Capacity Building Senior Officer [Biodiversity Technical Specialist]

The Global Programme on Nature for Development brings together three different initiatives – the Equator Initiative, the New York Declaration on Forests Global Platform, and the National Biodiversity Initiative under one program in order to identify, foster, showcase and celebrate nature-based solutions that help achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at local, national, and international levels. The work of the Global Programme on Nature for Development contributes to UNDP's Strategic Plan 2018-2021 by charting sustainable development pathways through the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems; and by promoting inclusive and effective democratic governance in the area of natural resources. 

The Equator Initiative brings together the United Nations, governments, civil society, businesses and grassroots organizations to recognize and advance indigenous and local sustainable development solutions for people, nature, and resilient communities. The Equator Initiative seeks to recognize the success of local and indigenous initiatives; create opportunities and platforms to share knowledge and good practice; inform policy to foster an enabling environment for local and indigenous community action; and develop the capacity of indigenous peoples and local communities to scale-up their impact.

The Equator Initiative is built upon three equally important pillars:

-         The Equator Prize is awarded biennially to recognize and advance local sustainable development solutions for people, nature, and resilient communities. As local and indigenous groups across the world chart a path towards sustainable development, the Equator Prize shines a spotlight on their efforts by honoring them on an international stage.

-          Equator Dialogues are an ongoing series of community-driven meetings and exchanges, held in conjunction with related international forums. Equator Dialogues provide opportunities for people to share experiences, develop capacities, and influence policy.

-          Equator Knowledge is a research, documentation, and learning program focused on local best practice in sustainable development. The Equator Initiative works with partners to identify, document, and analyze the success factors of local best practice, and to catalyze ongoing peer-to-peer learning, knowledge exchange and replication of best practice.

The Global Platform for the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), is a partnership of governments, multinational companies, civil society and indigenous peoples who strive to halve deforestation by 2020 and to end it by 2030. The NYDF outlines ten ambitious global targets related to protecting and restoring forests. The Global Platform for the New York Declaration on Forests seeks to fill an important gap in multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration necessary to achieve the goals of the NYDF. The NYDF Global Platform works to increase ambition, forge new partnerships, and accelerate progress on the NYDF goals by responding to NYDF endorsers’ requests for a dedicated, multi-stakeholder platform to re-invigorate political endorsement of the NYDF, to facilitate coordination and communication, to share best practices, resources and lessons, and to support ongoing monitoring of progress. 

The National Biodiversity Initiative supports countries to manage their ecosystems and biodiversity in order to improve national planning and governance of biodiversity, ecosystems, and development, and to promote resilience for sustainable development. The National Biodiversity Initiative works in three project areas: National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) Support, National Reporting, and Capacity Building. The use of spatial data for spatial planning is a cross-cutting theme across these project areas, including work through our flagship platform UN Biodiversity Lab, created in partnership with UN Environment and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Knowledge Sharing is a main goal of the Equator Initiative, NYDF, and the National Biodiversity Initiative. The Equator Initiative has a large series of research papers, books, and other publications focusing on local approaches to poverty reduction and conservation, informed by community-based initiatives.180 case studies in over 30 languages have documented the Equator Prize winners’ innovative practices that deliver the win-win-win solutions that ensure social, economic, and environmental sustainability. The National Biodiversity Initiative share knowledge on the role of spatial data in biodiversity planning, policymaking, and reporting through blogs, case studies, and story maps. The NYDF Global Platform aims to use case studies about NYDF endorsers from a variety of stakeholder groups, including companies, governments, indigenous peoples and NGOs in order to share best practices and challenges in implementing the NYDF goals.

Learning for Nature is a capacity-building offer provided by the Global Programme on Nature for Development, cutting across the three areas of work. This program connects biodiversity policymakers, change-makers, and on-the-ground subject matter experts to facilitate the delivery of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Access to the global multi-stakeholder networks mobilized by the Equator Initiative, NYDF, and the National Biodiversity Initiative allows Learning for Nature to circulate knowledge while promoting best practices. Building on our learnings on the ground, Learning for Nature seeks synergies, build linkages, and engage thousands of course participants through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), webinars, self-paced e-learning modules, and private training courses.

For further information please go to: www.equatorinitiative.org, www.nbsapforum.net, www.learningfornature.org, www.unbiodiversitylab.org, or www.nydfglobalplatform.org.

This is a position to support a project which UNOPS is implementing for the United Nations Development Programme. The incumbent of this position will be personnel of UNOPS under its full responsibility.

UNOPS is seeking the support of a Biodiversity Technical Specialist to provide advice and guidance on engaging with governments and key international stakeholders on biodiversity, climate, and development-related policies.

The Biodiversity Technical Specialist will focus on initiatives related to advancing the Global Programme on Nature for Development’s work to support governments to use spatial data in their conservation plans and monitoring. The overall goal of the project is to collaborate with the world’s best scientists and governments in five pilot countries to develop approaches to use spatial data to identify where nature-based actions to protect, manage, or restore ‘essential life support areas’ (ELSAs) can deliver efficiently across national priorities for biodiversity, climate, and sustainable development. The ELSA concept will be used to support governments in their commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda).

Duties and responsibilities include:

Project coordination and implementation

• Support coordination of meetings with core team and external partners, offer facilitation, and take minutes.
• Support communication with key partners including National Geographic Society, UN Environment, UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and the CBD Secretariat.
• Develop knowledge management strategies for the project, including default communication tools, file sharing platforms, and collaborative editing tools.
• Draft quarterly and annual project reports, in consultation with other team members.
• Draft workplans for project implementation, in consultation with other team members.

Technical tools

• Support the use of existing online tools to support virtual capacity building and communities of practice, such as the NBSAP Forum;
• Support the development of private communities of practice for specific countries or projects on NBSAP Forum, based on unique needs;
• Based on the beta testing, support development of online training materials and documentation for the new version of UN Biodiversity Lab, including downloadable technical guidance, GIFs, presentations, and other materials.

• Support beta testing of the new, fully functioning API version of UN Biodiversity Lab with pilot country stakeholders and users.

Capacity building

• Support the coordination and organization of capacity building workshops, events and/or help desks at international events associated with the CBD, UNFCCC, and 2030 Agenda. This will include logistics, coordination with partners and speakers, and drafting talking points and other content.
• Support the coordination and organization of webinars and virtual workshops, including speaker selection, timelines, translations, outreach, and dissemination of recordings.
• Support upon request NASA-supported projects implemented by the Global Programme on Nature for Development, including reports, communications, meeting organization, outreach, webinar management and facilitation, and data collection, with a specific focus on French-speaking countries;
• Present trainings in English, French, and/or Spanish on spatial data and spatial planning.

Communications and knowledge sharing

• Support the development of communications materials synthesizing lesson learned and best practices and knowledge.
• Oversee and quality assure the translation of project materials into French and/or Spanish.
• Develop social media content for posting through UNDP and partner accounts in English, French, and/or Spanish to increase awareness of the project and UN Biodiversity Lab platform.
• Support pilot countries to develop presentations, blogs, podcasts, and case studies on the national and global impacts of the project.
• Present success stories and lessons learned in English, French, and/or Spanish on spatial data and spatial planning.

Strategic engagement

• Support development of the Global Programme on Nature for Development’s strategy for implementation of the CBD’s post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
• Support the preparation of the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties of the CBD (CBD COP15) by gathering, organizing and disseminating data from the Sixth National Reports to the CBD and the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, with a focus on spatial data.
• Support outreach to pilot countries around the importance for inclusion of spatial data in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
• Collect, analyze and disseminate, in the format of a report, results from SBSTTA24 and OEWG2 on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, with a specific focus on obstacles and capacity needs around spatial data.
• Liaise with the UNDP HQ Climate Change team and provide support in mapping both National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans under the CBD and Nationally Determined Contributions under the UNFCCC.

Education

• Master’s degree in environmental management, social/political sciences, international relations, gender or development policy or other related expertise areas is required; 
• Bachelor’s degree in relevant field with additional 2 years of experience can be accepted in lieu of a Master’s degree.

Work Experience

• A minimum of 2 years of working experience on at least one of the following topics at a conceptual or practical level is required: international environmental policy, national government conservation, natural resource management, and/or sustainable development; biodiversity/climate change/environmental protection;
• Experience with capacity building activities to support use of spatial data for conservation implementation, monitoring, and reporting is required;
• Experience with content development, conducting research, summarizing material, data tracking or literature review in topics of biodiversity, climate change, and sustainable development is required;
• Experience with the website content management, visual design, and technical support is required;
• Experience working on national reporting and monitoring for the Convention on Biological Diversity is an advantage;
• Experience working within the UN system, particularly with UNDP Country Offices, UN Environment, and the Secretariat or the Convention on Biological Diversity is an advantage.

Languages

• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English is required.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in French or Spanish required.
• Proficiency in additional UN languages is an advantage.

Contract type: ICA Contract level: IICA-1/ICSC-9
Contract duration: Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns. Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

UNOPS Sustainable Development Cluster (SDC)  The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners' peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world.  UNOPS supports partners to build a better future by providing services that increase the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of peace building, humanitarian and development projects.  Mandated as a central resource of the United Nations, UNOPS provides sustainable project management, procurement and infrastructure services to a wide range of governments, donors and United Nations organizations.

New York Service Cluster (NYSC) supports the United Nations Secretariat, as well as other New York-based United Nations organizations, bilateral and multilateral partners in the delivery of UNOPS mandate in project management, infrastructure management, and procurement management

Sustainable Development Cluster (SDC) supports diverse partners with their peacebuilding, humanitarian and development operations. It was formed by combining the following portfolios: Grants Management Services (GMS), UN Technology Support Services (UNTSS), Development and Special Initiatives Portfolio (DSIP) It provides Services to partners' programmes that are designed, structured, and managed with a global perspective and primarily serving partners that are headquartered in New York.  The SDC has a footprint of approximately 125 countries.