M&E Climate Specialist

Details

Mission and objectives

UNEP’s mission is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. UNEP works on delivering transformational change for people and nature by drilling down on the root causes of the three planetary crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste. UNEP employs seven interlinked subprograms for action: Climate Action, Chemicals and Pollutions Action, Nature Action, Science Policy, Environmental Governance, Finance and Economic Transformations and Digital Trans-formations. Three interconnected crises ‒ climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution ‒ are putting global economic and social well-being at risk. They undermine opportunities to reduce poverty and improve lives, and they complicate the response to the COVID-19 crisis. The Medium-Term Strategy (MTS) is UNEP’s vision for reversing that trajectory. The MTS articulates UNEP’s role in delivering the promises of the 2030 Agenda, as well as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) and its outcome document, “The Future We Want.” The strategy outlines how UNEP will strengthen the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda during the period 2022‒2025, supporting countries to deliver on their environmental commitments under international agreements. UNEP will step into this period by driving transformative, multi-stakeholder actions that target the causes of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Recognizing the complexity and interconnectedness of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, the MTS employs seven interlinked subprograms for action: Climate Action, Chemicals and Pollutions Action, Nature Action, Science Policy, Environmental Governance, Finance and Economic Transformations and Digital Transformations.

Context

Somalia is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world and as such presents unique challenges in terms of natural resource management. As a result of more than 25 years of civil unrest, Somalia’s governance structures have fallen apart, and militias control different parts of the country. In addition, the regions of Somaliland and Puntland have unilaterally declared autonomy. Land degradation is a key environmental issue in Somalia, closely linked to desertification, drought and unsustainable livestock and agricultural practices. Food insecurity and livelihoods, possible hazardous waste, lack of marine and coastal management, and the mitigation and management of natural disasters are other environmental concerns. Somalia is highly susceptible to the effects of climate change and extreme weather. Without anticipatory preventive approaches, these factors are likely to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and reduce the people’s livelihood options, which in turn may have negative impacts for stability and security in Somalia. More frequent and intense droughts and floods undermine food security and worsen livelihood conditions in Somalia, adversely affecting marginalized groups, fuelling grievances, increasing competition over scarce resources and exacerbating existing community tensions and vulnerabilities. Currently there are several projects being undertaken by the UN including: PROSCAL, looking at alternative approaches to Charcoal, rewilding and nursery systems, the export of Charcoal and behaviour change work; Flooding and drought management approaches on the Shabelle and Juba rivers with FAO and UNEP, where we are modelling out nature based solutions; Climate displacement projects with IOM/UNEP and finally; The Environmental Mediation approach. All these coupled with the Environmental Task Force the National Drought and flooding task force and other coordination systems, means there is a lot of need in the area of monitoring and analysing the approaches and impact in Somalia.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of Climate Security and Environmental Advisor to the UN in Somalia, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks: 1) Review current Portfolio and do evaluations on current and existing projects and mechanisms and come up with a clear picture of the impact the current approach is taking. 2) Work with data collection teams to ensure the latest data is available and updated and have updated fact sheets on the climate risks and how these are all fitting in with the Cooperation Framework, the Risk Register for the mission and ensure presentations and data sheets are up to date and useful. 3) Be part of the growing team, contribute to weekly meetings. Take on some of the research programs currently in the pipeline and formulate plans of action for the teams where there are gaps ascertained by the preliminary activity.