GLTN. This includes enabling beneficiaries to continually develop knowledge and skills, change attitudes, incrementally and sustainably build organizations and institutions. Although other training activities of UN-Habitat/TCBB are of interest and should be reviewed and analysed, the focus of this work is providing strategic framework to the training agenda of the GLTN. In this regard, special attention shall be given to:
* the analysis of the positive aspects of past training initiatives,
* the transfer of knowledge approach and individual learning and how these relate to training in the land sector ,
* analysis of requirements to make training produce change agents
* the different levels of evaluation beyond level one or learners reaction and planned action
RESPONSIBILITIES
Below, an indicative list of activities is provided which the consultant shall carefully review and come up with detailed specification of activities and corresponding methodologies. The time frame for this project will be 2 months spread over 4 months.
The spread in the duration of the project is necessary because of the time that will be required to contact training partners, past training beneficiaries, etc. and solicit their feedback and views.
* Review the GLTN Institutional and operational framework: This is important to contextualize and align the recommendations and training strategy to GLTN’s current framework. GLTN operates within the UN as a global network of partners what results in both constraints and opportunities influencing training delivery and follow-up activities. The consultant also should acquaint her/him self to UNHABITAT’s relevant capacity development and operational activities which could offer entry points and opportunities for implementing the training strategy or some of the recommendations emerging from the exercise.
* Review and analyse past and ongoing training initiatives: objectives, inputs, outputs, outcomes and where possible impact. The objective of this exercise is to briefly document experiences and to, based on this, identify lessons learned. Also, this task has to accentuate positive aspects of past initiatives as well as isolate those that would benefit from a fresh thinking (incl. review of findings and recommendations from the Mid Term Assessment).
* Review and analyse international good practices in training needs assessment, design, delivery and evaluation. The purpose of this is, among other things, to provide a synoptic overview what works and what doesn’t. The focus of the work should be on good international practices with particular focus to those of similar institutional framework (like GLTN) and doable within the context of developing countries.
* Review and develop SMART objectives. While individual training activities have clearly stated objectives and outcomes, the overall objective (s) of the GLTN training agenda have not, as noted, been clearly specified. Staff and managers, however, have thoughts which have been expressed in different occasions. These need to be clearly spelled out. With regard to objectives of individual training activities, what needs to be done is to determine whether or not these have been SMART given the various constraints under which they have to be realized.
* Development of training strategy by unpacking and/ or adapting “the transfer of learning” approach. Drawing on TCBB’s discussion note and further consultation with TCBB, it is essential to assess and ascertain if this is a doable strategy for the land sector where both soft and hard issues (e.g., governance and land administration respectively) of which many are highly political have to be addressed. Also, unpacking the constituent elements of the strategy and their implications on different stages of the training cycle (needs assessment, design, delivery, evaluation, etc) is vitally important. With regard to delivery, analysing the various options (face-to-face, eLearning, blended) and proposing the most cost effective and high impact method is critical. Based on analysis of past activities and drawing on cutting edge practice and thinking, it is crucial that key training design and delivery issues pertinent in the context of GLTN’s objectives and ambitions of capacity development are highlighted. Though there were plans and discussion early in 2008 to develop an e-Learning course on land value capture and TCBB has an eLearning platform, the GLTN funded training activities have been limited to the face-to-face method. This has been costly and limited the outreach. There is a need thus to assess and provide recommendations if eLearning is an approach that must be pursued.
* Identification of institutions who will partner with TCBB and GLTN in undertaking training needs assessment, design, delivery, follow-up and evaluation: based on SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threat), this task has to help identify formal and non-formal training institutions whom TCBB and GLTN can partner with. While doing this, it is necessary to think in terms two-tier partnerships (primary and secondary) and how they should be engaged with different purposes in mind, intensity, etc of engagement.
* Development of monitoring and evaluation framework for assessing outcomes and where possible impact. Compared to other training activities, those funded by the GLTN seems to have fared well in terms of getting second opinion through an external mid-term assessment. Nevertheless, they lack an in-built evaluation process (particularly related to outcome and impact). The task is thus to identify how to establish such a process and what this would entail. In this regard, reviewing and analysing the Training Impact Evaluation (TIE) methodology of TCBB and determining its suitability for land trainings is required.
* Resource implication of the training strategy: the GLTN experience over the past four years has shown that training is expensive. It requires huge investment both in funds and staff time. On the other hand, global as well as in-house trends show that funding is limited and dwindling. Against this backdrop, the ultimate test of any training strategy is whether or not it matches potentially available resources and / or identifying ways and means of ‘doing more with less’ with out compromising quality and result. It is also important that the recommendations are largely applicable to the realities of institutional and programmatic framework of GLTN. The consultant should clearly analyse this dimension of the strategy and make realistic recommendations.
Notes on Methodology
The aforementioned activities should be undertaken by reviewing and analysing reports, discussion notes, training resources, and other relevant documents available both in TCBB and the GLTN.
Further, staff and senior managers of TCBB and GLTN and other relevant UN-Habitat staff recommended by TCBB and the GLTN should be consulted both individually and in groups to solicit views and thoughts, build consensus on the strategy as well as its diverse elements.
TCBB has ongoing consultancy on increasing the effectiveness of training activities in UN-HABITAT which has a potential to broadly inform tasks set out through this TOR. Therefore, the consultant need to tap into the thinking of this task and / or (if reports are available) look into its conclusions and recommendations with a view to adapting and sharpening the GLTN training strategy.
Outputs/Deliverables and Reporting
Payments will be paid in three instalments based on the following output delivery schedule:
* Inception report - 1st payment (25% to be paid after two months)
* First draft report - 2nd payment (25% to be paid after three months)
* Final report - 3rd payment (50% to be paid after four months)
The successful candidate will report to Gulelat Kebede (gulelat.kebede@unhabitat.org), Chief, Training and Capacity Building Branch and to Human Settlements Ofiicer Britta Uhlig (britta.uhlig@unhabitat.org).
COMPETENCIES
Excellent coordination, facilitation, communication and conceptual writing skills, team working ability.
Advanced knowledge of land related issues, training in international development contexts and capacity development theory and practice.
QUALIFICATIONS
Qualified researcher or practitioner with at least 15 years experience in land related international development, with at least 10 focussing on training and capacity development issues.
Education
Advanced University degree (masters or similar) in a subject (or combination of subjects) deemed relevant to the subject areas covered by this ToR such as adult education, curriculum development, land law, land surveying, land economics, planning or similar.
Work Experience
Qualified researcher or practitioner with at least 15 years experience in land related international development, with at least 10 focussing on training and capacity development issues.
Language
Excellent English writing skills are required; knowledge of a second UN language is an advantage.
Other skills.
* Previous working experience with international development assistance agencies is required.
* Demonstrated ability to write advanced conceptual documents such as training strategies.
* Independent research ability is required
REMUNERATION
Payments will be based on deliverables over the consultancy period. There are set remuneration rates for consultancies. The rate is determined by functions performed and experience of the consultant. The fees will be paid as per agreement.
* Cover memo (maximum 1 page)
* Summary CV (maximum 2 pages), indicating the following information:
o Educational Background (incl. dates)
o Professional Experience (assignments, tasks, achievements, duration by years/ months)
o Other Experience and Expertise (e.g. Internships/ voluntary work, etc.)
o Expertise and preferences regarding location of potential assignments
o Expectations regarding remuneration
All applications should be submitted to:
Mr./ Ms. Britta Uhlig
UN-HABITAT
P.O. Box 30030, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Email: britta.uhlig@unhabitat.org
Fax: + 254 20 762 4265
Please be advised that since April 15th 2010, applicants for consultancies must be part of the
UN-HABITAT e-Roster in order for their application to be considered. You can reach the e-Roster
through the following link: http://e-roster.unhabitat.org/
UN-HABITAT does not charge a fee at any stage of the recruitment process. If you have any questions concerning persons or companies claiming to be recruiting on behalf of these offices and requesting the payment of a fee, please contact: recruitment@unon.org
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