Long Term Consultant: National Specialist: Environment Management and Monitoring Specialist

Position

National Specialist:
Environment Management and Monitoring Specialist

Winrock International is recruiting a National Specialist:
Environment Management and Monitoring Specialist for an Asian Development Bank (ADB) opportunity in Laos focused on Sustainable Agri-food systems. The project will contribute to food security and nutrition improvement, and agricultural value addition increased in a climate resilient and gender-responsive manner in Lao PDR. The project will work in the target value chains of bamboo, cassava, coffee, durian, and tea.

This position will be a part‑time consultancy that will require a commitment of 9 person‑months over a 5‑year period.

Vientiane, Laos

• Become familiar with project initial environmental examinations (IEE), environment management plan (EMP), and loan‑ and project‑specific assurances related to the environment for the two representative subprojects prepared during preparation.
• With the other ISC specialists, identify whether the DEDs are consistent with the preliminary designs approved during project preparation; assess whether the EMP requires updating. In the event that updates to the EMP are required, discuss and submit the proposed changes to MOIC and ADB for review and endorsement.
• Ensure that the water and noise baseline is established before construction.
• Assist the implementing agency and PMU to implement the grievance redress mechanism (GRM), including:
  • Establish and publicize the GRM.
  • Collate and evaluate grievances received.
• Conduct and monitor project compliance with the EMP and all relevant assurances and covenants in the loan and project agreements for environmental safeguards; identify any environment‑related implementation issues; and propose necessary responses in corrective action plans.
• Develop procedures to:
  • Monitor EMP implementation progress.
  • Collate and evaluate data collected in the EMP environmental monitoring program.
  • Prepare and submit the annual environmental monitoring reports to ADB (to continue until project completion report).
• Undertake simple and cost‑effective on‑site quantitative measurements to regularly check that the construction complies with the environmental monitoring standards and targets. Verify whether appropriate compensation measures have been conducted (e.g., replacement of trees to be cut).
• Coordinate the requirements of the IEE under the national legislation requirements.
• Assist in the preparation of essential environmental safeguard requirements for the as‑yet design documents for selected subprojects.
• Establish positive and effective working relationships with stakeholders to ensure the EMP is implemented smoothly and that any compliance issues are reported and addressed quickly.
• Facilitate on‑site inspections by government agencies to ensure timely environmental certification and approvals of the completed civil works.
• Support the PFIs to ensure the environmental compliance with the project areas of output 1 and output 2.
• Prepare annual environmental monitoring reports to document the progress for EMP implementation. Submit the reports to the PMU project coordinator and IA for review and consolidation, prior to submission of the progress reports by EA to ADB.
• Support the PMU project coordinator in other tasks related to environment safeguards as needed; work closely with the Climate change consultant in this ISC and.
• Provide input of environmental protection to progress report, midterm report, project completion report, and other project required documents.

Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, economics, development studies, gender studies, or an equivalent field.

• A minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in environmental management for rural development oriented projects.
• Demonstrated experience in environmental management, monitoring, and/or impact assessment for projects financed by ADB and/or other multilateral development organizations.
• Experience with national environmental management procedures and national environmental legislation.
• Demonstrate the ability to effectively engage and work with local communities, contractors, and…