GIS Specialist for the Caribbean Biological Corridor

Result of ServiceThe GIS consultant should deliver upon expected outcomes of the above-mentioned projects and CBC Secretariat technical tasks, aimed to strengthen, and enhance the CBC’s GIS tool BioAtlas, which is intended to support decision-making by governments and a wide arrange of stakeholders across the CBC member countries. The consultant conduct the administration, maintenance, and further development of this online platform, its databases, and technological infrastructure, as well as to provided GIS analysis support to the CBC Secretariat, as required by projects or other tasks assigned to the Secretariat. The consultant will deliver upon the following objectives: - Enhance the availability of information on biodiversity, future climate scenarios and ocean variables for the CBC countries to support decision making. - Enhance the existing tools and increase capacity of key national authorities of CBC countries, local governments, and communities to incorporate climate change and biodiversity analysis in decision-making. - Contribute with the CBC Secretariat in maintaining the CBC BioAtlas tool updated and operational, improving its features to support decision making in the CBC. - Serve as a GIS and informatics Specialist of the CBC Secretariat, providing GIS/Remote sensing analysis and technical support to CBC Secretariat technical work, in line with the implementation of the Strategic Plan towards 2030 of the initiative. To this end, the consultant will report on: - Provided guidance to develop and enhance the BioAtlas system features, its user interface and data. The new data layers included in the BioAtlas that contribute to the implementation of the CBC Initiative’s Strategic plan towards 2030. - Training provided to CBC government agencies and local partners. - Progress on technical activities carried out to enhance the robustness and upgrades of the BioAtlas tool, or to support technical work, including any key details required by the donor and/or CBC Secretariat. Specific tasks and responsibilities • Provide advice to the CBC Secretariat on the best strategies to continue enhancing the capacity and usefulness of the CBC BioAtlas tool and associated databases to support decision-making at the regional level on matters related to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use. • Contribute to the ongoing development of the BioAtlas tool and associated database and infrastructure with new capabilities and enhanced user interface to better support decision making in close collaboration with the CBC Secretariat team. • Contribute to the ongoing development of the BioAtlas tool by identifying and compiling relevant spatial information and deriving new data layers to enhance the available information in the tool about future climate scenarios, ocean conditions and variables, spatial distribution of conservation priorities (both marine and terrestrial species, ecosystems and or essential habitats), connectivity models, watersheds, proxies on biodiversity pressures or use intensity, and other information that might be considered relevant by the countries and CBC Secretariat, and according to the specific plans for the development of the BioAtlas tool. • In close collaboration with the CBC Secretariat team and the project staff, provide GIS technical inputs for the execution of project activities, particularly those related to characterizations, problem identification, vulnerability analysis, spatial modeling and other spatial analysis to support the identification of priority sites for action and other technical analysis as required. • Provide GIS technical inputs to support the monitoring of project indicators and for project progress reports and other periodic documents to be submitted to the donors. • Provide GIS related technical inputs for the organization of the annual meetings of the Technical Committee and the Ministerial Committee of the Initiative. • Collaborate in technical networking in the framework of ongoing activities of other governmental and non-governmental agencies in themes related to GIS applications and analysis. • Provide systematic maintenance of the cloud server infrastructure, including eventual migration of all the software, licenses, and data to new servers; advising the CBC Secretariat on the capacities and services that need to be contracted; updating software licenses/keys as required; as well as maintaining contact with service providers as needed. • Provide general informatics support and advice to the CBC Secretariat in close cooperation with UNEP’s Information Technology assistance team. • Design, prepare capacity building materials and deliver training on the use of the BioAtlas tool and database. Work LocationSanto Domingo, Dominican Republic Expected duration11 months Duties and ResponsibilitiesThe United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment under review and bringing emerging issues to the attention of governments and the international community for action . The UNEP Latin America and the Caribbean Office (LACO), located in Panama City, Panama, works closely with the 33 countries of the region and its activities are integrated into the Medium-Term Strategy and the Programme of Work approved by the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA). This position is in the Environmental Governance Subprogramme, at the Latin America and the Caribbean Office (LACO) who for over the last 16 years has supported the Caribbean Biological Corridor Initiative (CBC) an intergovernmental platform in the region conformed by Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica through the implementation projects. The CBC works to promote coordinated actions that contribute to the conservation, connectivity, and maintenance of ecosystem services in the region. The CBC has approved its Strategic Action Plan towards 2030 and is moving forward to address the main challenges in the region. Currently UNEP is supporting the implementation of two CBC projects: the “Strengthening Ocean Management in the Caribbean Biological Corridor (CBC)” and the “Increasing resilience of ecosystems and communities to climate change through Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EbA) in key connected areas of the Caribbean Biological Corridor” under which there is a need to hire a GIS Specialist as explained below. The CBC has created a robust online Geographical Information System (GIS) platform and its associated Very large database (VLDB) (BioAtlas) to support decision-makers and stakeholders in explore data and generating reports on sites or areas of their interest with information on the natural environment, biodiversity, and protection in the CBC countries. The tool is in expansion and improvement and is expected to be enhanced by providing information on current and future climate and oceanographic variables, as well as improving the tool’s capacity for analysis and selection of relevant information. Two projects currently being implemented will help in this endeavor. The project “Strengthening Ocean Management in the CBC” seeks to integrate scientific knowledge and climate adaptation strategies to ensure healthy and resilient marine and coastal ecosystems, species, and local communities in the Greater Antilles. The project, among other tasks, will directly support the CBC initiative to compile and generate coastal and marine data to strengthen ocean management in member countries, in the context of the implementation of the CBC Strategic Plan towards 2030. Its Outcome 1 is aimed at improving knowledge and baseline information on marine-coastal issues. Particularly, Output 1.2 seeks to “enhance the availability of information on current and future ocean climate scenarios for the CBC” to support decision making in the Initiative’s marine realm. To this end, compiling and systematization of existing information and data of current and future oceanographic and climatic models need to be carried out for its inclusion in the CBC BioAtlas tool. Among the work carried out to date, the CBC has already identified climate models and oceanographic data for its incorporation to BioAltas. Additionally, there is a need to enhance the BioAtlas capabilities facilitate access, analyze and dynamically and flexibly report using the information on climate and oceanographic models. To this end, improving the user interphase to show maps of ocean-related variables and provide it with new options to facilitate access and an analysis of information on current and future Climate Change models and oceanographic data is needed. Developing new materials to facilitate training in the use of BioAtlas tool new features and data will also be required. The project “Increasing resilience of ecosystems and communities to climate change through Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EbA) in key connected areas of the Caribbean Biological Corridor” seeks to reduce the risks of coastal flooding, sedimentation, and warming temperatures in key ecosystems of the Caribbean Biological Corridor (CBC), by promoting Ecosystem Based Adaptation (EbA), as well as more resilient and sustainable communities and protected areas. In the context of this project the consultant will be responsible for delivering results under Output 1.1.3 that seeks to “enhance information and tools and increased capacity of key national authorities of CBC countries, local governments, and communities to incorporate terrestrial climate change and biodiversity analysis in decision-making”. UNEP is an implementing partner for this project through an agreement with Centro para el Desarrollo Agropecuario y Forestal (CEDAF) , the lead implementing agency of this project. The position GIS Specialist (UNEP/CBC) is required to support the expansion of the CBC GIS Tool (BioAtlas), delivering upon outcomes and outputs of the two projects of the CBC Initiative in UNEP. The GIS Specialist will be responsible for compiling/generating updated information, developing the associated database, and the maintenance and continuous development of the BioAtlas tool. The GIS Specialist will work in close cooperation with the CBC Secretariat technical team to continue developing the BioAtlas and support any technical work that could require GIS/Remote sensing analysis. The consultant will be under direct supervision of the Programme Management Officer of the Environmental Governance Unit at the UNEP Latin America and the Caribbean Office, the incumbent will work from Monday to Friday, 40 hours per week, full time basis and to be located in CBC Office in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and will work in close collaboration with the CBC technical team and its Secretariat, strategic partners and supervisor. Qualifications/special skillsACADEMIC: - Bachelor degree in geospatial information technologies, GIS, Informatics, spatial engineering, or Geography, Civil engineering, or similar fields (required). - Master´s degree in geospatial information technologies, informatics, or related fields is desirable. - PhD´s degree in in geography, cartography, geospatial information technologies, informatics, or related fields is desirable. PROFESSIONAL: - At least 8 years of experience in web application development and analysis of Geographic Information Systems (required). - Professional experience in the application of programming tools, database management and spatial information management (desirable). - Experience in the Caribbean Region is an advantage. - Knowledge and understanding of the CBC initiative is an advantage. LANGUAGES: - Fluency in Spanish is required. - Fluency in English is required. SPECIAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS: - Demonstrated advanced knowledge of geographic information systems platforms: SuperMap, ArcGIS, Quantum GIS, MapInfo, and others similar for development of GIS applications in the cloud. Mastery of SuperMap desktop and SuperMap Iserver Standard Edition is an advantage. - Experience in remote single server Linux service stack (Postgre/php/Apache) deployment and maintenance is required. Experience in GIS services integration on single server Linux service stack (Postgre/php/Apache) is desirable. - Demonstrated advanced knowledge of the standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium is desirable. - Mastery of programming languages HTML, Phyton, .NET, Java is an advantage. - Mastery of Microsoft Office tools is required. LanguagesNot available. Additional InformationNot available. No FeeTHE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.