Urban Resilience Programme Specialist

Result of Service

The objective of this assignment is to support UN-Habitat’s activities related to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, and urban resilience as well as advancing the efforts on smart cities in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Regional Climate Change Strategy, aims to provide a clear roadmap for addressing climate-related issues in the region. At the same time, the Regional Office for Africa (ROAf) is developing strategies to align its projects with the goal of mitigating risks, protecting vulnerable communities, promoting sustainable development, ensuring future prosperity, and fulfilling international commitments. Given the significant dangers posed by climate change to ecosystems, economies, and human well-being, it is crucial to identify and implement adaptation measures urgently. By integrating climate considerations into development plans and advocating for sustainable practices, a vital role will be played in coordinating a united response to the challenges posed by climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa. This strategy will serve as a foundation for generating ideas, creating project documents, and identifying opportunities for collaborative efforts.

Work Location

NAIROBI

Expected duration

8 months

Duties and Responsibilities

Background and Justification The Southern African and South-West Indian Ocean regions are highly exposed to transboundary extreme climate-related events, floods, drought and cyclones. More threats exist in this region that compound the effects of these natural hazards, some of natural origin (such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, among others) and others induced by anthropogenic interventions, such as land and environmental degradation and uncontrolled urbanisation. These events have resulted in loss of lives and livelihoods and displacement of millions of people. Furthermore, the unprecedented urban growth witnessed in the region has resulted in the progressive accumulation of risk in cities and towns, largely due to weak urban governance capacity to manage rapid expansion. Much of the population expansion has been taking place outside, or in the absence of, official planning frameworks. As a result, large numbers of people satisfy their housing needs in informal settlements, often located in high-risk areas exposed to a range of natural and human-induced hazards. Urban risks are exacerbated by the increasing severity and unpredictability of climate change effects. In response, through its Regional Office for Africa (ROAf), UN-Habitat has developed an extensive portfolio of work on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and urban resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa, including normative, policy-level and practical infrastructure interventions at the regional, national and city-levels. At the request of Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique and the Union of Comoros, UN-Habitat has facilitated since 2010 the establishment of the Technical Centre for Disaster Risk Management, Sustainability and Urban Resilience (DiMSUR), which was launched in 2013. DiMSUR acts a regional centre of excellence for issues related to urban climate resilience and disaster risk. Together, UN-Habitat and DiMSUR have developed the City Resilience Action Planning (CityRAP) Tool with the main objective of enabling local governments of small to intermediate sized cities (or urban districts of bigger cities) to understand risks and plan practical actions to progressively build urban resilience. In 2020, building on four CityRAP participatory resilience planning processes implemented between 2015 and 2017 in the cities of Morondava (Madagascar), Zomba (Malawi), Chokwe (Mozambique), and Moroni (Union of Comoros), UN-Habitat launched the project “Building Urban Climate Resilience in South-Eastern Africa”, or the (SEA) project, which aims at strengthening urban climate resilience in those countries/cities that are similarly vulnerable to common transboundary extreme climate-related events. UN-Habitat and UNDP are jointly implementing a 2-year project funded by ECHO titled "Strengthening all-inclusive Disaster Preparedness and linking Early Warning to Early Action in Mzuzu, Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Zomba City Councils". The project aims to enhance disaster preparedness and response capacity in 4 major cities in Malawi through risk assessments, early warning systems, contingency planning, prepositioning of supplies, and capacity building. The intervention from the Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs in Malawi historically consisted mostly the support of agricultural developments. As the rural areas are currently undergoing a rapid pace of urbanization, the FDFA has included in the strategy for the coming years to also support projects that include the urban development of rural “secondary cities”. The FDFA Representation has indicated a demand for the city of Kasungu to develop into a low-carbon and climate resilient city, safeguarding the further economic development of agricultural activities around the city while strengthening the urban master plan. UN-Habitat has recently been approached by the government FDFA to co-develop a proposal on a low-carbon development approach in a rapidly urbanizing context for Kasungu City, Malawi. UN-Habitat has begun developing a Regional Climate Change Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, which will provide a framework to guide climate action in the region. The Climate Change Strategy, aims to provide a clear roadmap for addressing climate-related issues in the region and to align its projects with the goal of mitigating risks, protecting vulnerable communities, promoting sustainable development, ensuring future prosperity, and fulfilling international commitments. By integrating climate considerations into development plans and advocating for sustainable practices, a vital role will be played in coordinating a united response to the challenges posed by climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa. This strategy will serve as a foundation for generating ideas, creating project documents, and identifying opportunities for collaborative efforts. The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Secretariat in collaboration with key partners; the International Federation and Red Crescent for the Red Cross (IFRC), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) is implementing the Disaster Risk Management Strengthening in SADC (DRMSS) Project from 2022 to 2026. The Project is being financed by the European Union under the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) Intra-African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Programme (NDRRP). The intervention will contribute towards the achievement of the outputs of the NDRRP, namely: (i) Output 1.1: ACP Regional Institutions Capacities are strengthened; (ii) Output 1.3: Integrated solutions for risk-informed development planning and budgeting are provided; (iii) Output 2.3: Urban and Peri-Urban resilience mechanisms are improved in targeted cities; and (iv) Output 3.2: Communities and local stakeholders are more risk aware and able to take action that reduces risk. Duties and Responsibilities Under the overall supervision of the Human Settlements Officer at the Regional Office for Africa (ROAf), the consultant will carry out the following duties and responsibilities: • Preparations for the third regional workshop – including the Project Steering Committee meeting and the DiMSUR Executive Board meeting, including drafting content for specific sessions, organization of the agenda, invitations. • Provide technical guidance to the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) for CityRAP implementation in the cities of Lilongwe and Mzuzu. • Support the City Project Coordinator (CPC) in the management and oversight of the activities to be implemented by the Lilongwe City Council (LCC) in the first six months of implementation. • Produce content for communication purposes regarding the project implementation status such as web stories, content for newsletters, leaflets and any other outreach activities, for UN-Habitat platforms. • Provision of substantive inputs to the development of a Regional Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation in Africa.

Qualifications/special skills

• Advanced degree in urban design, architecture, environmental studies, sustainable development or equivalent is required. • Minimum 2 years of working experience in architecture, urban planning, project management or related fields is required. • Familiarity with the concepts of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and urban resilience is required. • Previous working experience with countries in the Global South is desirable.

Languages

English and French are the official working languages for the UN. Fluency in English is required for this job opening.

Additional Information

Not available.

No Fee

THE 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.