Program Details

Job Identification: 17307

Locations: New York, United States

Deadline: 04/15/2024, 08:59 PM

Job Schedule: Full time

Agency: UNDP

Grade: IPSA-9

Vacancy Type: International Personnel Service Agreement

Practice Area: Nature, Climate and Energy

Bureau: Bureau for Policy and Programme Support

Contract Duration: 1 Year

Education & Work Experience: Master’s Degree – 2 year(s) experience OR Bachelor’s Degree – 4 year(s) experience

Required Languages: Fluency in oral and written communication skills in English and French languages

Program Overview

Job Description

Background

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core principles at UNDP:  we value diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, we foster inclusion as a way of ensuring all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, and we ensure equity and fairness in all our actions. Taking a ‘leave no one behind’ approach to our diversity efforts means increasing representation of underserved populations. People who identify as belonging to marginalized or excluded populations are strongly encouraged to apply. Learn more about working at UNDP including our values and inspiring stories. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

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Job Purpose and Organizational Context

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels offers a spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in its Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in UNDP’s Strategic Plan. 

Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS staff provide technical advice to Country Offices, advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represent UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private, government and civil society dialogues, and engage in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. 

UNDP’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan highlights our continued commitment to eradicating poverty, accompanying countries in their pathways towards the SDGs and working towards the Paris Agreement. As part of the Global Policy Network in the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP’s Nature, Climate Change, Energy, and Waste  Hubs promote and scale up integrated whole-of-governance approaches and nature-based solutions that reduce poverty and inequalities, strengthen livelihoods and inclusive growth, mitigate conflict, forced migration and displacement, and promote more resilient governance systems that advance linked peace and security agendas.

BPPS  work with governments, civil society, and private sector partners to integrate nature, climate, energy and waste related concerns into national and sector planning and inclusive growth policies, support country obligations under Multilateral Environmental Agreements, and oversee the implementation of the UN’s largest portfolio of in-country programming nature, climate change, energy, and waste. This multi-billion-dollar portfolio encompasses: 

• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services including forests; 
• Sustainable Land Management and Desertification including food and commodity systems; 
• Water and Ocean Governance including SIDS; 
  Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation; 
• Sustainable Energy; 
• Extractive Industries; 
• Chemicals and Waste Management; 
• Environmental Governance and Green/Circular Economy; and SCP approaches.

This work advances crosscutting themes on innovative finance, , capacity development, human rights, gender equality, health, technology, South-South learning and digital transformation.

UNDP launched its first Digital Strategy in mid-2019 to harness digital transformation within the organization. Building on a long history of project-level digital support for partners, the strategy represented a systematic and corporate driven transformation process to reimagine the way UNDP serves its partners and operates its systems and processes. UNDP continues to accelerate these efforts in response to growing demand from partner governments and to support our development partners to ensure that the arc of future digital transformation protects human rights and leaves no one behind. 

In line with the Digital Strategy 2019-2021, Digital Strategy 2022-2025 maintains and accelerates the momentum that has already been generated across UNDP and among its partners. Many of the components are already in place such as the Accelerator Labs, the Digital Advocates Network, a comprehensive IT transformation, and the Chief Digital Office (CDO). 

Being a part of the BPPS the Nature and Climate Hubs embarked on a road to accelerate digital transformation in collaboration with the CDO in the Executive Office, bringing digital technologies and data into different levels of decision-making processes and programming within the portfolio. The Nature and Climate Hubs are working with multiple partners and stakeholders to advance the digital transformation for green transition. A new global project ‘Digital Transformation for Green Transition’ which aims to provide global support to the GEF/GCF portfolio, while leveraging the strong portfolio to enable other financing opportunities. The project objective is to enable scaled digital support to countries’ green transition, through Digital Public Goods / Infrastructure for transparency and green finance; data capacity building; and Digital Readiness assessment and demonstrations. One of the project objectives is also to highlight the importance of digital as one of the key enablers, build upon the digital strategic Plan and put forth a vision whereby digital is an empowering force for people and planet.

UNDP’s Digital Public Goods for Development (DPG4D) global project funded by the Government of Norway/Norad aims to improve the availability and discoverability of Digital Public Goods (DPGs) for development. DPGs are open-source software, open data, open AI models, open standards, and open content that adhere to privacy and other applicable best practices, do no harm by design and are of high relevance for attainment of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As part of this effort, the Chief Digital Office (CDO) works with the Nature and Climate Hubs to implement effective, inclusive, rights-based DPGs. The project is anchored within the upcoming global project / preparation.

There are several ongoing DPGs being scoped, developed, and implemented within this context to enhance transparency and access to environmental finance:

1.Climate Transparency DPG: Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems combined with national carbon registries require digital systems for countries to access climate finance:

Both digital systems are an important technological element for countries to ensure transparency and credibility in reporting Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, as well as to enable countries to more easily trade carbon credits effectively to secure finance for climate change mitigation, working closely with the Climate Promise and transparency portfolio

2. Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) DPG: 

PES is an innovative cash transfer mechanism that can directly provide benefit sharing of climate finance to farmers and local communities, which UNDP has a long-standing experience in supporting governments for policy and implementation. Leveraging on emerging technologies, of which many are open source, UNDP will design and develop the base architecture and convene partnerships with existing providers, to create a coherent, working PES system for countries newly embarking on a PES mechanism.

In addition, a Digital Readiness Assessment (DRA) tool is being developed to support the DPG deployment and to find entry points to opportunities. The DRA is a survey-based system that provides quick, high-level insights into a country’s digital capabilities and opportunities. This may be applied to countries in parallel to embarking on digital system development and will need to be closely coordinated. 

Within this overall background, the Nature and Climate Hubs are seeking a Digital Country Analyst to support stakeholder and country coordination of the Transparency DPG, cross-cutting the two hubs. The Analyst will be requested to provide support to surrounding DPGs, concept development and knowledge management as a contribution to building up a coherent set of DPGs and thought leadership at UNDP. 

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Duties and Responsibilities

The objective of this assignment is to provide support to the combined Nature and Climate Hubs-CDO team on project management, coordination and knowledge management of key ongoing digital initiatives. 

The Digital Country Analyst will be expected to:

• Monitor and coordinate consultant and project member work plans. Raise any risks or issues to the project manager and task team for resolution;
• Manage country-level work plans, liaise with country offices and provide project support to unlock roadblocks, ensuring timelines for global and national implementation are on track, escalate risks and delays to the project manager when needed;
• Identify opportunities for carbon registry development and NDC reporting systems through collaboration with other technical teams and experts, and following through on meetings with country offices;
• Bring in relevant project members, task team advisors, and supervisors to relevant meetings;
• Maintain country needs intelligence database, ensuring information is up to date and sharable;
• Plan, design, and coordinate the Community of Practice;
• Present and provide generic support to country offices on Digital Public Goods, especially in Francophone countries;
• Attend and support the partnership meetings with external institutions;
• Plan and support in-person workshops and side events;
• Facilitate and contribute to Digital Readiness Assessment methodologies and implementation in coordination with DPG projects;
• Contribute to global Digital Public Infrastructure discussions, brief notes and concepts notes related to the transparency system.
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization

Institutional Arrangement

• The Digital Country Analyst will work from home. The Digital Country Analyst will work under overall guidance of the Lead, Digital Innovation for Nature Climate, Energy and Waste based in New York, USA. 
• The Digital Country Analyst will liaise closely with the respective CDO focal point / team on opportunities for engagements and share learning;
• The Digital Country Analyst will be given access to relevant information necessary for the execution of the tasks under this assignment;
• The Digital Country Analyst will be responsible for providing her/his own workstation (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, etc.) and must have access to a reliable internet connection;
• Given the global consultations to be undertaken during this assignment, the Digital Country Analyst is expected to be reasonably flexible with his/her availability for such consultations taking into consideration different time zones.

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Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent)  in Environmental Studies, Ecology, Business Administration, Records Management, or related field is required Or A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the above- mentioned fields of study, in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum two (2) years (with master’s degree) or four (4 ) years (with bachelor’s degree)  of experience in Project management or Project Coordination in the environment / climate change field. 

Required skills:

• Experience working on projects that involve digitalization, digital strategies or system development.

Desired skills

• Experience working on Digital Public Goods and open-source system development is highly desirable;
• Experience working on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and Paris Agreement or projects related to climate transparency is an asset.
• Experience conducting a Digital Readiness Assessment (DRA) or similar exercise at the national level is an asset.
• Proven track record of managing partner and stakeholder relationships at the national or international level is highly desired.
• Experience working in UNDP is an asset. 

Required Language(s) (at working level)

Fluency in oral and written communication skills in English and French languages is required. 

Application Procedure

Click Here To Apply

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