Background

Instructions to Applicants: Click on the "Apply now" button. Input your information in the appropriate Sections: personal information, language proficiency, education, resume and motivation. Upon completion of the first page, please hit "submit application" tab at the end of the page. Please ensure that CV or P11 and the Cover letter are combined in one file.

Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors. References may also include peers.

A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.

Travel:   

This is a home-based position. UNCDF will cover the cost of travel of the individual to the duty station, as well as their return to their home upon completion of their services in case of reassignment to different duty station.

The individual is expected to travel sporadically in performing their functions. All travel costs will be covered directly by UNCDF, following UNCDF/UN’s rules and regulations.

Office/Unit/Project Description 

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 46 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

UNCDF’s financing models work through three channels: inclusive digital economies, connecting individuals, households, and small businesses with financial eco-systems that catalyze participation in the local economy, and provide tools to climb out of poverty and manage financial lives; local development finance, that capacitates localities through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance to drive local economic expansion and sustainable development; and investment finance, that provides catalytic financial structuring, de-risking, and capital deployment to drive SDG impact and domestic resource mobilization. By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to Sustainable Development Goal-SDG 1 on eradicating poverty and SDG 17 on the means of implementation. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile and address exclusion and inequalities of access, UNCDF contributes to a broad diversity of SDGs.

UNCDF has developed expertise and a portfolio of programmes addressing the issue of local resilience with a focus on building resilience to climate change, environmental sustainability and food security through local governments and mechanisms for local government finance. The centerpiece of the Local Resilience Portfolio (LRP_ is the Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL). In line with the recommendations of the Mid Term Review of the LoCAL facility, the LRP consolidates the LoCAL mechanism itself and more recent work in the field of land restoration, municipal finance, urban resilience, coastal resilience and food security. It includes investments funded with local public finance and investments that have a blended finance component.

The Local Climate Adaptive Living Facility (LoCAL) provides a mechanism to integrate climate change into local authorities’ planning and budgeting through the regular intergovernmental fiscal transfer system using performance-based grants in a participatory and gender sensitive manner, increase awareness and capacities to respond to climate change at the local level including through ecosystem based solutions, and increase the quality and number of local investments that address climate change. LoCAL combines performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs), which ensure programming and verification of change expenditures at the local level, with technical and capacity-building support. It uses the grants and demonstration effect to trigger further flows for local climate action including global climate finance and national fiscal transfers. LoCAL also aims to support private finance for small and medium businesses and municipal finance and public-private partnerships. LoCAL is currently active in 14 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, with another 9 countries preparing to join the Facility. 

LoCAL combines performance-based climate resilience grants (PBCRGs) with technical and capacity-building support. PBCRGs ensure programming and verification of climate change expenditures at the local level and offer strong incentives for general performance improvements targeting areas of importance for enhanced resilience. The PBCRG can be seen as an earmarked cross-sectoral grant with conditions attached to the use of its funding for climate change adaptation beyond business as usual. PBCRGs include a set of minimum conditions, performance measures and a menu of eligible investments. LoCAL focuses on the delivery of four outputs that will directly contribute to increasing local governments’ access to climate finance and building resilience to climate change:

Output 1 – Awareness and capacities to respond to climate change adaptation at the local level are increased;

Output 2 – CCA is mainstreamed into government’s planning and budgeting systems and investments are implemented in line with the PBCRG mechanism;

Output 3 – The PBCRG system is effectively and sustainably established in participating countries and leads to an increased amount of CCA finance available to local government and local economy;

Output 4 – The role of local authorities and of the PBCRGS in addressing climate change are increasingly recognized at international level, through outreach, learning and quality assurance.

LoCAL operates in three distinct phases:

• Phase I: Piloting, consists of an initial scoping analysis, followed by testing in two to four local governments. As of 2021, Lesotho, Tanzania and Tuvalu are in Phase I; The Gambia, Ghana, Lao PDR, Mali, and Nepal are preparing to enter Phase II.
• Phase II: Consolidating, takes place in 5–10 local governments in a country. It involves collecting lessons and demonstrating the mechanism’s effectiveness at a larger scale. As of 2021, Bangladesh, Benin, Mozambique and Niger are in Phase II.
• Phase III: Scaling-up, is full national roll-out of LoCAL based on the results of the previous phases and lessons learned. LoCAL is gradually extended to all local governments, with domestic or international climate finance, and becomes the national system for channeling adaptation finance to the local level. Bhutan is in Phase III, with budget support from the European Union; Cambodia has also entered Phase III.

Since its global scale up in 2014, LoCAL has engaged 293 local governments in 14 countries representing over 11 million people. Between 2014 and 2020, it mobilized USD 100 million, including grants and technical assistance, to LoCAL countries. During the same period, 1200+ climate change adaptation interventions were finalized across 12 countries using grants, or being planned in the next phase of LoCAL.

LoCAL is governed by a Global Board meeting, composed of member countries and development partners or observers. The Board member countries endorsed the vision for LoCAL to ‘become a standard and recognized country-based mechanism for Developing Countries in particular the LDCs, that supports direct access to the Green Climate Fund and other climate finance entities and mechanisms to transfer resources to local governments through national systems for building verifiable climate change adaptation and resilience’. In the 2020 Board meeting, LoCAL countries reaffirmed such a vision and encouraged enhanced cooperation, at all levels, in support of increased climate finance for subnational and local climate action, and requested that member countries and partners work towards strengthening the LoCAL’s role as the catalyzer, convener and knowledge leader for subnational adaptation worldwide and scaling up this partnership practice to equip more operators worldwide with the capacity to contribute to the global climate agenda.

Institutional Arrangement

The Programme Analyst, IPSA, will join the LRP Project team and will contribute to the effective delivery of the programme’s activities, reporting to the Global Programme Manager, P-5 and in close collaboration with other LoCAL and UNCDF colleagues across the regions.

This position will be initially home-based, and with possibility to be reassigned to a LoCAL related country, as programme needs arise.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work

The Programme Analyst, IPSA is responsible for providing technical, policy, and programming implementation support services for the effective deployment of programmatic activities, within assigned countries, and is expected to contribute to resource mobilization and partnership building activities on an ongoing basis.

The Programme Analyst’s key focus areas will be:

·Programme Management Support and Technical Assistance (50%)

·Partnership/Network Building and Resource Mobilization (40%)

·Knowledge Management and Communication (10%)

Programme Management Support and Technical Assistance (50%)

·Provide effective programme and project design, supervision, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, reporting and completion activities in assigned country programs, in close collaboration with UNCDF Country Teams, the Facility Manager and the LoCAL Facility (global);

·Contribute to the provision of technical assistance, advice and guidance to assigned country programs (e.g. design and design validation, writing terms of reference, memoranda of understanding, letter of agreement, recruitment and management of consultants), including organization of field missions;

·Contribute to strengthening the quality of monitoring and evaluation systems of program developments and implementation (including preparation and monitoring of the annual work plan, participation in field missions, contribution to the preparation of annual reports), identify problems and issues to be addressed and propose corrective actions, and identify and track follow-up actions;

·Support the organisation of events, meetings, conferences, etc., including proposing agenda topics, identifying participants, preparation of documents and presentations, etc;

·Support identification and sourcing of technical expertise and support, including assisting with the preparation of TORs, identification and evaluation of experts and reviewing reports.

Partnership/Network Building and Resource Mobilization (40%)

·Undertake mapping of gaps and needs of LoCAL countries’ NDAs and identify opportunities for engagement for LoCAL with vertical funds such as the Green Climate Fund and its different funding windows, particularly the EDA, and so forth;

·Support the liaison with relevant parties and maintenance of close working relationship with key stakeholders (e.g the GCF) at various levels by building linkages and networks;

·Collect intelligence on technical and financial partners, particularly vertical funds such as the GCF and Adaptation Fund, identify opportunities for collaboration with key actors and support the development of partnerships globally and in assigned countries;

·Provide timely quality information and technical advice on sources of funds, policies, priorities and activities;

·Support the process of preparation, design, submission and approval of programme/project concepts and full-fledged proposals for financing;

·Develop partner engagement and coordination plan, taking into account the respective roles and mandates of the organizations and strategies to mobilize additional resources based on programme requirements and new opportunities.

Knowledge management and communication (10%)

·Support capacity building activities including identifying, analyzing, documenting, harmonizing and disseminating both national and local issues as well as conditions and best practices and lessons learned among partners. Capacity building activities will include coordinating meetings, workshops and seminars with project management teams, government, partners and other stakeholders;

·Support the preparation of various written outputs and knowledge products, e.g. draft background papers, analyses, sections of reports and studies, inputs to publications, etc;

·Contribute to the implementation of the Communication and Visibility Plan of the Programme, in collaboration with the Facility, partners and technical consultants.

Competencies

CORE COMPETENCIES

• Leadership – Ability to persuade others to follow
• Innovation – Ability to make new and useful ideas work
• People Management – Ability to improve performance and satisfaction
• Delivery – Ability to get things done while exercising good judgement

Functional Competencies

• Organizes and accurately completes multiple tasks by establishing priorities while taking into consideration special assignments, frequent interruptions, deadlines, available resources and multiple reporting relationships;
• Plans, coordinates and organizes workload while remaining aware of changing priorities and competing deadlines;
• Establishes, builds and maintains effective working relationships with staff and clients to facilitate the provision of support;
• Ability to lead implementation of new systems (and affect staff behavioural/ attitudinal change;
• Sensitivity to and responsiveness to all partners, Respectful and helpful relations with donors and project staff.

TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

• In-depth knowledge and experience in monitoring, evaluation and result-based management, and relevant experience in program management;
• Very strong organizational and planning skills;
• Very good IT skills, including database and MS Office software packages;
• Excellent communication skills (written and oral).

SELF-MANAGEMENT

• Result-driven;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• Builds and promotes teams and partnerships;
• Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability;
• Creates and promotes open communication;
• Demonstrates ethics and integrity;
• Demonstrates political acumen and calculated risk-taking;
• Builds confidence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Conducts fair and transparent decision making;
• Treats all persons fairly without favoritism;
• Shows strong corporate commitment.

Required Skills and Experience