Job Vacancies at United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

This approach is structured around four three pillars:

• Energy Security and Affordable, Reliable Access
• Just, Affordable and Inclusive Energy Transitions
• African Interconnectivity and Energy Pools With the African Union (AU) becoming a permanent member of the G20 and South Africa assuming the G20 Presidency in December 2024, UNEP aims to strengthen collaboration with South Africa and the AU to enhance engagement on sustainability issues critical to both the continent and the global agenda. As such, this internship will primarily focus on energy policy, with an emphasis on energy transition and the G7 and G20 processes.
• This internship is in UN Environment Programme's Climate Change Division, with the intern reporting to the Nairobi duty station.

Qualifications/special skills

• Applicants must meet one of the following requirements:
• be enrolled in, or have completed, a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher);
• be enrolled in, or have completed, the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum bachelor’s degree or equivalent) in environmental sciences, business or public administration, social science, environmental law, or related field. Applicants to the UN Internship Programme are not required to have professional work. experience.
• However, a field of study that is closely related to the type of internship that you are applying for is required.
• Applicants should have good knowledge of standard software applications, especially MS Word, MS PowerPoint, and MS Teams.

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Duties and Responsibilities:

The consultant will be responsible for:

• Workplan - Develop a detailed work plan for the overall consultancy assignment, identifying the various milestones with clear timelines.
• Baseline/Needs Assessment and Stakeholder Consultation: - Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to understand the data requirements of various stakeholders. - Engage with GEF Coordination and corporate functions (Reporting, Enterprise Solutions, Safeguards and Gender, Evaluation, Digital Transformation, Business Intelligence, Appraisals, Communications) to familiarize with existing requirements, policies, and databases/systems.
• Engage with technical and operations teams across UNEP's divisions (Industry and Economy, Ecosystems, Climate Change) to gather detailed input on data needs and system functionalities. - Identify and document all types of data collected by user, need, and use.
• Perform a review of existing systems by other agencies as applicable (e.g., OCHA, UNDP) to identify best practices and potential integration points.
• Data Collection and Analysis: - Analyse existing data management practices and tools used within UNEP and GEF projects.
• Identify commonalities, gaps, and areas for improvement in current data management processes.
• Define potential areas for automation, mainly where existing databases collect information, and can substitute manual data entry. - Review and recommend what data and information is worth collecting with some prioritization (by reviewing ‘must have’ and ‘nice to have’), by whom and at what stage.
• System Requirements Specification Development: - Define the functional (e.g., integration, storage, retrieval, reporting, user management) and non-functional requirements (e.g., performance, scalability, security, usability, reliability, compliance) for the centralized database project. - Functionality to capture UNEP's Programme of Work and the GEF results framework. - Define entry points with the UNEP Enterprise Data Warehouse, including for data flow from/to other systems such as Umoja modules, OpenData, PIR, etc. - Establish mechanisms for ensuring data integrity and archiving needs and requirements.
• Develop detailed system schemas, data dictionaries, and functional specifications.
• Validation and Review: - Present the draft SRS to key stakeholders for feedback. - Incorporate feedback and finalize the SRS document.
• Documentation and Reporting: - Prepare comprehensive documentation of the SRS, including user requirements, system architecture, data flow diagrams, and technical specifications. - Provide regular progress reports to the GEF Coordination Office.
• Produce all the required supporting documentation of the systems Reporting Lines: The consultant will report to the GEF Coordinator Ersin Esen but work closely with business owners across the different functions mentioned.

Qualifications/special skills

• A university degree in Computer Science or engineering, Data Science, Data Analytics, Machine Learning, or any related field is required. An advanced degree in any of the disciplines will be an added advantage.
• A minimum of 5 years working as a computer programmer or software engineer is required. Demonstrable work experience in management information systems and data management in the UN system is required. Deep understanding of database development, data modeling, data engineering, etc. Demonstrated proficiency in at least two relational database platforms (Teradata, oracle, SQL server, snowflake, etc) is required.
• Exposure to cloud-based data platforms such as GCP, AWS, Microsoft Azure SQL, Power Apps is required.
• Proficiency in web framework development. At least two of the following: React, Angular, NodeJS, JavaScript for front-end development, and at least one of programming languages in Python, Java, PHP are desired. Solid data review and data architecture design experience along with expertise in IT systems, infrastructure and applications is desired.
• Discretion in handling confidential and sensitive information is desired.

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Responsibilities

The incumbent will be responsible for the following duties:

• Financial Management
• Organizing and ensuring that funds entrusted to the Division are managed with due diligence, within UN Rules and Regulations and fiduciary standards, ensuring optimization and alignment of the resources with the expected output of the Division applying result-based budgeting (RBB).
• Keeping the management team informed on the fund management situation and forecast.
• Bringing to the attention of the Division Director and Deputy all emerging issues implying an increased financial exposure to risk by the Division and proposing mitigating strategies.
• Preparing and delivering financial presentations and reports for UN Environment's Management, to the United Nations Environment Assembly and other Governing Bodies, and Donors as required. 
• Performing any other relevant duties as requested.

Education

• An advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in business administration, finance, accounting, management or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two (2) additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• Successful completion of both degrees and non-degrees in data analytics, business analytics, or data science programs is desirable.

Work Experience

• A minimum of ten (10) years of progressively responsible work experience in financial management, administration, human resources management and planning is required.
• Five (5) years of experience at the international level in a supervisory capacity is required.
• Experience with managing multiple types of donor funding (trust funds, donor contributions, multilateral funding mechanisms) is required.
• Experience with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is desirable.
• Experience within intergovernmental organizations is desirable. Experience in data analytics or related area is desirable.