Result of Service
To strengthen the Dugong and Seagrass Hub as a sustainable, user-friendly knowledge platform that supports the long-term management, accessibility, and dissemination of the Project's knowledge products.
Expected duration
1 month (30 days) - home based
Duties and Responsibilities
The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) is a global intergovernmental treaty aimed at the conservation and sustainable use of migratory species and their habitats. Numerous additional intergovernmental instruments on migratory species conservation have been adopted under the broad umbrella of CMS and are supported by the CMS Secretariat. The CMS Secretariat also serves as the Secretariat for the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas (ASCOBANS).
In addition, two regional agreements adopted under CMS have their own Secretariats, which are co-located with the CMS Secretariat in Bonn: the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) and the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats (EUROBATS). The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the designated entity within the United Nations system for addressing environmental issues at the global and regional levels.
Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of Governments and the international community for action. In the present context, UNEP provides administrative services to the CMS, AEWA, ASCOBANS and EUROBATS Secretariats.
The CMS Dugong MOU Secretariat is implementing the project Conservation of Biodiversity, Seagrass Ecosystem, and their Services Safeguarding Food Security and Resilience in Vulnerable Coastal Communities in a Changing Climate (the Project), funded through the International Climate Initiative. The Project supports seagrass conservation and sustainable coastal livelihoods across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and India.
One of the Project’s primary outputs is the Dugong and Seagrass Hub, an online knowledge platform developed to consolidate project resources, technical guidance, and training materials. The Hub was developed early in the Project lifecycle and now requires a targeted restructuring and content update to ensure it accurately reflects the Project's final outputs and remains accessible, user-friendly, technically robust, and easy to maintain.
The Secretariat therefore seeks to engage a consultant to undertake the restructuring of the Dugong and Seagrass Hub, to support the long-term management and dissemination of the Project's knowledge products. The consultant will report directly to the Project Manager for the IKI Seagrass Ecosystem Services Project at the CMS Office
Abu Dhabi. Technical oversight will be provided by the Dugong MOU Project Coordinator. Deliverables will be evaluated against the agreed outputs, including the quality and completeness of the work, technical accuracy, responsiveness to Secretariat feedback, and adherence to the agreed timeline. The consultant will undertake the following tasks:
1- Develop a revised website information architecture and content taxonomy in consultation with the Secretariat.
2- Reorganise website menus, page hierarchy, categories, tags, and navigation to improve usability and long-term content management.
3- Migrate, edit, format, and publish existing and newly developed content.
4- Implement agreed technical improvements within the existing WordPress environment, including page templates, plugins, templates, configuration settings and other website functionality.
5- Resolve identified technical issues and implement revisions following Secretariat review.
6- Submit all deliverables electronically in formats agreed with the Secretariat.
Qualifications/special skills
University degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Web Development or a related discipline is desirable.
Equivalent professional experience demonstrating advanced technical competence and a proven track record in website development and content management may be accepted in lieu of formal qualifications. Minimum seven (7) years of demonstrated experience developing, administering and maintaining WordPress websites, including theme customization, plugin management, user roles, security and performance optimization Demonstrated experience in back-end website development and maintenance, including troubleshooting, custom functionality, database management and CMS configuration.
Demonstrated experience in content migration, information architecture, taxonomy design and search optimization for CMS-based websites. Demonstrated experience managing website hosting, software updates, backups and website security. Experience integrating third-party tools, interactive maps, forms or APIs into WordPress websites.
Languages
English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this consulting position, fluency in oral and written English is required.