Consultant, Technical Support for Early Warnings

**Vacancy No.**

S07653

**Contract Type**

Consultant

**Application Deadline**

30-Sep-2024

**Job Posted on**

20-Sep-2024

**Country**

GLOBAL Different Locations

**Duty Station**

Global

**Duration**

Approximately 50 days from October to December 2024

**Grade**

Consultant, Not Applicable

**Organizational Context**:
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC or “the Federation”) is the world’s largest humanitarian network. The Federation is a membership organisation established by and comprised of its 191-member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Along with National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Federation is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent (RCRC) Movement. The overall aim of the IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by National Societies with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” It works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises.

The Federation is served by a Secretariat based in Geneva, with regional and country offices throughout the world. The Secretariat is led by the IFRC Secretary General and provides the central capacity of the International Federation to serve, connect, and represent National Societies. The Secretariat’s focus includes providing support to the IFRC governance mechanisms; setting norms and standards; providing guidance; ensuring consistency, coordination, and accountability for performance; knowledge sharing; promoting collaboration within and respect for the RCRC Movement; influential representation with global level partners; and expanding engagement with partners. The Secretariat’s headquarters is organized under three divisions, including National Society Development and Operations Coordination (NSDOC). The NSDOC Division is in turn organised in three Departments, each of them led by a Director. The Disasters, Climate and Crises (Prevention, Response & Recovery) Department consists of four teams, including the Climate, Environment and Resilience unit. In turn, the CER unit consists of three teams: DRR and Resilience, Climate and Environment, and Urban.

The consultancy sits within IFRC’s DRR and Resilience team.

**Background**

Early warning systems (EWS) are key elements of disaster risk reduction, resilience building and climate change adaptation. Inclusive and multi-hazard EWS are one of the most effective ways to save lives and livelihoods in advance of a climate
- or non-climate hazard. Countries with limited early warning coverage have disaster mortality that is eight times higher than countries with substantial to comprehensive coverage.**[1]** Yet only half of the countries worldwide report being equipped with the capability to alert their citizens about impending hazardous weather conditions. Coverage is less than 50% in Less Developed Countries and only one-third among Small Island Developing States. We must collaborate through partnerships to ensure everyone on Earth is protected by early warning systems tailored to their needs.

**[1]** Global status of multi-hazard warning systems, UNDRR 2022

**Job Purpose**:

- (...Continued from Organizational Context)_

The UN Secretary General in 2022 launched the Early Warning for All (EW4All) initiative, aimed at providing global EWS coverage by 2027. The EW4All initiative is built on four pillars of an effective Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS): 1) disaster risk knowledge; 2) observation, monitoring, analysis, and forecasting; 3) warning dissemination and communication; 4) preparedness and response to warnings. The EW4All initiative is co-led by UNDRR and WMO (who also lead Pillars 1 and 2, respectively) with two additional pillar leads: ITU for Pillar 3 and IFRC for Pillar 4. The initiative seeks to scale up action and collaboration and enhance alignment and coherence across existing efforts.

Thanks to national leadership and pillar partner support, to date 27 countries have held their national EW4All consultations, demonstrating their commitment to fulfil the goal of universal MHEWS coverage by 2027 (with nine more planned this year). These have led to efforts to analyse gaps and develop national roadmaps to address the gaps, which countries and their partners can use for scaled-up and coordinated action and resource mobilization across the four pillars. As of September 2024, 10 national EW4All roadmaps had been finalized.

The global pillar leads have identified priority areas to fast-track and accelerate early warning and early action:

- Strengthen interpillar programming: Ensure coordinated efforts across all EWS pillars from national to community levels to ensure end-to-end, last mile programming results.
-