Chinese Social, Poverty, Gender and Safeguards ABU Consult Berlin GmbH

ABU Consult Berlin GmbH, a German consultancy firm, is looking for Chinese experts for an Asian Development Bank funded project.

The Project is envisaged to start in March 2012 and to have a duration of 9 months.

Please apply by e-mail to j.heinemann@abu-consult.de with a current CV in English language at your earliest convenience, no later than January 30th 2012.

Tasks (making reference to 1 international expert and the Chinese expert sought in this ad):

Poverty and Social Analysis. The experts will help HED engage (a) qualified survey institute(s) to conduct the survey for poverty and social analysis. The consultants will conduct the focus group and key informant interviews concerning poverty, social and gender issues, and scoping for the ethnic minority impacts under the project in accordance with ADB’s Safeguard Policy Statement, Safeguard Requirements (SR-3).

Based on the findings of such survey and analysis, the experts will provide baseline information on current students in the 14 project schools for the project on poverty levels, socioeconomic conditions, assessment of benefits and risks, mitigation and enhancement activities, recommendations to further strengthen the development impact of the project with attention to design, implementation, and monitoring, particularly in areas such as topics for the innovation incubator, industry-school partnerships, design of sustainable campus initiatives, and possible topics for the training modules.

The consultant will conduct a gender analysis of TVET, addressing such issues as how the TVET majors are divided along gender lines; what kinds of gender inclusive actions/policies exist; why there are few female students in the machine tooling occupations; what impacts does this have for long-term income and advancement of females; the extent to which the TVET faculty is inclusive; any special training needed, etc. Regarding the gender analysis, the consultants will propose further studies and capacity building activities that will feed into institutional and management plans for TVET schools under the ensuing project.

The consultants will analyze student quality at entry in general, access to TVET for the poor, ethnic minorities, and other disadvantaged groups, including issues of direct and indirect costs of education, access to scholarships and subsidies, availability of TVET schools in local areas, admissions policies, social marketing of TVET, etc., and will analyze constraints in effective and culturally appropriate integration of ethnic minorities in the learning process and campus life.

The consultants will prepare a poverty and social assessment which will include a social action plan, gender action plan, and summary poverty reduction and social strategy. Inputs will also be provided for the RRP, design and monitoring framework (DMF) and PAM.

Ethnic Minority Development Plan (EMDP):

The consultants will

(i) orient HED and the project TVET institutions on ADB's Safeguard Policy Statement requirements and procedures;

(ii) Conduct a full screening of EMDP issues;

(iii) Assist the project TVET institutions in conducting the consultation with ethnic minorities in the project areas; and

(iv) Assist HED to prepare measures as part of project design or an EMDP as required in accordance with the Safeguard Policy Statement, including related procedural requirements.