Global Technical Specialist on NDCs, Green Economy, and Just Transition

Working in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, UNDP plays a critical role in helping countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of its key priorities for the next 10 years is to support countries to accelerate ambitious action on climate change.

Climate change is the single greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, threatening water and food security, health, livelihoods, and the safety of billions of people together with drastic negative impact on global ecosystem balance. UNDP’s ambitious “Climate Promise” supports over 120 countries to enhance their climate ambitions under the Paris Agreement, with focus on deeper emissions reduction and resilience building.

The second phase of the Climate Promise, launched in 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow and established with a portfolio approach, focuses on NDC implementation, climate advocacy, and long-term planning to ensure inclusive climate action at the speed and scale required to keep global temperature below 1.5°C. Achieving the carbon neutrality in the second half of the century by all countries is a crucial requirement set by the Paris Agreement to avoid the irreversible global climate change. Realization of this goal involves work on global, national, and local levels, as well as participation of all relevant stakeholders, including citizens, government, business, MDBs, international organizations, NSOs. The path to carbon neutrality should be just and leaving no one behind, while empowering women, youth, indigenous people, and vulnerable groups of the population.

UNDP is well positioned to enable such work through cooperation among HQ, Regional and Country Offices, forming an interconnected system of knowledge exchange and expertise to deliver cutting-edge climate policy advocacy, development support, and implementation actions. The Climate Promise portfolio has been established to support this work, which involves multiple donors and multiple contribution agreements across global, regional and national level support.  With initial funding over $USD 30m for this new phase, a complex system of technical support, oversight and management has been established to ensure all aspects of the portfolio are aligned and consistent with UNDP policy and procedures, as well as donor requirements.  The Climate Promise portfolio will continue to scale up to match the accelerated demand emerging from countries in their process to realize ambitious and just climate action.

• Define strategic vision and develop overall strategic approaches, frameworks, and integrated guidance to advise country/regional approaches on just transition and green economy efforts as part of NDC and LTS processes;
• Contribute to global policy discussions and strategic positioning of UNDP’s Climate Promise on the topic of just transition, and green economy as part of NDCs and LTS processes;
• Represent UNDP in regional and global events and other external engagement activities on NDCs, LTS and just transition/green economy, such as UNFCCC processes. This includes following relevant political and technical discussions, such as the Response Measures (under UNFCCC) or any just transition work programme; 
• Contribute to corporate messaging, briefing notes, talking points, communications campaigns and other products to inform senior management engagement and communication relevant to just transition and green economy as part of NDCs and LTS processes.

• Support or lead the development of various types of knowledge products (policy briefs, reports, blogs, lessons learned, guidance documents tools and methodologies, webinars etc.) that capture results, good practice, lessons and key messages on NDC enhancement and implementation as they relate to green recovery, green jobs, just transition, long-term strategies and NDC-green recovery finance, drawing from experience across UNDP’s NDC and climate-related portfolios;
• Organize internal and external facing webinars and peer to peer exchanges/communities of practice on NDCs, LTS, just transition, and green economy, in collaboration with UNDP and partners;
• Generate evidence, undertake research, and analyze various initiatives at country/regional level to identify trends and innovative approaches related to just transition and green economy as part of NDC and LTS processes to inform global intelligence and country programming
• Work with UNDP digital innovation team to digitalize data on just transition, green recovery, green jobs and long-term strategies, and oversee management of Climate Promise results tracker on these issues.

Coordination and Partnership

• Initiate and maintain internal collaboration with other UNDP initiatives within the Global Policy Network at the global and regional level to advance inter-disciplinary approaches on NDCs and LTS and encourage uptake and mainstreaming of good practices within UNDP on just transition, and green economy as part of NDC and LTS processes;
• Seek strategic partnerships with key organizations, partners and initiatives within and beyond the UN system, related to climate change, just transition, and green economy/recovery as they relate to NDC and LTS processes e.g. ILO, PAGE, NDC Partnership, IFIs, World Economic Forum, Katowice Committee of Experts on the Impact of Implementation of Response Measures, and the Coalition of Finance Ministers on Climate Action; 
• Support countries in identifying synergies and alignments between the NDC priorities and UNDP projects in order to better leverage UNDP’s broader portfolio to achieve NDC targets, with focus on just transition and green economy;
• Contribute to team efforts to Identify and mobilize funding opportunities, sources, and partnerships on just transition and green economy, as they relate to NDCs and LTS, including designing and facilitating joint support to countries with external partners;
• Participate in interagency taskforce or working group meetings related to just transition and green economy as they relate to NDC and LTS process (e.g., technical working group of Climate Action for Jobs Initiative, etc.

Integrated country programming and policy support

• Provide technical advisory and project development and management support for Climate Promise-related programming on the application of just transition and green economy tools and approaches to NDC/LTS processes, including the use of macroeconomic models to inform evidence-based climate policy making;
• Facilitate technical advisory to county offices, developing and sharing knowledge, and engaging externally and internally for a joint and integrated support on just transition and green economy as part of NDCs and LTS processes;
• Oversee the workplans of identified Climate Promise Programme countries, ensuring the projects are being implemented in a timely manner including quality assurance/quality control of country workplans and selected outputs;
• Support countries with the design, consultation, financing and delivery of NDC enhancement and implementation work, with focus on efforts to advance a just transition towards a green economy;
• Review and provide technical guidance/oversight for quarterly and annual reports from targeted Programme countries;
• Provide programme coordination, management and oversight to a pilot initiative, “Building the Economy of Tomorrow:  Using NDCs to Inform Green Recovery,”;
• Support countries to access relevant technical support on just transition and green economy in the context of their NDC and LTS processes and activities, including through identifying and coordinating joint technical support to Climate Promise countries from other teams within UNDP or from other external partners.

Stategic Planning, portfolio management, programming, and reporting support to Global Climate Promise initiative.

• Support the development of and expansion of the Climate Promise into new workstreams, as they relate to NDC enhancement and implementation, including thematic work on just transition and green economy, as well as long-term strategies support;
• Identify common risks, capacity needs, challenges across the Climate Promise portfolio globally and advise on the development of strategies to address them;
• Monitor and track relevant country/regional level activities taking place under the Climate Promise and contribute to reporting and evaluation exercise;
• Prepare briefing notes, talking points, presentations and other inputs to corporate materials on UNDP’s climate work and support for NDC enhancement and implementation.

• Master’s degree in climate change policy, environment and development, environmental economics, business, or related disciplines

• A minimum of five years of progressively responsible work experience in sustainable development and/or climate change policy analysis, project formulation and management, knowledge management, coordination, and partnership building; (required)
• Experience delivering technical support to countries on NDC formulation and implementation processes, particularly on green recovery, green economy, green jobs, and just transition; (required)
• Demonstrated experience developing global level knowledge products (guidance note, policy briefs, flagship publication, blog, dashboard etc) in the area of green recovery, green jobs, and just transition; (required)
• Demonstrated experience developing and delivering global and regional knowledge sharing and capacity building webinars and sessions on green recovery, just transition and green jobs; (required);
• Demonstrated experience working with key partners on just transition and green economy specifically around NDCs, such as the ILO, PAGE, UNFCCC, World Bank, NDC Partnership, or other relevant actors; (desired);
• Experience working in the field of gender and human rights as they relate to sustainable development and just transition is an asset (desired);
• Demonstrated understanding of and working experience with the Katowice Committee of Experts on the Impact of Implementation of Response Measures (KCI); (desired)
• Experience working at UN or UNDP country/regional office(s), supporting national development planning process and managing interagency projects is an asset; (desired)
• Demonstrated experience coordinating and facilitating macroeconomic modelling exercises to inform national climate policy making (desired);
• Good knowledge of UNDP’s Climate Promise initiative and broader portfolio of climate action including climate finance tracking and public finance planning tools and how they can be leveraged to support green recovery efforts; (desired)
• Experience managing and visualizing complex data using UNDP’s global data infrastructure (UNDP Data Futures Platform and UNDP Climate Promise Dashboard); (desired)
• Fluency in English (Required)