The “UNDP/GEF Yellow Sea Project” began implementation last year, with a Project Management Office (PMO) established at KORDI, in Ansan, Korea.  The PMO is seeking interested experts to assist with project implementation.   

One activity is to develop a regional procedure for environmental valuation of the ecosystem services in the Yellow Sea, focusing on mariculture and tourism.  The information produced by the work will be used to create the “YSLME Project Guideline for Environmental Valuation in the Yellow Sea Ecosystem.”  The environmental valuation would contribute to one of the Project’s main outputs – the Strategic Action Programme (SAP).    

The Project’s Regional Working Group for Investment Component (RWG-I) agreed at its second meeting (Jeju, R. Korea, 14-17 November 2005) that the initial effort on the environmental valuation should focus on mariculture and tourism.  The main objective at this stage is to prepare and establish a regional procedure to carry out the environmental valuation in the Yellow Sea.  This agreement in addition to the execution plan of environmental valuation proposed by the RWG-I were approved by the Second Project Steering Committee Meeting (Kunming, China, 19-20 December 2005). 

Attached, please find a “Statement of Work” (SOW) describing the activity and the tasks to be undertaken.  Note that there are two SOWs: One for mariculture and the other for tourism.  Due to your expertise in investigating the Yellow Sea socio-economic issues, the PMO invites you to submit a bid for this activity.  If you are interested, please submit a proposal to the PMO, describing: 

• a letter of interest;

• brief background of Yellow Sea’s ecosystem problems;

• methodology - how you intend to implement this activity based on the tasks listed in the SOW;

• expected outputs of the work;

• an implementation schedule;

• proposed team structure and members, if relevant;

• your CV; and

• estimated costs for the work that is estimated to take about 125 person-days of work.

Please note that the work should be undertaken from March to August 2006.  The deadline for proposal submission is 10^th March 2006, 1700 hours Korea time.  Late submissions will not be considered.

You may submit your proposal via e-mail or via fax to Isao Endo, PMO, via email at isao@yslme.org or via fax at 82-31-400-7826. 

For additional background information about the Project, please visit our website at: http://www.yslme.org.