Cities and Climate Change Expert, International Cooperation at UN-Habitat

Duties and responsibilities:

• The consultancy is located in the Programme Development Branch of UN-Habitat, under the direct supervision by the Sub-Programme Coordinator for Climate Change and Urban Environment. The consultancy will involve the following typical main duties leading to the ultimate requested outputs:
• the preparation of the second Ministerial Meeting on Urbanization and Climate Change at COP28
• Build on UN-Habitat extensive network to identify Ministers of Housing, Urban Development, Climate Change and Environment; secure high-level participation thanks to collaboration with

UN-Habitat’s regional and country offices;

• Liaise with UN-Habitat’s Executive Board, senior management and regional office(s) to ensure alignment between Ministerial Meeting and cities and urbanization agenda as well as high-level participation in the Ministerial Meeting
• Development of the meeting agenda and priority discussion points for the Meeting (building on the achievements of the first Ministerial Meeting);
• Coordinate with member states to identify the potential of using the Ministerial Meeting for high-level announcement of new ambitious commitments;
• Coordinate local government participation for the Ministerial Meeting, in collaboration with LGMA Constituency;
• Coordinate non-state stakeholder engagement for the Ministerial Meeting, including with local governments, international organizations, NGO, academia, youth, etc.;
• Development of an outcome document that can feed into the COP28 outcomes.

Communication, outreach and advocacy:

• Work on the advocacy for the Meeting through UN-Habitat’s channels (including social media, website, etc)
• Engage with the cities and urban development community and other key partners to raise awareness of the Meeting; this could potentially include inviting selected member states and partners to a pre-COP roundtable to help prepare the Meeting and discuss priorities and outcomes

Conceptualization of the Cities and Urbanization Day at COP28

• Working closely with the COP28 presidency in identifying priority sessions and the development of the programme for the day.
• preparation of concept notes and narrative for the day, drawing on the outcomes and perspectives of city-related activities at prior COPs
• Work as part a team for the coordination between Marrakech Partnership, High-Level Champions and other key partners for the conceptualization of the Cities and Urbanization Day
  • Streamlining the importance of cities and urbanization into COP28-related activities, including highlighting urban environments in other thematic days
  • Liaise on alignment between Bloomberg / C40 activities with those of other cities and urban development stakeholders.
  • Mobilizing local government stakeholders to participate in COP28, in collaboration with the LGMA Constituency

Qualifications/special skills

• Minimum advanced university degree (M.Sc. or equivalent) in relevant field for urban climate change communication, i.e. Communications / Journalism or Urban/Regional Planning, Environment Studies, International Development is required.
• A first degree with 2 additional years of experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced degree.
• A minimum of five years of experience working in event organization and stakeholder engagement, ideally gained at the international level is required.
• At least two years’ experience working on communication on urban climate change mitigation and/or adaptation is required.
• Demonstrated experience in organising events and communication is desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in developing projects in a participatory manner is an added advantage.

Languages

• English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this consultancy, fluency in oral and written English is required. Fluency in other UN languages is considered an advantage.