Senior Environmental Affairs Specialist at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

The overall objective 

• The Division’s work focuses on: leading the international community in the progressive development of environmental law;
• supporting States in the development and implementation of legal, institutional and policy measures in response to major environmental challenges;
• facilitating cooperation and coordination among Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and between UNEP and those agreements;
• working with MEAs secretariats to support Parties to the respective MEAs in implementing their treaty obligations; and facilitating policy dialogue among States on issues relating to international environmental law and governance.
• UNEP’s Environmental Policy Unit (EPU) is located under the Environmental Conventions and Policy Branch of the Law Division.
• Its mandates include work on the science-policy-law nexus, supporting policy coherence and serve as an influencer of policy development and uptake by Member States and an enabler of policy implementation that responds to the rule of law and MEAs commitments, in collaboration with other UNEP Divisions, Regional Offices and MEAs Secretariats.
• One of the Unit’s focus areas is to increase the awareness and capacity of UN Country Teams (UNCTs) to integrate policy coherence, environmental rule of law and MEAs mainstreaming in country-level planning and activity implementation in the context of a reformed UN Development System.
• In this context, the Unit operates internally to mainstream these aspects into UNEP’s country programming tools and knowledge networks, as well as externally to undertake relevant activities at country level, which can influence country programming processes, in collaboration with Regional Offices and other Law Division Units working on related issues.
• This work responds to a mandate most recently given to UNEP by resolution 6/6 of the sixth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6), which, inter alia, requested the UNEP Executive Director to: “[…] facilitate coherent and effective implementation of multilateral environmental agreements at the regional and national levels on a Member State–driven basis, including through the Fifth Montevideo Programme for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law and through UNEP regional offices [… and …] strengthen cooperation between the UNEP and UNCT teams, and encourage the latter to mainstream the objectives of multilateral environmental agreements into their work.”
• The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the Head of UNEP Subregional Office for Central Asia and the Programme Management Officer with the Environmental Policy Unit of the Law Division, in close consultation and cooperation with UNEP’s Regional Development Coordinator for Europe, UNEP Country Focal point for Uzbekistan, relevant UNECE representatives and other colleagues.
• S/he will undertake a scoping study for the country of Uzbekistan focused on building capacities to ratify, mainstream and ultimately implement three UNECE Conventions (Aarhus, Espoo, Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (Air Convention), as well as identifying how policy coherence for environmental governance and environmental rule of law can support this goal and possibly inform the next cycle of Common Country Analysis and UN Sustainable Cooperation Framework (2026-2029). 

Qualifications/special skills

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent in environmental sciences, environmental law, environmental management or closely related area of study) is required.
• Minimum of 7 years of professional experience in environmental policy, environmental governance or environmental law.
• Proven experience in conducting research and collaborating with various stakeholders.
• Proven experience working on environmental policy and legal issues, including multilateral environmental agreements.
• Experience in the Central Asia region is desirable. Experience working with the United Nations, other international organizations or national governments is desirable.