Global Technical Specialist -Climate Change Mitigation

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, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the 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 the 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's staff provides technical advice to Country Offices, advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government, and civil society dialogues, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP's Crisis Bureau (CB) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP's development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

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.

The newly established UNDP Climate Hub is the arrowhead of UNDP’s commitment to the “Climate Promise” that aims to support programming countries designing and implementing pledges under the Paris Agreement, including ambitious National Determined Contributions, with climate change mitigation and adaptation interventions fully embedded in the national development planning and budgetary processes. The Climate Hub will build on UNDP’s existing over USD 4 billion country-level climate portfolio on Climate Change Policies and Strategies, Climate Change Adaptation, Climate Change Mitigation (CCM), Climate and Forests, covering over 142 countries, as well as on UNDP’s Nature portfolio, UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub, UNDP’s Digital offer and other relevant portfolios on youth, gender, health, climate security, among others. 

The UNDP Climate Hub is responsible for: 

• Thought leadership on Climate and to be the custodian of UNDP policy positions on Climate; 
• Strategy and vision formulation; 
• Pipeline development in coordination with the other hubs and the Vertical Fund Programme Support, Oversight and Compliance Unit; 
• Provision of integrated policy and programme support to Country Offices; 
• Global engagement, advocacy in collaboration with Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA); 
• Integration across thematic areas; 
• Strategic Partnerships development and resource mobilization; 
• Lead and Support global flagship initiatives and partnerships on Climate; 
• Serve as focal point with relevant UN coordination mechanisms and Conventions (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change); 
• Cross-organization knowledge and learning; and 
• Innovation.

UNDP Rome Centre for Climate Action and Energy Transition (‘UNDP Rome Centre’ for short), acts as the principal, integrated global platform for the strategic partnership between the Government of Italy (through the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security – IMEES or Ministero dell'Ambiente e della Sicurezza Energetica - MASE in Italian) and UNDP for delivering on two critical policy areas: Youth and Climate, and Climate Finance. Via the Platform for Investment Support and Technical Assistance (PISTA) and the Energy for Growth programs it: Identify, finance, and implement country-level actions to reduce the energy access gap and boost the energy transition, while supporting projects in developing economies to decarbonize and enhance climate resilience.

The Global Technical Specialist (GTS) works under the overall leadership of the Principal Technical Advisor (PTA) for Climate Change Mitigation, based in UNDP HQ in New Yor