Open Call to Strengthen Technical Support Towards the Monitoring of Wastewater Management Globally

Open Call to Strengthen Technical Support Towards the Monitoring of Wastewater Management Globally

Description

UN-Habitat’s vision is “a better quality of life for all in an urbanizing world”. UN-Habitat works with partners to build inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities and communities. UN-Habitat promotes urbanization as a positive transformative force for people and communities, reducing inequality, discrimination, and poverty.

In line with the New Urban Agenda, UN-Habitat seeks to contribute to increased equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, improved sanitation, and sustainable management of water resources, including wastewater treatment, recycling, and safe reuse.

It does so by facilitating policy dialogue, sharing good practices, by providing technical assistance for the development and implementation of field demonstration projects, and by supporting local, national, and global data collection and monitoring in order to strengthen advocacy, policy- and decision-making.

Background

Under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN-Habitat is the co-custodian UN agency responsible with WHO and UNSD for tracking global progress towards indicator 6.3.1 as part of SDG target 6.3, which seeks to “by 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally”.

UN-Habitat is also actively collaborating with UNSD, OECD, and Eurostat, in order to use and adapt standardized data from their environmental statistics questionnaire to report total and industrial wastewater statistics for SDG 6.3.1.

To support further data disaggregation and understanding the challenges of collecting data at the local data, UN-Habitat has engaged directly with utilities responsible for wastewater management, to review available data and identify capacity gaps.

A series of five regional webinars with water and sanitation utilities have been co-organized by UN-Habitat in collaboration with regional partners in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Arab States, and Asia, involving line ministries, regulators, regional sector associations, and development banks.

These have addressed critical aspects of wastewater management, especially wastewater data monitoring and management, technology options, governance and policy, financing and investment, and the need to increase awareness at the political level of this neglected sector.

Data collection exercises have been jointly conducted by regional partners and UN-Habitat to gather information on water use and wastewater treated, in order to build capacity for adequate monitoring of wastewater statistics (including for national reporting to the SDG 6.3.1), update the regional plans and support decision-making processes.

UN-Habitat is working with key partners, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to promote city-wide approaches to sanitation services and wastewater management systems, by mainstreaming sanitation into urban development strategies, harmonizing data management systems and national and sub-national level, and build capacity amongst water and sanitation utilities for improved service delivery.

UN-Habitat is preparing inputs to the UN Water Conference 2023 with a view to raise awareness on the need to significantly strengthen support to cities and human settlements to expand coverage of their water supply and sanitation systems to increasing urban populations, addressing socio-economic and environmental challenges.

Objective

The objective of this project is to strengthen technical support towards the monitoring of wastewater management globally and to raise political awareness on the need to build capacity for sustainable (urban) wastewater management systems.

This call invites governmental entities, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions to submit expressions of interest to support the wastewater monitoring effort conducted by UN-Habitat and its partners, in the framework of the SDG 6 global monitoring.

Activities

The activities in the project will build on previous and current work by UN-Habitat and is broken down into three key areas:

Technical support to policy development on wastewater management

• Follow up on and consolidate data collected by regional partners and prepare an analysis of the information provided.

• Summarize the outcomes of regional consultative webinar meetings in a concise document with key messages and recommendations for policymakers. The preparation of this policy brief on wastewater management includes the drafting, facilitate review, editing, layout, and publishing services.

• Support a review of the current methodology for SDG 6.3.1 with a view to developing a refined monitoring framework post-2030. This will include consultation with key actors, such as respective partner countries and relevant UN agencies.

• Support the convening of a high-level meeting and/or the production of outreach materials at the occasion of the UN Water Conference 2023 to raise political awareness on the need to improve wastewater management in the context of rapid urbanization in the global south.

Data management and statistics on wastewater generation and treatment

• Provide a review of the monitoring methodology used to collect SDG data on the flows of total wastewater generated and safely treated. This will be done in close collaboration with relevant UN partners and in partnership with OECD and Eurostat.

• Propose new variables (sub-indicators) on wastewater issues (e.g. pollutant loads and wastewater reuse) and work with UN-Habitat, UNSD/UNEP, and OECD/Eurostat on the inclusion of these variables in relevant statistical tools.

• Maintain a coherent repository of monitoring information on the SDG6.3.1 indicator, incl. review, and exploitation of the wastewater data from relevant databases. Produce graphics, aggregate wastewater data by regions, build time series and ensure that the data is included in a global database used to determine SDG 6.3.1 progress.

• Support the collection of disaggregated wastewater data from additional countries that are not currently reporting such data, by working through official national SDG reporting mechanisms and other means. Support countries to progressively align with international definitions and standards, by encouraging and assisting them in reporting to indicator 6.3.1 and to the existing international databases.

• Contribute technical inputs in support of relevant progress reports on SDG 6.3.1 including updated statistical information, drafting of report sections, and related documentation.

• Work with relevant partners to source, monitor, and aggregate utility and other city-level sanitation and wastewater data.

• Co-facilitate training courses to build capacity on wastewater management and achieving and monitoring SDG indicators 6.3.1 and 6.3.2 and on other key areas to improve practitioners’ understanding of impacts of climate change on water resources and people and the interlinkages among them.

Communications for political change

• Prepare infographics, story maps, and factsheets to raise awareness of current challenges and solutions regarding urban sanitation services and wastewater management systems, incl. in the context of the triple planetary crises.

• Produce selected audio/visual communication products such as podcasts and videos on the interlinkages between sustainable wastewater management and key current environmental and climate issues.

Short-listed candidates may be invited to submit detailed proposals or provide clarifications.

The Expression of Interest (EoI) should contain, but may not be limited to the following:

A concept note including background information and the approach that will be applied to the institution’s contribution towards the organization of the webinars;

Experience of the organization in the areas of sanitation and wastewater management, especially data collection and analysis. This should include a portfolio of projects undertaken in similar areas (references);

A financial proposal and draft budget. The support/contribution the organization is willing to make, including cash and in-kind. contributions in terms of researchers’ staff time, office space and equipment, and other support in cash and in-kind should be expressed in monetary terms;

Governance and organizational structure; experience and qualifications of key professional staff and infrastructure facilities of the organization;

Certified true copies of original Audited Account Statements for the last two years; and the Latest annual report.

UN-Habitat Financial Contribution

UN-Habitat will contribute financially in the range of US$70,000- 100,000 for the successful delivery of the outputs within the planned timeframe

Overall Timeframe

The work outlined in this EOI is scheduled to commence in January 2023 and be completed within eight (8) months. The agreement can be extended depending on the budget availability.

How to Apply

For more information and job application details, see; Open Call to Strengthen Technical Support Towards the Monitoring of Wastewater Management Globally