Programme Specialist - Climate Change/Retainer

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

The UNOPS Hub in Amman implements projects in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria,Yemen, , in partnership with bilateral donors, national governments, and other UN agencies.  With an established presence across the region, the office runs operations including large-scale procurement, project development, and technical management, and provides financial, human resources, and infrastructure-related services. The functional objective of UNOPS Hub in Amman is to deliver its projects in an efficient and effective manner and in line with the principles, rules and regulations of UNOPS, in order to support the response to the current needs and national priorities in the region. 

Within the UNOPS mandate, we provide solutions for mitigation of Climate Change impacts, as well as adaptation of communities and resources. UNOPS supports partners to implement climate action and address key national objectives, including their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement and other International and National platforms. As stated in the UNOPS Strategic Plan 2022-2025, “we seek to forge partnerships, contributing our technical expertise towards sustainable development, development financing, disaster risk reduction and resilience, and combating climate change.” UNOPS helps achieve mitigation goals by delivering green, energy efficient and resilient infrastructure to reduce their impacts on the climate. UNOPS also provides a range of infrastructure conditions and performance assessments in using climate resilient design, construction, and operation and maintenance planning to ensure long-term resilience.

The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.

UNOPS is committed to achieving a fully diverse workforce.

• Provides strategic direction, expert advisory and oversight in planning, budgeting, implementation and monitoring, tracking of financial resources, for the Amman Hub Programme all in accordance with UNOPS rules and regulations.

Project management:

• Provides leadership to the projects’ teams in the coherent implementation and delivery of climate change components identified in the projects, including gender dimensions of climate change, to attain results and in line with UNOPS policies and the Amman Hub targets.

• Supporting project teams on risk assessment as well as effective mitigation measures for identified climate change risks.

• Enhancing climate change mainstreaming in Environmental and Social Safeguard tools.

• Leads in the analysis of climate data and compilation of results, monitoring and evaluation during the implementation of the different projects in line with the projects M&E framework and indicator targets. S/He will also be responsible for periodic reporting on projects’ progress and impact to the Programme team and Amman Hub management.

Operations Support:

• Provide guidance and mentoring in support of building climate actions knowledge, skills, and competencies at the Hub and countries’ level.

• Be responsive to ad hoc requests for technical guidance on issues related to resilience and climate change in relation to the SDGs, as needed.

• Contribute to the design and implementation of pilot initiatives around the issue of climate action and its application within the development and systems management contexts.

• Assist in climate change wide activities with operational support, presenting technical solutions and innovative ideas including gender aspects of climate change.

Strategic partnerships and networking:

• Actively maps and engages in identifying areas of cooperation and building strategic partnerships with key stakeholders including national and sub-national governments, civil society, development partners and UN agencies in line with the Climate Change objectives.

• Contribute to the development and piloting of frameworks, tools, and methodologies for climate actions.

Policy research, Advocacy and Communication:

• Provides exceptional policy advice and advocacy services to the Amman Hub management by identifying and synthesising best practice and project data for high impact advocacy engagement including national policy dialogues and others.

• Contributes to the development of awareness material including case studies that promotes UNOPS experience and knowledge in climate action across Amman Hub.

• Prepare and/or contribute to reports and other communication including Newsletters and Bulletins to promote the Hub’s achievements.

•  Master’s Degree in Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Science, Natural Resources Management or related fields is required. 
• A combination of Bachelor’s degree with an additional 2 years of relevant work experience may be accepted in lieu of a Master’s degree.

• Minimum 5 years of relevant experience in managing projects, in Climate Change (mitigation and adaptation), Environment and Sustainable Development;

•  Minimum of 2 years demonstrable experience in project management particularly managing climate change mitigation projects and experience in nature based solutions for climate change with experience in GHG inventories/ databases is an advantage;

•  Good understanding of development issues; policies and programmes relating to climate change and low carbon development and their impacts on growth,poverty reduction and gender equality is rquired.;

•  Experience in programming at national or community level, such as programme design and results monitoring, in areas related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, environment, sustainable development or energy is desirable;

•  Proven advisory and advocacy experience particularly related to climate action and by translating policy to practise is desired;

• Experience working with various aspects of climate change; including mitigation, adaptation, resilience, and climate risk assessments  is desired.

• Experience in knowledge, communication, or information management particularly in regard to the development of promotional material  is desired.

• Experience working in post-disaster, post-conflict, hardship or emergency context is required. It is recommended to detail in the cover letter or profiles what tangible results were achieved in these challenging/complex environments  is desired.

• Language: Proficiency in English and Arabic

• 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.
• This position is based in a family duty station.
• This a local post. As such, it is only open to Jordanian nationals.
• 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.