Urban Law and Governance Consultant at UN-Habitat

Duties and Responsibilities

In the light of the context described, UN-Habitat is seeking a part-time urban law and governance consultant to support the several country projects focusing on strengthening urban legal frameworks. The consultant will be responsible for producing normative outputs in this area by providing ongoing support and input to country legal projects in Comoros, Oman, Malawi, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Under the direct supervision of the Legal Specialist, Policy, Legislation and Governance Section and overall supervision of the Chief of the Policy, Legislation and Governance Section, the Consultant will have the following responsibilities:

• Conduct legal and governance review and analyses on UN-Habitat thematic issues such as related to urban planning and design, housing, land and property rights (HLP), and environment and climate action. Legal and governance frameworks will be reviewed to assess their effectiveness in supporting urban processes specifically in the areas of resilient and low carbon urban development and access to adequate housing.
• Draft project reports based on UN-Habitat template detailing project achievements, as well as bottlenecks and lessons learnt that will assist with project rating and evaluation.
• Undertake reviews of projects and documents to strengthen legislation and governance dimensions(3).
• Support the drafting of the capacity development training packages for Oman and DRC.

Qualifications/special skills

• Academic Qualifications: A first-level university degree with 2 years of experience is required.
• Minimum 2 years of experience in the legal field is required, preferably dealing with urban law, urban planning, environmental and climate change law and urban governance.
• Experience in conducting legal and governance research from various sources and the ability to interpret frameworks, develop and present recommendations clearly and concisely is desirable.
• Previous experience working with the United Nations will be an added advantage.

Languages

English and French are the official working languages of the United Nations. For the post advertised, fluency in spoken and written English is required. Fluency in another UN language is desirable.