Policy Specialist at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Duties and Responsibilities

Background and organizational settings

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the United Nations system's designated entity for addressing environmental issues at the global and regional level. Its mandate is to coordinate the development of environmental policy consensus by keeping the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action.

The Law Division is the lead division charged with carrying out the functions of UNEP in the field of environmental law, governance and related policy issues, including those pertaining to the coherent implemenation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). The Science Division is the lead division for the Environment Under Review Sub-programme (SP-7) that aims at empowering stakeholders in their decision making with quality data and assessments made available on open platforms. Through this, the Science Division works to provide timely, scientifically credible, policy-relevant environmental assessments, data and information for decision-making and action planning for sustainable development. It also spearheads UN-wide monitoring and reporting on the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.

UNEP is the custodian agency for 25 SDG indicators (see Annex). As the custodian agency, UNEP is responsible for collecting and verifying data from Member States and reporting them, along with regional and global aggregates, to the UN Statistics Division on each of these indicators. While for some indicators such as SDG 6.5.1 “Degree of integrated water resources management”, internationally established methodology and standards were available for data production, others such as SDG 17.14.1 “Number of countries with mechanisms in place to enhance policy coherence of sustainable development”, a new methodology had to be developed and disseminated for uptake by Member States.

Currently 9 out of the 25 indicators are classified as Tier I, meaning the “Indicator is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, and data are regularly produced by countries for at least 50 per cent of countries and of the population in every region where the indicator is relevant”. The remaining 16 indicators are classified as Tier II, in which the “Indicator is conceptually clear, has an internationally established methodology and standards are available, but data are not regularly produced by countries”. UNEP’s goal as the custodian agency is to upgrade these 16 indicators to Tier I by building capacities of Member States to better understand the methodology/standards and thereby facilitate their data collection and reporting.

Furthermore, UNEP intends to “universalize” the existing methodology/standards for the SDG indicators by drawing from similar methodology(ies) in use by other international or regional organizations. For example, OECD has developed a methodology to measure progress towards policy coherence for sustainable development, which share similarities (but also differences) with that developed by UNEP on SDG indicator 17.14.1. Having an overview of other methodologies that duplicate or overlap with those of the SDG indicators would pave the way for potentially streamlining them into a single, universal methodology. This in turn is expected to contribute to improving environmental governance by eliminating norm duplications and dual reporting burden.

Explain the requirement for a consultant/individual

The aim of the consultancy is to put together a technical paper consisting of an introduction to the methodologies for each of the 25 indicators for which UNEP acts as the custodian agency, with case studies of countries which track record in achieving the relevant SDG targets as well as analysis of common factors that hamper progress at the national level; and a comparison of SDG indicator methodologies with methodologies that are being used in parallel by other international or regional organizations with suggestions for future alignment. For the second part of the paper, research first needs to be done on which SDG indicators have a similar methodology.

Specific tasks and responsibilities

1. Under the supervision of the Head, SDGs and Environment Statistics Unit, of the Capacity Development and Innovation Branch of the Science Division, the Consultant will contribute to the work of the SDG Unit in relation to the collection and the production of Sustainable Development Goals data for Indicators where UNEP is custodian agency.

The role of the incumbent includes the following responsibilities and duties:

1. Compile the methodology for the 25 SDG indicators for which UNEP act as the custodian agency (readily available online);
2. Develop a country case study on each of these 25 indicators, in a geographically balanced manner, with analysis on institutional, legal, policy and other governance factors that have catalysed national progress on the relevant targets
3. Based on the review of the data submitted by Member States, analyse restraining governance factors common to those countries where their reported data indicate slow progress.
4. Conduct research on parallel methodologies in use by other regional and /or international organizations;
5. Identify opportunities for streamlining similar methodologies to improve coherence and lessen reporting burden on the part of Member States.

Qualifications/special skills

Academic Qualifications:

1. Master's degree in Social Sciences is required. A first level university degree in combination with two (2) additional years of qualifying work experience may be accepted in lieu of the master's degree.

Experience:

1. At least 7 years of progressively responsible experience in environmental and sustainable development issues in a government/intergovernmental setting, preferably in the UN system is required.
2. Track record on research and writing, particularly on issues related to environmental governance and sustainable development, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is desirable.
3. In-depth knowledge about SDGs targets and indicators related to the environment and their implementation, monitoring and reporting processes at national, regional and global levels.
4. Proven expertise and experience in working with countries to enhance their governance and policy coherence for sustainable development
5. Familiarity with statistical methodologies
6. Language: English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the consultancy, fluency in oral and written English is required. Knowledge of another UN language is an asset.

DEADLINE : 10th March 2022