Thailand Operational Hub (THOH)
UNOPS THOH is under the UNOPS Asia Regional Office
and was established to better support, develop and oversee the UNOPS portfolio
of projects in South East Asia and the Pacific.
The Hub comprises three main portfolios –THOH
Thailand, THOH Indonesia and THOH Pacific and provides a wide range of services
including Project Management, Transactional HR, Financial, and Procurement to
clients that include other UN entities, INGOs and governments/government
agencies donors. Most of THOH projects are implemented in South East Asia and
the Pacific.
BRG Results Enabling Facility (BRG REF)
Seasonal peatland fires are now compromising Indonesia’s economic and
social development by creating considerable threats to health, the environment,
and the economy. In 2015 peat fires and their related haze resulted in the
hospitalization of more than half a million people due to acute respiratory
infections. These fires that raged through 2.6 million hectares of forest and
peatland areas in the islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra released 1.6 Gts of
CO2e, surpassing the annual CO2 emissions of advanced industrialized nations
such as Germany, France, and others. Direct and indirect damages cost the
Indonesian national economy an estimated USD 16 billion, about 2% of its annual
GDP.
In recognition of the importance of peatlands for biodiversity
conservation, water resource management, reducing forest and land fires,
livelihood support for local communities and carbon storage, the Government of
Indonesia through Presidential Regulation No 1/2016 constituted the Peatland
Restoration Agency (BRG). BRG has an important mandate: prevent forest fires,
especially in peatland areas, as well as restore 2 million hectares of
peatlands devastated by forest and land fires. The Agency identified 7 target
provinces for peatland restoration and fire prevention activities in Riau,
Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and
Papua.
Since its establishment in 2016, Norway has been supporting BRG, as
current support to the BRG by the Norwegian Government falls within the wider
partnership between Norway and Indonesia established in 2010 through the Letter
of Intent (LOI) to reduce emissions from deforestation and land degradation of
forests and peatlands with USD 1 billion over the next few years. The USD 1
billion support is part of an international climate mitigation initiative
(UNFCCC) supported programme that uses international aid to counter forest
degradation in various parts of the world, and this is one of the largest ever
contribution made to reduce deforestation.
In the framework of this background, Norway and BRG have asked UNOPS to
develop a flexible multiyear administrative support mechanism for managing
Norway’s financial support to BRG through the establishment of the BRG Results
Enabling Facility (BRG REF). The mechanism has within its scope a back-office
management component and a service, procurement, grants management and a
delivery component.