Technical Analyst - Environmental [Biodiversity and Spatial Planning Analyst]

Job Description

Background Information - Job-specific

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.

Functional Responsibilities

UNOPS is seeking the support of a Biodiversity and Spatial Planning Analyst to provide support on engaging with governments and key international stakeholders on biodiversity, climate, and development-related policies.

The Biodiversity and Spatial Planning Analyst will focus advancing the Global Programme on Nature for Development’s initiatives to support governments and stakeholders 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 ten 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).

The incumbent will report to the Senior Technical Manager, Global Programme on Nature for Development.

Duties and responsibilities include:

Project coordination and implementation

• Support the project team with implementation of the project Mapping Nature for People and Planet within the pilot countries.
• Support coordination of meetings with core team and external partners, include taking minutes and keeping track of invitations.
• Support communication with key partners including Impact Observatory, UN Environment Programme, UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and the CBD Secretariat.
• Provide support to the project team to design subnational Mapping Nature for People and Planet processes in selected countries.
• Develop knowledge management strategies for the project, including default communication tools, file sharing platforms, and collaborative editing tools.
• Support the drafting of quarterly and annual project reports, in consultation with other team members.
• Support the coordination of Online UN Volunteers, including keeping track of deadlines, sending out relevant content and documentation, and managing the Online UN Volunteer Platform.

Technical tools

• Support the development of templates of essential documents to scale up the project to the next phase.
• Support the launch of UN Biodiversity Lab v. 02, including writing relevant content, support the engagement with partners and coordinate with the web designer.
• Provide support in maximizing the use of existing online tools to support virtual capacity building and communities of practice, such as the NBSAP Forum and Learning for Nature;

Capacity building

• Support the exchange across pilot, including the organization of a webinar series and written documentation on best practices.
• Provide support upon request to organize workshops and meetings to enhance the learning process and capture lessons learned.
• Support the development of a strategy to engage indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) in using spatial data, including tailor spatial data training for IPLCs on UN Biodiversity Lab, collect relevant datasets and support running customized analyses.

Communications and knowledge sharing

• Support the preparation and publication of a technical peer-reviewed publication on the methods to map Essential Life Support Areas
• Support the preparation of promotional content for the new UN Biodiversity Lab platform, including press release, social media campaign, and other relevant content.
• Support the development of communications materials synthesizing lesson learned and best practices and knowledge.
• Support pilot countries to develop presentations, blogs, podcasts, and case studies on the national and global impacts of the project.

Education/Experience/Language requirements

* FEMALE CANDIDATES ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO APPLY*
* CANDIDATES WITH NO UNITED NATIONS OR UNOPS EXPERIENCE ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO APPLY*

Education

• Bachelor’s degree preferably in environmental management, social/political sciences, international relations, political economy, development studies, geography or other related expertise areas is required;
• Advanced University degree in related field can be accepted in lieu of 2 years of working experience.

Work Experience

• A minimum of 3 year of working experience on at least one of the following topics at a conceptual or practical level is required: international environmental policy, natural resource management, biodiversity/climate change; human/civil/indigenous/women’s rights; social entrepreneurship/impact investing; local economic development; civil society engagement and education;
• Proven experience using spatial data for policy guidance or research is required;
• Proven experience in project monitoring and evaluation is required

Desired:

• Experience conducting virtual capacity-building activities is an advantage;
• Experience in procurement and/or grant writing is an advantage
• Working or internship experience in developing promotional content, including press release, social media campaign, blog articles and visual content, is an advantage;
• Experience working within the UN system, 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.
• Knowledge of additional languages is an advantage.

Contract type, level and duration

Contract type: International Individual Contractual Agreement (IICA)
Contract level: IICA-1/ICSC-8
Contract duration: Open-ended, subject to organizational requirements, availability of funds and satisfactory performance.

For more details about the ICA contractual modality, please follow this link:
https://www.unops.org/english/Opportunities/job-opportunities/what-we-offer/Pages/Individual-Contractor-Agreements.aspx

About the Organization

Background Information - UNOPS

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

Sustainable Development Cluster (SDC)

Based in New York, the Sustainable Development Cluster (SDC) supports diverse partners with their peacebuilding, humanitarian and development operations.

The SDC’s services include grants management, development and special initiatives support, and technology support to the UN and UN agencies.

The SDC is part of the New York Service Cluster that supports the United Nations Secretariat, as well as a broadening community of 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.