The consultant will be part of the Climate Change Unit of the UNEP Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. The main objective of the position is to provide technical advice and to ensure operational effectiveness during the planning and implementation urban adaptation portfolio of the Climate Change Unit of UNEP Office for Latin America and the Caribbean This involves implementing projects like CityAdapt and Nature4Cities, fortifying communities' adaptability and formulating key proposals for multilateral funds, such as the Adaptation Fund, thus ensuring sustainable urban development in the face of climate change impacts.
Specific tasks and responsibilities
The consultant will work on the three key outputs from the Nature4Cities project.
CityAdapt Project
- Participate in the day-to-day coordination of the project, ensuring the timely and successful delivery of all project deliverables.
- Develop progress reports to the donor on the scope of activities included in the project work plan.
- Provide inputs to the formulation of the ToRs and advice on the contract extension or recruitment of the members of the National team in Jamaica.
- Follow up on the cooperation agreements established with local partners for the implementation of project activities in the three cities, ensuring that they comply with the work plan and UNEP regulations. This includes drafting amendments and monitoring the administrative processes with both UNEP and the implementing partner’s teams.
- Advice the communication team in the updating and ongoing maintenance of the CityAdapt project web platform.
- Participate in the Terminal evaluation process of the CityAdapt project, ensuring all documents are provided to the external consultants and all required information on lessons learnt and challenges are shared with them.
Nature4Cities Project:
- Participate in the day-to-day coordination of the project, and ensure the timely and successful delivery of all project outputs.
- Monitor the recruitment and the contracts’ renewal of national coordinators and other local experts (at least one per country), depending on project requirements.
- Advise the knowledge management activities included in the work plan of the Communities of Practice, face-to-face workshops and learning exchanges inserted in the project implementation framework. This includes the development of cooperation agreements with technical partners to carry out certain activities, as established by the project document.
- Design and provide guidance to the development of the Massive Open Online Course to be developed under output 5.2.2 of the project. This includes technical revision of content and communication programming for the dissemination of the activity
- Prepare the request for disbursement of funds to the GCF Coordination Office.
- Attend to the needs of national consultants and provide technical advice when required.
- Draft required sections of annual project implementation report to the donor (narrative and budget).
- Prepare and monitoring the signing of agreements with implementing partners for project implementation.
Proposal to the Adaptation Fund
- Develop the different sections of the proposal in accordance with Adaptation Fund requirements, including climate rationale, logical framework, alignment with national priorities, etc.
- Coordinate consultations and lead virtual meetings with the national teams in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and with stakeholders, especially with the National Determined Authority (DNA) teams in each country and with the CityAdapt teams in El Salvador and Nature4Cities in Guatemala and Honduras, to ensure participatory approach, integration of lessons learned from both projects into the proposal and country ownership of the concept note.
- Structure project components, outputs and activities to ensure that they adequately address identified climate vulnerabilities and barriers, and lead to the achievement of expected results and transformational changes.
- Ensure integration of gender mainstreaming in project activities and social and environmental safeguards throughout the proposal. This may require providing inputs to the formulation of Terms of Reference for the recruitment of specialized experts.
- Prepare the different funding requests required to mobilize funding for the full project proposal development to the Adaptation Fund.
- Follow up on the submission of the concept note and integrate comments received from the fund, UNEP headquarters and national counterparts.
- Organize and participate in face-to-face consultations workshops with key stakeholders (previously identified) in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, to collect information and ensure alignment between project activities and local needs.
UNEP offices, Panama City, Panama
Expected duration3 Months
Duties and Responsibilities
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.
The UNEP Latin America and the Caribbean Office (LACO Office), located in Panama City, Panama works closely with the 33 countries of the region – including 16 small island developing States – with a population of about 588 million people. The office works to serve the needs of the region and its activities are integrated into the work programs approved by the United Nations Environment Assembly of UNEP (UNEA).
UNEP seeks to support countries in Latin America to implement the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the new Paris Agreement and the priority actions defined in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of Latin American countries.
To achieve this, UNEP is seeking a Nature based Solutions (NbS) Specialist to support the urban adaptation portfolio under the supervision and guidance of the UNEP Programme Management Officer for Adaptation of Climate Change Unit for Latin American and Caribbean Office. This consultant will work 40 hours per week at the UNEP LACO at Panama City,Panama.
The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region is the second most urbanized region in the world, with ~80% of the population living in cities. Within the next two decades, this proportion is projected to reach ~85%, thereby ranking the cities of the LAC region among the fastest-growing in the developing world. The rate of urban expansion is faster in small and medium-sized cities relative to mega cities. This rapid urbanization and the associated expansion of cities is degrading urban and peri-urban ecosystems – including wetlands, green spaces and forests – that provide a wide range of ecosystem services for urban communities.
To address the vulnerability of urban communities, governments in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region need to develop and implement cost-effective, low-risk solutions, such as Nature-based Solutions (NbS) by protecting, maintaining and rehabilitating priority ecosystems in urban areas.
As a result, UNEP is working with the governments of El Salvador, Jamaica and Mexico to implement the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project - CityAdapt Building Climate Resilience of Urban Systems through Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) in Latin America and the Caribbean, in the cities of San Salvador, Kingston and Xalapa. The objective of the project is to increase the adaptive capacity of urban communities by: i) incorporating urban ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) into medium- and long-term urban development planning; ii) implementing urban EbA interventions to foster climate resilient communities; and iii) gaining knowledge and raising awareness of urban EbA across the LAC region.
As a result, UNEP is also working with the governments of, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras Cuba, Panama, Guatemala and Uruguay to execute a two-years, Readiness project “Nature4Cities - Increasing resilience through Nature- based Solutions in Latin-American cities” funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The project is implemented in 7 countries (Cuba, Honduras, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Panama, and Uruguay) and a total of 13 cities within those countries.
Based on both projects, UNEP is currently collaborating with the governments of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala for the development of a regional project proposal on Ecosystem-based Adaptation in urban areas to be submitted to the Adaptation Fund (AF). The concept note for the proposal "Building Resilience of Urban Communities in Northern Central America" (tentative title) should be submitted to the AF Board in early 2023.
The services of a consultant are required to develop outputs related CityAdapt Project, Nature4Cities Project and Proposal to the Adaptation Fund.
ACADEMIC:
- Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, environment, economics, development, or a closely related field, is required.
- Master´s degree in a similar and closely related field is an asset.
PROFESSIONAL:
- Four (04) years of professional experience in climate change adaptation is required.
- Demonstrated knowledge of different approaches of climate change adaptation and development, including Ecosystem based Adaptation approach is required.
- Demonstrated experience in the design, formulation, and development of climate change adaptation project is desired.
- Experience in the design, preparation and formulation of adaptation to climate change projects funded by the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environment Facility, the Special Climate Change Fund, the Adaptation Fund, or other relevant funds for adaptation is an asset.
- Experience collaborating with governments in developing countries is an asset.
- Previous work experience in Latin America and the Caribbean is an asset.
- Work experience in an international organization is an asset.
LANGUAGE:
- Fluent level in Spanish is required.
- Fluent level of English is required.
THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.