Social and Environmental Standards Technical Specialist - Africa Region (Home-Based) IPSA-11

Background

Office/Unit/Project Description 

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. 

UNDP’s Social and Environmental Standards (SES) (www.undp.org/ses) underpin the sustainable development results that UNDP supports. While UNDP’s SES provides a robust safeguards framework for the organization, sustained investment in Country Office capacities for integrating SES into the project and programme design and implementation is critical. UNDP has put a global SES Implementation Plan supported by regional and country office plans managed by the Regional Bureau. 

The SES are an integral component of UNDP’s quality assurance and risk management approach to programming. To this end, UNDP has a global SES Team that is hosted by the BPPS and involves global and regional SES technical advisors matrixed to the Regional Bureaux or relevant GPN Teams. The SES Team provides advisory and oversight services to UNDP programming, aiming to fuel integration of SES into project design and guiding social and environmental risk assessment and management in compliance with the SES policy.

The Regional Bureau for Africa delivers a full range of policy, programme, and operations support to 24 Country Offices (COs) in the Africa region and provides support and oversight to a large regional portfolio  of  projects financed  by  a variety  of  donors, including  the  Global Environment  Facility,  Green Climate Fund, and other donors.

The Social and Environmental Standards Specialist (SES Specialist) will support UNDP Country Offices in the Africa region. This includes capacity building support to help Country Office teams better provide first line quality assurance and oversight of SES implementation across their portfolios, as well as second layer oversight for priority projects. The incumbent will be matrixed to the BPPS SES Team and RBA. 

Scope of Work      

The incumbent will work across the following areas with a focus on UNDP’s programming in the Africa region:

Provision of SES Oversight and Advisory Support

• CO SES Implementation Plans: Support programmatic and strategic consideration of SES, including roles, responsibilities and capacities, at the Country Office level.
• Screening: Advisory support in the application of Social and Environmental Screening Procedures (SESP) in UNDP interventions, including quality assurance/clearance of SESPs for priority projects .
• Impact/Risk Assessments: Guide the preparation of Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA), Strategic Environmental and Social Assessments (SESA), and targeted assessments, providing additional quality assurance support for priority projects.
• SES Risk Management: Provide second-layer oversight of Environmental and Social Management Frameworks (ESMF), Environmental and Social Management Plans (ESMP), and issue-specific plans and frameworks.
• Disclosure and Consultations: Provide advice on effective disclosure and consultation processes with potentially affected stakeholders.
• SECU Cases: Provide SES advisory support in cases being reviewed or inves