The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is hiring one (01) Health Infrastructure Specialist.
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), is the United Nations agency for human settlements. It is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all.
The Agency has been working with the Government of Mozambique since 2002 within the scope of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, strengthening the capacities to reduce the population vulnerability to natural hazards such as floods, cyclones, drought, and earthquakes. In this context, UN-Habitat advocates for a prevention approach through disaster adaptive architecture for urban planning, public buildings, and housing; it promotes sustainable relief and building back-better reconstruction, including policy-support and the revision of building codes and construction standards as a long term solution. The Agency cooperates with institutions such as the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC), Ministry of Education and Human Development (MINEDH), Ministry of Public Works, Housing, and Water Resources (MOPHRH), among others.
Mozambique ranks third among African countries most exposed to climate-related hazards. In 2019, two tropical cyclones stroke Mozambique in the same rainy season; cyclone Idai made landfall March 14th at central Mozambique with winds over 180-220 km/h accompanied by heavy rainfall, leaving a path of destruction. Six weeks later, cyclone Kenneth hit the Northern provinces affecting 240,000 people and aggravating the emergency response efforts. The combination of strong winds and floods affected a total of 2 million people and caused 602 deaths.
In this context, the health sector plays a crucial role in maintaining the population safe. Hospitals and other health facilities are essential assets to communities daily as well in times of emergency. Since the Peace Agreement in 1992, Mozambique engaged enormous efforts to accelerate the construction of health infrastructure and other essential services across the country. Despite that, the health infrastructure often was not implemented by enforced building codes, resulting in low-performance structures with limited capacity to withstand disasters. Cyclones Idai & Kenneth were not the exceptions causing vast destruction into the health sector by disrupting the services, damaging buildings, equipment, breaking stock of supplies, and medicines. Ninety-Five health facilities were destroyed or partially damaged, including the largest hospital in Beira city. These represent a severe setback to communities’ most vulnerable groups, especially for pregnant women, children, and people living with HIV.
To overcome this situation, the infrastructural component of health facilities must be built in compliance with the safety standard of construction to ensure continuity of services in routine conditions as well in the extreme circumstances of an emergency. Thus, UN-Habitat proposed to launch the Safer Hospital initiative under the institutional coordination of the Ministry of Health (MISAU) through the Reconstructing Gender-Sensitive, Safe and Resilient Health Facilities Project financed by the High Commission of Canada in Mozambique.
The Project aims to increase the resilience of (re)constructed health facilities so that they are protected from hazards, remain functional during crises, and provide equitable, gender-sensitive health facilities. The Project will use a two-pronged approach to achieve results in the shorter- and longer-terms. It will provide urgent support to the ongoing reconstruction efforts in the provinces of Sofala, Cabo Delgado, and Manica in line with the principles of building-back-better and disaster risk reduction to ensure future resilience. Simultaneously the Project is developing a long-term approach by building a common understanding amongst the Government of Mozambique and its key stakeholders related to the vulnerabilities that health facilities face because of natural hazards and proposing improved construction procedures and standards.
In line with the 2030 Agenda, and the MISAU Strategy for Gender inclusion 2018-2023, the initiative also integrates gender dimensions into national construction standards for health facilities. This leads to all outputs require specific analysis to understand women’s needs and gender-dynamics across a variety of issues to propose improvements in terms of accessibility to health care, tailor-made designs and customized solutions for more inclusive infrastructure.
The initiative is implementing in collaboration with MISAU and the Post-Cyclone Reconstruction Cabinet (GREPOC) in partnership with the Health Cluster, UN agencies, Academia, Civil Society, including organizations dedicated to promoting gender equality and other organizations interested in engaging with safer hospitals actions in a wide-ranging approach.
The Specialist on health infrastructure will hold the responsibility for the successful provision of technical assistance on identification, preparation, implementation, and monitoring of activities related to building-back-better in health facilities as well to support the development of normative works and improved standards in coordination with the UN-Habitat team by undertaking the following tasks/duties:
Teamwork:
Planning and Organizing:
Decision-making: