Environmental Finance Specialist for African Region (Home-based)

Background

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels offers a spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in its Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in UNDP’s Strategic Plan. 

Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages; represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora, including public-private, government and civil society dialogues; and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. 

BPPS’s Hubs on Nature, Climate, Energy and Waste, with the support of the Vertical Fund Programme Support Oversight and Compliance Unit, works with governments, civil society, and private sector partners to integrate nature, climate, energy and waste related concerns into national and sector planning and inclusive growth policies, support country obligations under Multilateral Environmental Agreements, and oversee the implementation of the UN’s largest portfolio of in-country programming nature, climate change, energy and waste. This multi-billion-dollar portfolio encompasses: 

• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services including forests;. 
• Sustainable Land Management and Desertification including food and commodity systems; 
• Water and Ocean Governance including SIDS; 
• Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation;
• Sustainable Energy; 
• Extractive Industries; 
• Chemicals and Waste Management;
• Environmental Governance and Green/Circular Economy, and SCP approaches. 

This work advances crosscutting themes on innovative finance, digital transformation, capacity development, human rights, gender equality, health, technology, and South-South learning. 

In recent decades, biodiversity finance tools and solutions have demonstrated their importance for achieving biodiversity goals and broader sustainable development objectives. Improved choice, design and implementation of effective, well-tailored finance solutions will strengthen countries’ chances of achieving national and global biodiversity targets. Biodiversity Finance Plans have become increasingly recognised as a relevant tool to help countries to identify and fill the biodiversity finance gap, including through the work of the Biodiversity Finance Initiative www.biofin.org. In December 2022, parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Montreal-Kunming Global Biodiversity Framework. This included numerous targets with relevance for financing. Target 19b on resource mobilisation includes reference for countries to design and implement national biodiversity finance plans. 

The Global Programme on National Biodiversity Finance Plans created a global programme to support countries to design a national Biodiversity Finance Plan. A Biodiversity Finance Plan includes a systems analysis of a country's economy including to map existing financing mechanisms, subsidies with potential harmful impacts on nature, drivers of biodiversity loss and gain, public and private expenditures committed towards biodiversity objectives and a country's national financial needs for biodiversity. The biodiversity finance plan itself consists of a series of actions with the aim to significantly scale up available funding, green or phase out harmful finance flows and improve the effectiveness of available expenditures. The programme allows for active sharing of experiences across countries and includes a knowledge sharing platform and the provision of continuous technical support to country teams.

UNDP is seeking two Environmental Finance Specialists to provide technical services and support to countries in the Africa region that are designing or implementing their national biodiversity finance plans. 

UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across units, functions, teams, and projects in multidisciplinary teams in order to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.
 

Duties and Responsibilities

Ensure Design of National Biodiversity Finance Plans

• Support the development of Terms of Reference, workplans, and reports by national teams; 
• Provide technical support and undertake reviews and impact monitoring of BIOFIN methodological outputs and processes, such as: workplans, bi-annual reports, and inception reports;
• Policy and Institutional Reviews – including an assessment of the existing landscape of financing mechanisms, drivers of biodiversity loss, and gain;
• Biodiversity Expenditure Reviews – in-depth assessment of major government programmes to define their biodiversity relevance;
• Financial Needs Assessments – a costing of the main national biodiversity targets from the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans/Global Biodiversity Framework (NBSAP/GBF); 
• Guide countries on the use of the Catalogue of Financing Solutions and the E-learning module on biodiversity finance; 
• Biodiversity Finance Plans – an action agenda with priority financing solutions to bridge the financing gap of the country. Support national teams and government counterparts in identifying, developing and implementing the right mix of finance solutions, tailored to the country context;
• Travel to countries as needed to support the design of national Biodiversity Finance Plans, ensuring a strong coalition of actors and jointly working on this endeavour with a lead role for the Ministry of Finance;
• Advise on linkages with related initiatives such as Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFF), The Insurance & Risk Finance Facility (IRFF), Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), the Nature Facility, Global Fund for Coral Reefs, the UNDP Sustainable Finance Hub, United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP-FI), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and development banks; 
• Develop tailored guidance materials or other knowledge products on selected finance solutions and provide inputs into project proposals for resource mobilisation as required. 

Ensure implementation of finance solutions

• Guide to identify opportunities for the early implementation of finance solutions emerging from the Policy and Institutional Review (PIR), the Budget and Expenditure Review (BER), and the Financial Needs Assessment (FNA), or emerging needs and opportunities (e.g. natural disasters, new major government programmes, new fiscal policies); 
• Advise and support the design and review of finance solution proposals developed by national teams following the Finance Solution Proposal template;
• Provide feedback for the development of terms of reference, country workplans, bi-annual reports, inception reports, final reports, and other relevant documents; 
• Provide feedback on technical documents related to finance solutions, such as feasibility studies, concept notes, policies, laws, regulations, by-laws, organisational charts/HR Plans, resource mobilisation plans, enforcement strategies, economic valuations, advocacy plans, or any other technical reports that are required;
• Travel to countries as needed to support the design and implementation of finance solutions and engage with key stakeholders to develop opportunities of collaborations for finance solution implementation;
• Guide national Teams to relevant experts, knowledge platforms, tools and other guidance material related to the prioritised finance solutions/mechanisms; 
• Advise and support national teams to identify opportunities to promote gender equality and sustainable livelihoods when designing biodiversity finance solutions. 

Lead capacity development

• Engage in capacity assessments and capacity development of national stakeholders as required, helping to build up a large pool of experts in each country that possess the basic skills to implement UNDP Nature Hub biodiversity finance tools;
• Strengthen the capacity of a wider group of national stakeholders on prioritised finance solutions to beginner/intermediate level (as relevant), and support the process of institutionalisation with national training institutes and universities;
• Support and provide inputs to global, regional, and national technical workshops, regional conference calls, technical webinars, and website discussions as requested by the global Nature Hub biodiversity finance team.

Facilitate knowledge management

• Enable countries to share experiences through virtual and on site discussions;
• Lead the development of knowledge materials of thematic priorities;  
• Write up articles, case studies, and other materials emerging from the national process, summarizing key experiences and lessons from core countries, including delivering at least one case study or scientific article per year on finance solution implementation in a core country;
• Support the continuous improvement of the BFP methodology. Develop guidance documents and training materials to enhance the BIOFIN methodological toolkit and implementation packages;
• Deliver high quality inputs for bi-annual donor reports on progress and impact in country projects within given deadlines, and provide other inputs as required for briefing notes, case studies, knowledge management products, press releases, and other media products develop by the global BIOFIN Team.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

• The Environmental Finance Specialists for the Africa Region will work from his/her home base within the African region or a nearby timezone.
• The Environmental Finance Specialists for the Africa Region will work under the supervision of the BIOFIN Regional Advisor for Africa. The Environmental Finance Specialists for the Africa Region will work with the global BIOFIN Team, national Teams, UNDP Country Offices, core and donor country governments, other international/multilateral organizations, and contractors.
• Given the IPSA assignment to be undertaken during this assignment, the incumbents are expected to be reasonably flexible with their availability for such consultations taking into consideration different time zones where applicable. 
• The incumbents will be given access to relevant information necessary for execution of the tasks under these assignments.
• The incumbents will be responsible for providing their own working stations (i.e. laptop, internet, phone, scanner/printer, relevant software, etc.) and shall have access to a stable, secure, and reliable internet connection. 

Competencies

Core competencies:

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact.
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems.
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences.
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands.
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results.
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration.
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity.

Cross Functional and technical competencies:

• 2030 Agenda: Planet- Nature Climate and Energy     
  • Ecosystems and biodiversity: Biodiversity Finance. 
  • Environmental Governance: Global Environmental Governance.
• Business Direction and Strategy - System Thinking  
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system. 
• 2030 Agenda: Planet- Nature Climate and Energy     
  • Environmental Governance: Multilateral Environmental Agreements (e.g. CBD and UNCCD). 
  • Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Conservation and Sustainable use of biodiversity, land, forests and oceans
• Partnerships management- Relationship management       
  • Ability to engage with a wide range of public and private partners, build, sustain and/or strengthen working relations, trust and mutual understanding.
• Business Management- Project Management            
  • Ability to plan, organize, prioritize and control resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals.
• Business Management- Communication      
  • Ability to communicate in a clear, concise, and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience.
  • Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media, and other appropriate channels.
• Business Development- Knowledge Generation       
  • Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Public Finance, Private Finance, Economics, Environmental Economics, Public Administration, Financial Management, Natural/Environmental Sciences, Social Sciences with a specialization in Environmental Finance and Development, or other closely related field, or
• A first-level university degree (Bachelor’s degree) in the said fields, with two additional years of relevant experience will be taken into consideration in lieu of advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years (with Master’s degree) or 7 years (with Bachelor’s degree) of demonstrated experience in environmental related public or private sector finance, sustainable development/environmental finance, resource mobilisation, biodiversity conservation, natural resource management, or a related field is required.

Required skills:

• Prior experience in designing, reviewing and implementing conservation finance, environmental finance, sustainable finance is required;
• Experience in developing countries and with international organisations is required; 
• Expertise in planning and conducting workshops and technical trainings on environmental finance is required.

Desired skills:

• Prior work experience with governments, public policies, or financial regulations is desired;
• Experience with UN and/or UNDP policies, procedures, and practices particularly in relation to project development and implementation and/or working in an international organization is an advantage;
• Previous country experience in the Africa region is an advantage.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of any other UN language is an asset.

Travel:

• Approximately 5 international mission travels per year will be required to core countries and relevant methodological meetings.
• Any necessary missions must be approved in advance and in writing by the Project Manager, Global Programme on National Biodiversity Finance Plans. 
• The BSAFE course must be successfully completed prior to commencement of travel.
• The incumbents are responsible for ensuring their vaccinations/inoculations when travelling to certain countries, as designed by the UN Medical Director. 
• The incumbents are responsible for obtaining any visas needed in connection with travel with the necessary support from UNDP. 
• The incumbents are required to comply with the UN security directives under http://dss.un.org/dssweb/
• The incumbents will be responsible for making their own mission travel arrangements in line with UNDP travel policies.

Equal opportunity

As an equal opportunity employer, UNDP values diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate and, as such, we encourage qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply for roles in the organization. Our employment decisions are based on merit and suitability for the role, without discrimination. 

UNDP is also committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, are valued, can thrive, and benefit from career opportunities that are open to all.

Sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of authority

UNDP does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination and abuse of authority. All selected candidates, therefore, undergo relevant checks and are expected to adhere to the respective standards and principles. 

Right to select multiple candidates

UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement.  We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.

Scam alert

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