Resilience and Green Transition Consultant – IPSA 10

Background

Office/Unit/Project Description

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) works in about 170 countries and territories, helping to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, and build resilience so countries can sustain progress. As the UN’s development agency, UNDP plays a critical role in helping countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

The UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) for Global Knowledge Exchange through Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Partnerships is one of UNDP’s five Global Policy Centres and constitutes an integral part of UNDP’s Global Policy Network (GPN). USPC represents UNDP in Korea, works with Korea on international issues, and shares Korea’s development experiences with other countries. Through ‘SDG Partnerships,’ USPC acts as a facilitator of global knowledge exchange on innovative and tested-and-proven policy solutions in three thematic areas:

1. Governance, specifically (i) transparency & accountability, and (ii) sexual & gender-based violence;
2. Resilience, specifically sustainable forestry; and
3. Development cooperation, specifically (i) capacity for addressing the challenges of development cooperation, and (ii) engagement of non-state development actors.

SDG Partnerships create and deepen a triangular cooperation among Korea, UNDP (USPC together with UNDP’s relevant global/regional teams), and partner countries (consisting of UNDP country offices and their partner Government institutions). They package Korea’s experience and knowledge, facilitate dynamic exchange of lessons learned & peer-to-peer mentoring, and support the national adaptation of the tools at the country level, by channeling seed funding and technical support to the partner countries through existing project facilities of UNDP country offices.

For the period of 2022-2023, from the resilience portfolio, USPC has a specific focus area for sharing Korea’s experiences & lessons learned with developing countries on sustainable forestry in context of SDG implementation. The portfolio will also be exploring green transition topics with a focus on the ROK’s Green New Deal and the development of applicable lessons for other countries.

Under the overall supervision of the Centre’s Director and in close partnership with other members of the USPC team and the GPN network, the Consultant will support the above aspects of the Centre’s work covering the resilience portfolio within the global development agenda. The Consultant is expected to lead the resilience portfolio, manage the SDG Partnerships on Sustainable Forestry and supervise resilience team members.

Institutional Arrangement

The consultant will be working directly under the supervision of the Centre’s Director.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

Provide technical, administrative and logistical support to implement SDG Partnership activities

• Monitor and support implementation activities in ongoing SDG Partnerships on Sustainable Forestry in Mongolia, Indonesia and the Philippines including substantive content preparation for webinars, capacity building activities, knowledge products and follow up with government counterparts

Policy Research and Development

• Lead the conduct of research and development to contribute to the Centre’s policy and research agenda, including the resilience portfolio’s research on green transition and the ROK’s Green New Deal; Work in close partnership/consultation with the GND Consultant on the latter.
• Oversee consultancy on identifying lessons learned from the Korean green transition in collaboration with the development cooperation team by supervising the consultant, providing substantive feedback and editing support for related knowledge products;
• Coordinate and conduct analysis of data, case evidence and research findings to distill relevant lessons from projects and programmes to inform policy formulation and guidance;
• Support the quality assurance of policy services and foster policy innovation in the specific thematic area by reviewing lessons learned and evaluations to enhance programme delivery;

Policy Positioning and Representation

• In close collaboration with UNDP’s Nature, Climate and Energy (NCE) Team, represent UNDP, as appropriate, in key green recovery, environment, and sustainable development fora, including on technical and expert bodies, including the upcoming World Forestry Congress organized by the Korea Forest Service;
• Coordinate and draft briefing notes and speeches;
• Advocate the importance of the thematic area in various fora, including academia and civil society;
• Develop and strengthen relations with relevant policymakers and researchers, donors, regional and sub-regional organizations, including with UNEP and sister UN agencies working on issues of inclusive growth, green transition, green recovery and sustainable forestry
• Maintain and strengthen ongoing partnerships with local partners, such as, Korea University, the Global Green Growth Institute, Korea Environment Corporation, Ministry of Environment, Korea Energy Agency and Korea Forest Service and National Institute of Forest Science

Partnerships, Resource Mobilization and Strategic Planning

• Support the Centre Director to engage with global and local partners
• Conduct outreach and communications activities on relevant Centre services in support of achieving UNDP Strategic Plan Outcomes in close collaboration with BPPS and BERA;
• Provide substantive and content input to contribute to mobilizing, fostering and strengthening strategic partnerships with UN entities and other relevant bodies and provide inputs to those partnerships in support of UNDP initiatives;
• Coordinate team contributions and support to corporate activities to help influence/advance policy dialogue in the thematic area in collaboration with GPN including policy teams in Global Policy Centres, at HQ and in Regional Hubs;
• Coordinate and perform knowledge extraction, analysis, documentation, codification of results/lessons learned in the specific thematic area to help ensure internal synergies and inform the broader policy work of BPPS, and verify that knowledge sharing and content management is in line with guidelines and performed using corporate tools; and
• Support the formulation of USPC’s next three-year programme, and the development of revised focus areas for research and project implementation.

Competencies

Required Skills

• Substantive experience in project management, events organization and/or knowledge management is required.
• Prior work experience with international organizations required.
• Demonstrated capacity to write clear and well-constructed reports and knowledge products is required.
• Experience in the usage of computers, office software packages, video conferencing platform (including Zoom), and social media is required.

Desired Skills in addition to the Competencies Covered in the Competencies Section

• Familiarity with green recovery/transition, sustainable forestry and development cooperation is a strong asset.
• Experience with publications on topics such as sustainable development, green growth, climate, environment, and energy is a strong asset.
• Working knowledge of other UN languages would be an asset.

Required Language(s): Excellent command of written and oral English is required.

Professional Certificates: N/A

Cross-Functional & Technical Competencies

– Business Direction & Strategy

• Strategic Thinking: Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDP’s objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, potential risks and opportunities; linking the vision to reality on the ground, and creating tangible solutions. Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP
• System Thinking: Ability to useobjective 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

– Business Development

• Knowledge Generation: Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant for content, or responsive to a stated need
• UNDP Representation: Ability to represent UNDP and productively share UNDP knowledge and activities; advocate for UNDP, its values, mission and work with various constituencies

– Business Management

• Results-based Management: Ability to manage programmes and projects with a focus at improved performance and demonstrable results
• Portfolio Management: Ability to select, prioritise and control the organi]ation’s programmes and projects, in line with its strategic objectives and capacity; ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives and the maintenance of business-as-usual, while optimising return on investment
• Customer Satisfaction/Client Management: Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfil and understand the real customers’ needs. Provide inputs to the deYelopment of customer service strategy. Look for ways to add value beyond clients’ immediate requests. Ability to anticipate client’s upcoming needs and concerns.

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Education Requirements: At least a Master’s degree or equivalent experience in environmental policy, environmental law, economics, natural resource management, sustainable development, rural development, climate-change policies and/or other relevant field.

Min. Years of Relevant Work Experience: At least 5 years of professional work experience providing policy advice and programme support in the general area of sustainable development, climate change and green growth in different development contexts.