The Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Unit within the UNDP Lebanon Country Office – a coordination structure established in the Prime Minister’s office (PMO) in 2009 with the support of UNDP, has been the focus of recent efforts to strengthen and institutionally anchor Disaster Risk management and Crisis Coordination Capacities in the Government of Lebanon (GoL). Particularly, in the context of the compounded crisis that Lebanon is facing (COVID 19, Beirut Blast, wild fires, etc.), it is important that the DRM unit is able to support  the GoL in pursuit of more collaborative and coordinated disaster risk management and crisis response efforts taking into account the increasingly limited resources. With no single entity mandated to coordinate government disaster and crisis actions in a comprehensive way and responses lying within the responsibility of several institutional entities with sometimes overlapping directives relevant to the nature of the crisis, the DRM unit has been the platform that brings various stakeholders together to build Lebanon’s DRM capacities and ensure national ownership, and a whole of Government approach.

The Green and Inclusive Development Programme is one of the main areas of focus in UNDP Lebanon; currently implements numerous projects in Lebanon that range in thematic areas from climate change, biodiversity conservation, institutional support, industrial depollution, decentralized renewable energy projects and solid waste management. The programme also works on the support of host-communities in response to the Syrian refugee crisis and is the Social and Environmental Safeguards focal point for the office; therefore, the team also ensures the integration of environmental best-practices into the overall implementation strategy of UNDP.  The project of main focus for the GIS work relates to the irrigation programme funded by KfW that focuses on the upgrading of irrigation canals all over Lebanon. The programme also supports the Government of Lebanon on the solid waste management sector at both policy and implementation levels and also uses a national mapping and database system to geographically analyse data and projects. The programme, also with the support of KfW and the European Union, works extensively on the implementation of renewable energy projects across the country in various sectors including health care, the Lebanese Armed Forces, education and other which requires mapping and data management.

In addition to the spill-over from the Syria war, where Lebanon continues to host the largest refugees per capita population in the world, the situation in the country was further exacerbated by an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, hyper- inflation and a drastic devaluation of the Lebanese currency, the covid-19 pandemic that broke out in early 2020, the Beirut Port Blast of August 2020, and a political stalemate that still stand in the way of financial and economic rescue plans.

The UNDP Crisis Prevention and Crisis Response Programme (CPCR) supports the Government of Lebanon in strengthening Lebanon’s resilience to threats posed by conflicts and disasters. The Programme works in several thematic areas, including policy support on disaster risk management, improving living conditions for Palestinian Refugees in Palestinian Gatherings, supporting the post recovery efforts in the area next to the port of Beirut, and supporting the most urgent needs of the Lebanese host communities, while at the same time bridging its interventions to longer term development to strengthen the humanitarian development nexus.

The information management officer will support the UNDP Country Office  programme in managing and analyzing data across its projects and programmes while closely coordinating with national counterparts on related information.

Information Management Strategies and Data Analysis

• Draft the project information management strategy for respective projects as needed
• Ensure strategic linkaes of all strategies with UNDP’s digitalisation strategy to enhance national level adoption and implementation
• Identify and work with national and international partners of UNDP on obtaining needed data and information required to produce standardized information products
• Support the programme and project teams in analysis of data and information and perform data quality control
• Support the projects and programmes in the implementation of digitalisation activities related to national projects by providing technical IM and mapping advice as needed
• Any other related tasks as may be required or assigned by the supervisor.
• Assist and advice the programme on data management and identification of opportunities toward digitization across the projects while taking into account UNDP’s corporate strategy.
• Provide technical assistance on Information Management (IM) LHSP tool and ensure that it is properply functioning.
• Enhance the LHSP IM Tool database as required, and ensure that the data analysis is responding to the project requirements as well as the donors.

Data Collection and Mapping

• Collect programmatic and geospacial data for UNDP as needed to reach data analysis targets
• Generate maps on ArcGIS or similar softwares
• Undertake analysis of GIS and geographic data to determine locations, take decision on new areas of intervention and analyse the impact of the works implemented in terms of beneficiaries, resource management and programmatic targets
• Organize GIS-related data and establish data management stream across the projects in consultation with proramme and ICT unit of the country office and make linkages to the CO M&E functions and needs
• Develop templates and forms to be used by the site teams for data collection that would align with data management needs and GIS requirements to improve data collection and analysis
• Data input, filtering and consolidation are also required

Institutional Arrangement

The Information Management Analyst will be working under the overall guidance of the DRM Project Manager, LHSP CTA & WASH Project Manager.