Policy and Institutions Analyst

Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes and assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data-driven, including in its programme support efforts.

UNDP’s approach to forestry aligns with the SDG 15 and contributes to UNDP's 'signature solution' on environment and nature-based solutions for development. Deforestation and forest degradation accounts for more than 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and it is clear that the stabilization of global temperatures cannot be achieved without reducing emissions from the forest sector. UNDP's Climate and Forests programme supports countries to conserve and sustainably manage forests and ensure sustainable and equitable development paths that lead towards carbon neutrality. More information here: www.climateandforests-undp.org.

Forests support the livelihoods of over 1 billion people and host the largest share of the world’s biodiversity. UNDP provides expertise in stakeholder engagement, social and environmental safeguards, governance, institutional coordination, strategic planning, implementation of policies and measures to address drivers of deforestation, access to innovative finance and results-based payments. UNDP also facilitates the necessary partnerships to address the complex elements of the REDD+ process.

UNDP is supporting the Government of Kenya on policies and partnerships around forest solutions to the climate crisis. The evolving policy framework on forests and land use, including inter alia the Forest Conservation and Management, Devolution, Community Land and Climate Change Acts and the Lands and Draft Forest Policy, ongoing work on Carbon markets readiness and others, provide the overall vision, policies, measures, and actions to address deforestation, forest degradation and barriers to sustainable forest management in Kenya. UNDP support is provided through several inter-related avenues, notably the national REDD+ and the NDC implementation processes. UNDP supports these processes through diverse teams and projects, particularly the UNDP/Kenya office, the UNDP Climate & Forests programme, the UN-REDD partnership, and the Climate Promise initiative, among others.

In this context, the Analyst will build on the progress and achievements in past years and will aim to support policy processes to enable the contribution of forest-based solutions to climate change mitigation. The main objective is to assist government and other national/regional stakeholders to consolidate progress on their processes and initiatives on forest solutions and forest finance instruments such as carbon markets in Kenya, while fostering UNDP synergies and harnessing new finance opportunities in the domain.

The Policy and Institutions Analyst will support the UNDP Climate & Forest work in East Africa, with a focus in Kenya, as follows: 

1. NDC implementation, financing and tracking: Support to the forest pillar of the UNDP Climate Promise initiative in Kenya, notably the effective operationalization and management of the IPLC Community Grants Programme and the development of the NDC implementation plan/roadmap for the LULUCF sector linked to the REDD+ National Strategy and REDD+ Investment Plan; 
2. National REDD+ process consolidation : Support to UNDP Kenya on the consolidation of national REDD+ outcomes from the REDD+ Readiness Project as follows: 1) finalization of the National REDD+ Investment Plan, and support government and stakeholders to identify 1-2 REDD+ priority interventions in Kenya, aligning and exploring  investments through other climate finance instruments such as green bonds; 2) operationalization of the Safeguards Information System, and support with the submission of the Kenya’s first Summary of Information to the UNFCCC Secretariat; and 3) development of a  jurisdictional REDD+ concept to accelerate the implementation of forest-based solutions (this will be one of the REDD+ priority interventions defined in (1)); 
3. Carbon markets readiness support: Support to on-going institutional and regulatory capacity building process for implementing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, including the finalization of the national Carbon Markets Access Strategy, further engagement into the LEAF, and sumbmission of a TREES document to the ART/TREES Secretariat;
4. International Kenya Outreach: Support the engagement and positioning of Kenya on forest and climate solutions in Africa-wide and international processes, including organization of events at  the Africa Climate Summit, the Africa Climate Week and the Climate COP28; in collaboration with the  the Forest Declaration Platform and the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership; 
5. Knowledge Management & Regional Cooperation: Support regional knowledge exchanges and south-south experience sharing between Kenya and other developing countries on various thematic areas (such as carbon markets, nesting). Generation and dissemination of knowledge products and communication materials related to the above-mentioned streams, including progress and innovations of Kenya on forest protection/restoration, NDC implementation and financing, Support regional country and stakeholder events in which the UNDP Climate & Forests team engages;
6. The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

            Institutional Arrangement

The Policy and Institutions Analyst will report to the Senior Regional Technical Advisor, Climate & Forests (Africa), together with the UNDP/Kenya Environment Team Leader. S/he will be office-based, following arrangements with the UNDP Kenya Country Office, and will be given access to relevant information necessary for the execution of the tasks under this assignment.  

2030 Agenda: Planet: Nature, Climate & Energy : Climate & Forests: National REDD+ Strategies and Processes

2030 Agenda: Planet: Nature, Climate & Energy: Climate & Forests: Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation

2030 Agenda: Planet: Nature, Climate & Energy: Climate Change Policies: Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)

Digital & Innovation: Futures & foresight: Ability to look at information from the past and present, identify patterns and trends and use them to inform decision making with a long-term view.

• Being sensitive and able to scan horizons and pick up weak signals of change, explore their potential implications and assess their impact and urgency. 
• Using creativity and imagination to communicate insights in compelling and engaging ways to challenge current mental models; ability to develop scenarios, speculative designs to present future visions or by making it experiential. 
• Being able to facilitate debate and discussion about possible futures; help people to feel comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty. 

Digital & Innovation: Solutions mapping:Ability to appreciate and integrate various sources of knowledge (academic, experiential, observational, traditional, indigenous) in problem solving processes. 

• Having the sensitivity and ability to identify grassroots solutions, capacities, assets, coping strategies that impacted communities have developed or used to address (emerging) development challenges. 
• Being able to understand these solutions from a people's perspective and learn about the conditions that enable or prevent communities from developing such grassroots solutions or coping mechanisms. 
• Understand how solutions and needs are paired, and how grassroots solutions can be used as an entry point to identify unaddressed or unmet development challenges and how to use these insights to inform policy design. 
• Ability to reverse engineer solutions, understanding what aspects (artefactual, principles, conditions, configuration) can be scaled and how, being able to assess their potential to be transferred to other domains, regions or contexts and build a case for that. 
• Ability to appreciate and integrate various sources of knowledge (academic, experiential, observational, traditional, indigenous) in problem solving processes. Set up structures and processes to collect ideas, solutions and facilitate matchmaking between supply and demand of solutions." 

Business Direction and Strategy: System Thinking: Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.

Partnership management: Multi-stakeholder engagement and funding: Knowledge and ability to forge multi-stakeholder partnerships, and remove any obstacles to resource mobilization and multi-stakeholder funding platforms.

• Minimum of 2 years experience (with master's degree ) or 4 years experience (with bachelor's degree) of progressive work experience in natural resources management and sustainable development.