Municipal Planning / Cultural Heritage and Tourism Specialist

The programme seeks to strengthen the contribution of cultural heritage and tourism to inclusive local economic development, with particular emphasis on women’s economic empowerment, municipal capacity-building, gender-responsive planning, cultural heritage promotion, tourism development, and local institutional ownership.

The specialist will contribute technical expertise related to municipal and local development planning, cultural heritage, sustainable and inclusive tourism, and institutional capacity-building.

Tasks:

• Provide technical expertise on municipal planning, local development, cultural heritage, and tourism throughout the evaluation.
• Review programme approaches related to cultural heritage promotion, tourism planning, municipal capacity-building, and local economic development.
• Assess the relevance and effectiveness of programme support to municipal institutions and local stakeholders.
• Evaluate approaches to strengthening tangible and intangible cultural heritage and integrating heritage assets into local development and tourism planning.
• Assess the quality and usefulness of training, tools, case studies, guidance, and capacity-building provided to municipal and local stakeholders.
• Examine the application of gender-responsive urban and tourism planning approaches, gender-sensitive indicators, monitoring frameworks, and gender-responsive budgeting.
• Assess institutional ownership and the likelihood that programme-supported approaches and tools will continue to be used after project completion.
• Review opportunities for integrating programme approaches into future municipal strategic planning.
• Conduct interviews and consultations with municipal representatives, tourism actors, heritage institutions, civil society, private sector stakeholders, and other relevant actors.
• Contribute to analysis of tourism value chains and linkages between women-led enterprises, cultural heritage, and local economic opportunities.
• Assess opportunities for scaling, replication, or adaptation of programme approaches in other locations.
• Contribute to preparation of findings, conclusions, lessons learned, and practical recommendations.
• Support development of recommendations related to sustainability, institutionalisation, partnerships, and future programming.

Qualifications:

• University degree in urban planning, local development, cultural heritage, tourism management, architecture, urban studies, public administration, or another relevant field.
• Demonstrated experience in one or more of the following:
- Local development planning; - Cultural heritage preservation and promotion; - Tourism planning; - Municipal capacity-building; - Urban development; - Sustainable local economic development.
• Experience working with municipalities, local authorities, cultural heritage institutions, tourism stakeholders, or community-based development initiatives.
• Strong understanding of heritage-based local economic development and destination development.
• Knowledge of participatory planning and stakeholder engagement approaches.
• Knowledge of inclusive tourism, gender-responsive planning, cultural heritage management, and sustainable local economic development is a strong advantage.
• Experience conducting assessments, consultations, research, monitoring, or evaluations in relevant sectors.
• Strong analytical, facilitation, communication, and report-writing skills.
• Experience in Jordan, particularly with municipal, cultural heritage, or tourism development, is highly desirable.
• Experience with internationally funded development programmes is an advantage.