Background Information - UNOPS Austria Multi-Country Office (AUMCO)
The Austria Multi-Country Office (AUMCO) is part of the UNOPS Europe and Central Asia Region (ECR). Specifically, AUMCO aims to enable achievement of Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement through global programmes focused on:
-
Infrastructure
-
Procurement
-
Project Management (full service, back on track)
-
HR and Transactional Services
-
Grants Management
-
Technical and Advisory Services
Background Information - Water, Environment and Climate (WEC)
The Water, Environment and Climate (WEC) Portfolio under the UNOPS Austria Multi-Country Office has built strong partnerships and has effectively been managing a portfolio of 490 million USD over the last 15 years to support key initiatives with fund management, project implementation and administrative support. WEC effectively operationalizes partners' agendas with global approaches, as well as regional and country specific activities focused on climate action, protection and conservation of the environment. Partners profit from WEC’s ability to operationalize and/or scale up their important substantive agendas, including in support of key multilateral environmental and climate agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, the Cartagena Convention as well as the Sustainable Development Goals.
The CLME+ region and the new 5-year UNDP/GEF PROCARIBE+ Project
The globally unique Caribbean and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems (LME’s) - further also referred to as “CLME+ region” - constitute an area of 4,4 million km2 that is shared among 26 independent States and 18 dependent/associated territories.
These ecosystems, rich in marine and coastal biodiversity/natural capital, support a multitude of interconnected and globally important ecological processes and economic activities which underpin the livelihoods and socio-economic well-being of the peoples from the region and beyond.
The UNDP Project “Protecting and Restoring the Ocean’s natural Capital, building Resilience and supporting region-wide Investments for sustainable Blue socio-Economic development” (PROCARIBE+) is a 5-year project (co-)funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF-ID 10800, May 2023 - April 2028) that aims to protect, restore and harness the natural coastal and marine capital of the region, to catalyze investments in a climate-resilient, sustainable Blue Economy, through strengthened regional coordination and collaboration and wide-ranging partnerships.
It will seek to achieve this by enabling and supporting the development of sustainable and resilient ocean-based (blue) economies, through, for example, the upscaling of actions on Marine Spatial Planning, marine conservation (MPA’s, OECM’s), Blue Carbon, sustainable fisheries, community grants, and through enhanced regional ocean governance (including capacity building efforts and enhanced marine data, information and knowledge management, strategic planning and environmental and socio-economic reporting). In doing so, the project will take into account cross-cutting issues such as climate change, gender and post-covid recovery.
In support of the aforementioned, the project will play a global pioneering role as it will operationalize a region-wide “Coordination Mechanism to Support Integrated Ocean Governance in the Caribbean and North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystems” (the “Ocean Coordination Mechanism”, or “OCM”). This “OCM” will seek to enhance cross-sectoral collaboration and coordination among the region’s many countries, and the numerous Intergovernmental Organizations (IGO’s) with an oceans-relevant mandate.