Mission and objectivesSince its inception in 1972, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has been the global authority that sets the 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. UNEPโs mission is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, UNEP works through its divisions as well as regional, liaison and out-posted offices and a growing network of collaborating centres of excellence.
ContextThis United Nations Volunteer (UNV) assignment is part of the UNEPโs project โInforming Policy on Climate, Nature, and Pollution through strengthening national, regional, and global indicator frameworks, and environmental economic accounting on the environmentโ under Output C โTools and training for capacity building to measure, monitor and report on the environment and SDGsโ. The duration of the project is from 2024 to 2027. Climate change is one of the three major environmental crises, which, in line with many other commitments, requires โproviding scientific information that measures progress towards carbon neutrality and resilience and assesses the potential and risks associated with the measures appliedโ and โhelping countries meet their transparency and other reporting obligationsโ, as outlined in the UNEP Medium-Term Strategy 2022โ2025. The needs for climate change and disaster-related statistics must be met through improved data collection, increased use of geospatial data sources, modelling, and citizen science as well as enhanced national capacity to turn data into statistics. National statistical systems are faced with the challenge of incorporating this information into their official statistical system necessitating new and innovative approaches to national geospatial and other information management, implementing integrated evidence based decision-making solutions, and maximizing and leveraging national information systems that are tailored to individual countryโs situations and circumstances. Considering the current country demand, UNEP, in collaboration with other international partners, is making efforts to provide support to countries.
Task DescriptionThe activities of this United Nations Volunteer (UNV) will contribute to increasing the understanding of climate-change and disaster-related statistics in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular trough: โDevelopment of digital products supporting national reporting on Sendai Framework in Togo, Kenya, Burundi, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. โEngagement of Community of Practice and Visibility. Within 6 months, this UNV, under the supervision of the Programme Management Offices from the SDG and Environment Statistics Unit of the Early Warning and Assessment Division of UNEP, and in close collaboration with relevant colleagues from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), will: โDigitalise a self-assessment tool that countries can use to analyze data availability and identify data gaps on disaster-related statistics. โDigitalize the toolkit to support implementation of the roadmap to enhance reporting in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030 including recommendations on how to ensure sustainability of government efforts in reporting and engage and increase partnerships at regional and national levels with UN agencies, academia, governments. โSupport preparation of a flyer with the description of the project, and communication material such as social media cards. โUpdate the UNEP SDG portal with relevant information.
Competencies and valuesโข Planning and organizing: setting goals and targets for yourself or others; prioritizing the delivery of work; adjusting work or project priorities to take account of changing circumstances; organising the time and resources necessary to deliver work; setting detailed project plans or plans for an area or service; monitoring the delivery of work against a plan; delivering oneโs own workload in an organized and time efficient manner. โข Teamwork: working within an established team; supporting colleagues; sharing responsibility for decision making and results; encouraging others to contribute; forming a new team; collaborating with colleagues across work units, departments or divisions; establishing or developing a team culture, or standards of behavior within a team. โข Creativity: developing new programmes or services; improving existing programmes or services; adapting existing programmes or services for application in new and different environments; finding new solutions to address operational or strategic problems; participating in projects to develop organizational structures, systems or strategy; working on activities, or in environments, which are new for the UN; responding to the demands of stakeholders for new approaches to be adopted. โข Technological awareness: using new technology, hardware, and software packages to complete key tasks; investigating and evaluating new technology, hardware, and software packages to be used to support key work activities; providing support to others in how to use and apply new technology, hardware and software; developing or managing new office systems or procedures which use technology; ensuring the effective and cost effective use of technology within a department or division.
Living conditions and remarksThe Republic of Kenya is an equatorial nation on the coast of East Africa, neighboring Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, and the Indian Ocean. Kenya has two levels of Government; National Government and 47 sub-national Governments called Counties. Counties are further divided into sub-counties. Kenya is a multi-party state with Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. Kenyaโs population of more than 40 million is growing at an annual rate of 2.2%. The countryโs GNP per capita estimated at purchasing power parity (PPP) is $975, and the GNP is growing at an average rate of 0.1% annually. More than 26% of Kenyaโs people live below the international poverty line of $1 per day. Kenyaโs main food crops are โmaize, wheat, pulses, roots and tubers.โ (FAO). Nairobi is a modern metropolitan city where most basic goods and services, health facilities, public transport, telecommunication and banking services and educational facilities are readily available. The city is widely connected through its main airport, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and the smaller Wilson Airport. Air transport is also available to many up-country destinations. The city is home to some 3,000 UN personnel mainly attributed to the fact that it serves as the headquarters for both the UN HABITAT and UNEP. The socio-economic and cultural background of the immediate society the UNV would be living and working in is diverse and prevailing security conditions at the place of assignment is modest. The topographic and climatic features of the assignment location is highland cool and warm tropical climate. Link to the Entitlement Calculator: https://app.unv.org/calculator