Gender and Climate Finance Specialist

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

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.

UNDP works to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities through the sustainable development of nations, in more than 170 countries and territories. The Regional Bureau of Asia and Pacific (RBAP) has the responsibility to guide and support 24 Country Offices in achieving the above objectives. RBAP’s Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH) supports countries and UNDP Country Offices in the Asia-Pacific region on various development issues, including the governance of climate change finance. 

In Asia and the Pacific, UNDP is increasingly being requested to provide governance related services that support governments in articulating their response to climate change. These services include strengthening governments institutional and administrative frameworks to be able to deliver integrated climate finance policies and programming within a range of sectors; strengthening governments planning and budgeting processes and to ensuring more effective tracking of climate-relevant initiatives and accounting transparently for climate related services and mobilization and use of climate relevant finance; strengthening parliament’s and civil society’s roles in holding governments to account for their response to climate change and supporting local governments in integrating climate related services into their programming. 

In light of the gendered division of labour in key activities impacted by climate change and differentiated social norms and inequities related to income, land rights and access to credit, and political participation there is a growing recognition of the importance of ensuring that the needs, priorities, and interests of all people, including women, the poor, youth, and minorities and others who are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts are included and that  they participate and have a voice in shaping in the governance of climate change response across the stages of policy formulation, programme implementation and processes of accountability. 

To respond to the growing demands and imperatives, UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub (BRH) has established a multi-disciplinary team structure which involves close collaboration with UNDP’s Nature, Climate and Energy (NCE) in support of accelerated financing for nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and the Gender and other teams in support of gender responsive approaches to the SDGs and climate action. It is increasingly looking at innovative arrangements to have decentralized regional capacities in different parts of Asia-Pacific to deliver on the above. The SIDA-supported ‘Strengthening the Governance of Climate Finance to Enhance Gender Equality’ (GCCF, 2017-22) project, which will soon transition to the Climate Finance Network (CFN), aims  to collaboratively support countries to ensure not only increased financing and budgets to address climate change, but to do so in ways that are gender-responsive and socially inclusive. The project has a regional component covering the Asia-Pacific region, and a country component focusing on South-East and South Asia (currently, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand and three countries in the Pacific). The work of the CFN will be organized around 6 workstreams, one of which is gender and social inclusion, which apart from being an independent workstream will also inform the work of the other 5 workstreams, which are climate change aligned budgeting and planning, tax and innovative climate finance, transparency and accountability, direct access to international climate finance and modelling of climate impact on economic growth.  

The regional Gender and Climate Finance Specialist based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is responsible for providing regional advisory services for the GCCF/CFN in the Asia Pacific region and supporting the climate and gender portfolio in Bangladesh. The specialist is expected to spend 40% of his/her time with the Bangladesh country office as follows: i) leading the GCCF project in Bangladesh, particularly on gender and social inclusion aspects ii) providing advisory assistance to UNDP Bangladesh to strengthen the integration of gender and social inclusion in the design and implementation of the national climate change action plan and agenda. The remaining 60% of his/her time will go towards strengthening the Gender and Social Inclusion (GESI) component of the regional GCCF project in the above mentioned 7 targeted countries.

The Gender and Climate Finance Specialist will be a full member of the multidisciplinary regional SDG Finance Team, reporting to the Governance and Public Finance Management Specialist (Programme Manager of the GCCF Project) with a matrixed reporting line to the UNDP Bangladesh Deputy Resident Representative. He/she will also work closely with the Regional Gender Advisor and Gender Team at the Bangkok Regional Hub.

As part of the regional support function, the specialist will contribute to the Bangkok Regional Hub’s services on guidance development and advisory support on gender and social inclusion for climate action and   support the delivery of the GCCF programme as part of the overall BRH’s Regional Policy and Programme Support (RPPS) team’s Asia Regional Programme and RBAP Business Plan priorities alongside other relevant regional programs and BRH services. He / she will also represent the GCCF and other BRH teams and the Global Policy Network (GPN) in regional events and international meetings to share experience and advocate for the Governance of Climate Change Finance approaches developed within the UNDP BRH.

Summary of key functions:

1. Support national budget and related planning processes to increasingly formulate climate change related investments that are gender responsive and have positive impacts on poverty and human rights.
2. Support the strengthening of tracking and accountability for climate change related investments at national level to have positive impacts on gender equality, poverty and human rights and enhance resource mobilization.
3. Support regional institutions and networks to increasingly play an enhanced role in taking forward integrated approaches to gender-responsive climate change financing and budgeting to have positive impacts on poverty and human rights.
4. Support international policy processes to give increasing priority to strengthen domestic budget systems to enable delivery of gender responsive climate change investments that have positive impacts on poverty and human rights.
5. Support the UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Climate Finance Network (CFN) gender and social inclusion workstream. Support other teams across the UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub and the Global Policy Network in coordination with the Gender Team to ensure integrated and gender sensitive response across the UNDP services.
6. Support the Bangladesh UNDP country office to embed gender into the country’s climate responsive financing strategies and implementation, and pilot

1. Support the development of budget and related planning processes to increasingly formulate climate change related investments that are gender responsive and have positive impacts on poverty and human rights.

•  Support the strategic implementation of climate change responsive budgeting to target climate change finance in a gender responsive way at national and/or sub-national levels.
• Support the development of gender responsive climate change financing strategies (e.g. CCFF) in Asia and Pacific countries supported with technical assistance on gender and poverty dimensions, particularly with regard to providing guidance on how best to integrate budgeted gender-responsive activities into climate change programming in selected countries and make the programming more inclusive of the voice and participation of groups identified as vulnerable to climate change by national and/or sub-national climate change vulnerability assessments and/or poverty reduction strategies.
• Support the development and roll out of planning tools to integrate climate change and gender into project appraisals and budget submissions. 
• Technical support for the development and roll out of social protection policies that are gender responsive and adaptive.
• Support the integration of gender and social inclusion dimensions into tools and methodologies, such as Climate Public Expenditures and Institutional Review (CPEIR) V.2 and Climate Change Budget Integration Index (CCBII) for application in programme countries in Asia Pacific.

2. Support the strengthening of reporting and accountability for gender-responsive climate change related public investments to have positive impacts on poverty and human rights and enhance resource mobilization.

• Support the development and implementation of gender and climate responsive budget tagging/tracking/coding and the call for sex and socio-economic disaggregated data for budgeted projects to facilitate the reporting on gender responsive climate change budgeting and finance.
• Support the analysis and assessments from budget tracking and related processes as to whether climate change finance is having a gender responsive impact for key vulnerable and marginalized groups as per national and/or sub-national climate change vulnerability assessments and/or poverty reduction strategies.
• Support to gender-responsive b baseline development and assessments which track of the gender power dynamics and differential impacts, including promoting intra household gender analysis and use of Individual Deprivation Measure studies etc.
• Support /lead participatory action oriented types of research with the programme partners (e.g. CSOs, think tanks, research centres, academia, media etc.) to assess the differential impacts of climate change on men and women and to inform the design of national and sub-national financing mechanisms that are gender and climate responsive.

3. Support regional institutions and networks to increasingly play an enhanced role in promoting integrated approaches to gender-responsive climate change budgeting that have impacts on poverty and human rights.

• Serve as a liaison with selected regional platforms including for developing briefing papers/presentations to be delivered at these platforms (including ASEAN and PIFS).
• Support to regional events and dialogues and exchanges between countries to share climate responsive budgeting experiences.  This includes support to innovative South-South engagements and peer to peer support to strengthen climate finance in Asia and Pacific and contribute to the regional dialogues and communities of practice.
• Support the interlinkages between the two seemingly separate communities of practice, i.e., climate change responsive budgeting and gender responsive budgeting, to share knowledge and work together in a more integrated way. 

4. Support international policy processes to give increasing priority to strengthen domestic budget systems to deliver gender responsive climate change investments that have positive impacts on poverty and human rights.

• Strengthen the GCCF’s strategic contribution to related international and regional dialogues and communities of practice on gender responsive climate change finance, including platforms such as Commission on the Status of Women, UNFCCC Gender and Climate Change work programme etc.
• Support the provision of sex-disaggregated evidence and data on national climate public finance to shape and inform relevant international policy discourse (e.g. UNFCCC, Biennial Assessment Report (BA), GCF, SDGs etc.) in a gender responsive way.
• Contribute to ensuring that the GCCF/CFN programme’s approach in budgeting for gender responsive climate investments is well promoted where requested (e.g. Africa and Latin America).

5. Support the gender and social inclusion workstream and embed across other workstreams under the Climate Finance Network

• Support knowledge management on gender and social inclusion and the development of regional and country specific tools and guidelines for gender and climate change integration.
• Support the replication and acceleration of reforms on gender and social inclusion sensitive climate change planning and budgeting through south-south and peer to peer learning in the region.
• Provide technical support/advisory to the other CFN workstreams to ensure that their approach/planned activities are gender responsive and inclusive in nature.
• Contribute to ensuring that the reforms that CFN advocate for are not only climate change responsive only but include gender and social inclusion aspects.
• Provide advisory support on mainstreaming gender into the design of innovative climate finance instruments

6. Support Bangladesh country office

• Provide advisory support to the Bangladesh country office on inclusion of gender and social inclusion in the UNDP’s country strategy and implementation thereof.
• Support UNDP Bangladesh country office on strengthening gender and social inclusive development and budgeting, particularly with a climate change lens.
• Coordinate and support the implementation of the GCCF project activities in Bangladesh
• Liaise with other climate change finance projects including IBFCR, LOGIC to ensure integrated and cohesive approach towards gender sensitive climate change planning and budgeting
• Strengthen the contribution of Bangladesh GCCF in international and regional dialogues and communities of practice on gender responsive climate change finance, including platforms such as Commission on the Status of Women, UNFCCC Gender and Climate Change work programme and the Gender and Social workstream of the CFN.
• Support the collection and use of sex-disaggregated evidence and data to inform national programming for climate action and pilot the integration of gender and social inclusion dimensions into various tools and methodologies, such as Climate Public Expenditures and Institutional Review (CPEIR) V.2 and Climate Change Budget Integration Index (CCBII) and to inform national and relevant international policy discourses (e.g. UNFCCC, Biennial Assessment Report (BA), GCF, SDGs etc.) in a gender responsive way. Support the mainstreaming of gender-responsiveness and social inclusion in the formulation of financing solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals and joint programming in support of national integrated financing framework (INFFs) in this regard. 

Education:

• Master’s Degree in Economics, gender studies, social policy, public finance, development or related fields.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of experience in areas related to gender mainstreaming and public finance.
• At least 3 years of experience in providing advisory support to the government particularly the Ministries of Finance, Planning, Women development and Environment.
• Experience working on gender and/ or climate change responsive planning and budgeting, with a good understanding of developing countries context.
• Experience of working on innovative climate finance is an advantage.
• Strong knowledge of the gender and poverty linkages with climate change  (e.g. gender and poverty responsive approaches to climate change adaptation, mitigation, disaster management, natural resource management, and infrastructure programs and projects).
• Strong knowledge of social protection programs and poverty targeting schemes.
• Strong track-record of capacity development support for gender and social policy mainstreaming for governmental institutions such as finance and economic planning ministries at institutional and operational levels.
• Demonstrated track record of relevant experience and expertise (publications, reports, project proposals) is highly desirable.
• Experience in the Asia Pacific region is an advantage.
• Excellent analytical and writing skills.
• Excellent organizational and communication skills.
• Work experience in an international organization is an advantage.
• Extensive knowledge of UNDP’s policies, procedures and practice is an advantage.
• Ability to work as a part of a team, sharing information and coordinating efforts within the team.
• Full computer literacy in internet searching and Microsoft Office programmes i.e. MS-Word, MS-Excel and MS-Power Point. Website management experience is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English.

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