Involuntary Resettlement and Indigenous Peoples Safeguards Specialist

Objective and Purpose of the Assignment

For Thailand, SECURE is supporting the Royal Thailand Government, particularly the Ministry of Public health in a number of initiatives on vaccine development and deployment and effective health security. ADB is supporting the project preparation for the establishment/upgrading of five (5) selected provincial hospitals as medical excellence centers (MECs) as part of Thailand's health security strengthening initiative. On this note, AB is engaging a national social safeguards expert to assist the Ministry of Public Health and the project team to review the detailed architecture-engineering (A-E) designs of five medical excellence centers (MECs) which are expected to increase access to hospital services, strengthen the capacity of hospitals to address future disease outbreaks and pandemics, and enhance the resilience of the public health system respond to disaster and the impact of climate change. The expert will be engaged intermittently for 40 person-days from October 2022-March 2023. He/she will be directly reporting to the ADB project officer.

Scope of Work

The specialist will cover the areas of involuntary resettlement and indigenous peoples/ethnic minorities.

Detailed Tasks and/or Expected Output

For involuntary resettlement, the specialist will:

• Review national and local laws and regulations, administrative arrangements and requirements, budgetary processes relevant to land acquisition and involuntary resettlement. Analyze relevant laws and regulations vis-? -vis AD' SPS 2009 and recommend gap filling measures if required.
• Identify LAR impacts in accordance with AB's SPS if any and conduct the necessary preparatory surveys (census Survey, socio economic survey, inventory of losses, replacement cost study) as required.
• Work closely with relevant project preparation consultants in exploring design options to avoid LAR impacts.
• Determine the replacement cost for all categories of losses
• Prepare resettlement plans (Ps) for the project and if no LAR impacts are identified prepare a due diligence report based on the assessment.
• Conduct meaningful consultations with affected households and other relevant stakeholders, work closely with government agencies responsible for resettlement and assist the government in initiating a participatory process for P preparation and approval.
• Advise the executing agency (EA), participating local government and implementing agency (IA) on ADB's SPS 2009 requirements and procedures.
• Assess the capacity of the relevant institutions to plan, update and implement the RP's and propose
  capacity building/ training programs as needed.
• Work closely with other relevant project preparation consultant team members to ensure LAR impacts are mitigated properly and required resources are reflected in the overall project design, cost estimates and other relevant documents.
• Enhance existing project social impact reports as needed.
• In close coordination with the environmental safeguard specialist/consultant, develop a project specific grievance redress mechanism to handle complaints in an effective and culturally appropriate manner.
• Finalize a template for monitoring and reporting of the project.

For indigenous people, the specialist will:

• Develop a profiling report to determine the presence of Indigenous people in the proposed project areas.
• Analyze and document national and local laws and regulations, including relevant local and traditional/customary laws and practices.
• Relevant administrative arrangement and requirements.
• As part of the social impact assessment, carry out surveys and field-based studies required to assess potential project impacts on IPs following SPS 2002.
• Conduct meaningful consultations with IPs and project stakeholders.
• Prepare IPP in case positive or negative impacts on IP's are identified.
• Assess institutional capacity and suggest measures to build capacity.
• Plan workshops and training program for EA, IA to carry out implementation of IPP.
• Ensure compliance to AB's SPS 2009 and any other reports that may reasonably be requested by ADB.

Minimum Qualification Requirements

The specialist will have at least a university degree at master's level in social sciences, anthropology, development studies or a relevant field. The Specialist must have at least eight years of relevant experience in resettlement and work with indigenous people. Knowledge of AB's SPS 2009 is required. He/she must have excellent English written and oral communication skills.

The deadline of applications is on 30 September 2022.