Background
Information UNOPS ECR Water and Energy Cluster (WEC)
UNOPS Water and Energy Cluster (WEC) supports the design
and management of multi-stakeholder initiatives by providing services in
financial and grant management, procurement, human resources, and project
management. The cluster has supported projects in the areas of water resource
management, climate change adaptation, mitigation and transparency, energy
access and distribution and environmental conservation under the Paris
Agreement. The WEC has also supported operations and financial management
services, in Vienna, the rest of the ECR region and beyond. The main partners
include UN agencies, bilateral agreements (with the Nordics, Germany, and
Italy), the Green Climate Fund and several NGOs (such as CIFF and CWF).
Background on
Green Climate Fund (GCF)
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has
established a funding programme, the Readiness and Preparatory Support
Programme and Project Preparation Facility (RPSP/PPF), to assist developing
countries in accessing funding from the GCF for their climate resilient and low
emission transformation, and to enhance ownership of the countries’ envisaged
low carbon trajectory. To meet this objective, the RPSP/PPF project aims to maximize the GCF’s effectiveness through empowering
developing countries in the following activities.
●
Engaging across
governments at various levels, and with civil society and private sector
stakeholders
●
Developing strategic
frameworks for engagement with the Fund
●
Support for
accreditation and accreditation direct access entities
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Formulation of
national adaptation plans and/or other adaptation planning processes
Due to capacity constraints, GCF
has selected UNOPS to provide grants management support on their behalf, to
Delivery Partners globally that wish to obtain support from the RPSP/PPF
programme. The Grant Management Services that UNOPS will be providing is
captured in the Project Agreement, signed by GCF and UNOPS have signed on 28
February 2018.
The Project Agreement outlines a
clear division of responsibilities between the GCF and UNOPS concerning the
management of Grant Management Services for the RPSP/PPF projects. GCF defines
and approves the scope of each grant including the budget, assesses the
Delivery Partners’ substantive and financial management capacity. UNOPS issues
the grant agreement, sets up the monitoring plan against agreed deliverables
and effects payments.
As of November 2019, UNOPS is
providing Grant Management Services to approximately 50 Readiness and PPF
projects globally. It is anticipated that the number of projects will double
before the completion of the project in January 2023.
As a separate
work stream, UNOPS is also providing) advisory services for Financial
Management Capacity Assessments (FMCA) of grant recipients to the GCF. These
services will be provided through a separate UNOPS Team.
To provide the Grant Management Services,
UNOPS has established a dedicated project team (GCF Project Team) within WEC
and based in Copenhagen A Project Manager and a Project Management Associate
has been recruited to manage the strategic and day-to-day work of the GCF
Project Team, working independently to ensure that the project with GCF is
implemented within the agreed scope, timelines and budget, and in line with the
UNOPS mandate, mission and vision. Considering the expected increase in a
number of projects that the GCF Project Team will be managing in 2020 onwards,
additional capacity in the form of a new Project Management Support Senior
Assistant is required.
Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Project Manager and
the supervision of the Project Management Associate, the PM Support Senior
Assistant is expected to provide support to GCF Grants management performing a
variety of standard administrative/Project management support processes,
ensuring high quality and accuracy of work.