Type of Agreement: Individual Service Contract
Type of expertise: International Environmental Expert
Duty station: Home-based / with one in-country mission
Language requirement: English
Duration: up to 25 working days /for the period of February-December 2024
Payment arrangements: Payments linked to satisfactory performance and delivery of outputs.
In September 2021, PA EcoContact, with the support of Sweden, initiated the implementation of the project “Green Justice STEPS”. The project aims to improve the legal and institutional framework of environmental governance and justice and achieve stronger involvement and cooperation of all key players in environmental protection at the national and local levels.
The project envisages a component related to conducting the Strategic Environmental Assessment for “The management plan of the Dniester River basin district (cycle II)" elaborated in frames of the project “Supporting the Moldovan authorities in the sustainable management of the Nistru River” implemented by UNDP with support of Sweden.
According to the official opinion of the Ministry of Environment (competent authority for SEA), the Nistru River Basin District Management Plan is subject to Transboundary SEA.
SEA procedure in the Republic of Moldova is carried out according to Law 11/2017 on the Strategic Environmental Assessment, which transposes the Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2001 on the assessment of the effects of specific plans and programmes on the environment.
The elaboration of the II cycle of the Dniester River Basin District Management Plan (PGDBHN) for the period 2024-2029 (hereinafter the Plan) is carried out in accordance with the provisions of art. 19 of the Water Law no. 272/2011 regarding the revision of the Management Plans of the watershed districts every 6 years and point 9 of Government Decision no. 866/2013 for the approval of the Regulation on the procedure for the elaboration and revision of the Management Plan of the hydrographic basin district.
The revision of the Plan is carried out in accordance with the provisions of Chapter V of Government Decision no. 866/2013 for the approval of the Regulation on the procedure for drawing up and revising the Management Plan of the watershed district. The revision procedure is initiated one year before the expiration of the six years of validity of the first cycle of the Management Plan.
The new management plan, cycle II (2024 - 2029), completed and revised, contains:
1) re-delimitation of surface water bodies in accordance with the methodology regarding the identification, delimitation, and classification of water bodies (System A), approved by GD no. 881 of November 7, 2013;
2) the brief exposition of all additions and changes made since the beginning of the implementation of the previous Management Plan;
3) the evaluation of the progress made in the achievement of the environmental objectives with reference to the state of surface waters, underground waters, and protected areas in the hydrographic basin district that it targets in order to protect, improve, and restore water bodies and to prevent the deterioration of the status of all water bodies, as well as the deadlines for achieving these objectives, including a cartographic representation of the monitoring results for the previous plan period, accompanied by explanations for any environmental objective that was not achieved;
4) the brief exposition of the measures that were included in the previous Management Plan but were not fulfilled, with the exposition of the causes of their non-fulfilment, as well as the measures that were not included in the previous Management Plan but were fulfilled in order to achieve the environmental objectives established in the plan.
The parties involved in the development and realization of this Plan are the state institutions and those subordinate to them, the local public authorities, the NGOs in the respective fields, the management committee of the Dniester hydrographic district, and the committees of its tributaries' sub-basins, civil society, external assistance.
The objective of the contract is to hire a part-time international SEA Team Leader expert with appropriate expertise in the elaboration of the SEA assessments for similar programs/plans. The expert is expected to support the national expert and SEA team members in developing the SEA procedure and elaborating on the SEA Report.
The expert will be involved in the entire SEA process (i.e., over several months) and deliver inputs in several phases. For every SEA step and written output/deliverable indicated below, the expert will be guided by the national provisions and context. The consultant is expected to participate in consultation events for the SEA Report with the planning authority and other relevant stakeholders and will present his/her findings during public SEA event(s) and provide feedback on comments obtained.
As per needed inputs from the International SEA Team Leader expert, it is expected that the following tasks will be performed, and outputs/deliverables provided:
No |
Deliverables |
Timeframe WDays |
1. |
Identification of the key environmental issues to be that shall be reflected in the composition of the SEA team |
1 WDs |
2. |
Prepare ToRs for the national team of consultants |
3 WDs |
3. |
Online trainings workshop for the SEA local team |
2 WDs |
4. |
Drafting SEA report jointly with national experts |
10 WDs |
3. |
Consultations (national and transboundary) |
4 WDs |
4 |
Final review of the SEA report document |
5 WDs |
|
Total |
25 WDs |
Management Arrangements:
The international legal expert is required to perform the following task under the supervision of the EcoContact staff and in cooperation with the specific reference person for the Ministry of Environment.
The Project Manager should approve the Deliverables.
Payments will be invoice-based/ made based on the actual number of days worked, deliverables accepted, and upon certification of satisfactory completion by the project manager.
The potential candidate shall comply with the following criteria:
Academic Qualifications:
Experience:
Competencies:
The application shall be submitted via email to hr@ecocontact.md and cc tatiana.echim@ecocontact.md with the title International Expert on SEA for the management plan of the Dniester River Basin district (cycle II) before March 1 2024, 14.00 MD time and comprises of the following documents:
*the Republic of Moldova is a part of the various agreements with different countries to avoid double taxation[1]. Depending on the country of the applicant's fiscal residence, the additional documents requested by the contract signatory might include the issue of a special certificate from fiscal authorities to avoid double taxation.
[1] International taxation Serviciul Fiscal de Stat (sfs.md)