Partnerships Advisor (Climate Change & Environment Specialist) At UNOPS

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.

Background Information – Job-specific

The Water and Energy Cluster (WEC) supports the design and management of multi-stakeholder initiatives, and provides financial and grant management, procurement, human resources and project management services. Together with partners, the cluster executes projects in the areas of transboundary water management, integrated water resource management, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and environmental conservation supporting the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. UNOPS supports the Climate Agenda by promoting climate transparency, helping develop finance-ready mitigation and adaptation proposals and providing operational support to the largest Climate Financing partners such as the Green Climate Fund. Among others, UNOPS promotes international cooperation to prevent and reverse environmental degradation of international water systems. The team also implements integrated water resource management programmes in the Large Marine Ecosystems.

The consultant will report to the WEC Head of Programme against established milestones and performance benchmarks.

Functional Responsibilities

Given the relevance of climate change and green growth within the international cooperation context and the need to enhance implementation of national, regional and global climate agendas, WEC aims at scaling up its engagement and value proposition as an operational partner of choice for governments, international, regional and national organizations and the private sector on climate change mitigation and adaptation, green growth and environmental management. The assignment will deliver the following outputs:

• Generate a comprehensive review of partner service delivery and operational support needs in the area of climate change mitigation and adaptation support, green growth initiatives and the environment in general.
• Deliver an updated stakeholder map and strategy with a focus on operationalizing climate change adaptation, green growth and environmental management goals.
• Deliver an updated strategy with prioritized focus areas for business and partnership development in the area of climate change adaptation, green growth and environmental management to help partners augment their delivery capacity.

Under the overall direction and responsibility of the UNOPS WEC Head of Programme, the incumbent will also support the following:

Business Development and outreach:

• Propose actions that assist UNOPS to promote WEC’s unique value proposition to operationalize global, regional and national climate change mitigation and adaptation support, green growth initiatives.
• Identify and develop innovative financing mechanisms and corresponding management schemes, collaborations and resource mobilization opportunities to support the Paris Agreement, green growth strategies and 2030 Agenda;
• Contributing, as requested, to the development and implementation of partnership strategies;

Other general responsibilities:

• Ensure facilitation and promotion of knowledge building and knowledge sharing among colleagues;
• Perform other duties as directed by the supervisor to support WEC outreach;

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:

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) is required, preferably in environmental science or engineering, economics, project management, Business administration, international relations, development studies, social science, engineering or related fields .
• Relevant first university degree (bachelor’s or equivalent) with additional 2 years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of international work experience in business development, project development or project management in the field of climate change, green growth and environmental topics in general is required;
• Experience working on climate change, green growth and environmental topics is required;
• Excellent research, data analysis and drafting skills required;
• Strong negotiation skills required;
• Experience working with the UN system/UNOPS a distinct advantage;
• Experience developing and implementing climate related sustainable business strategies desired.
• Understanding of and familiarity with innovative financing and corresponding management approaches, pricing and costing models, will be considered an advantage;

Language:

• Fluency in oral and written English is required.

Certifications:

• Certification in PRINCE2 Foundation is desirable.

Additional Considerations

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization – UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns.
Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.