Social and Environmental Standards Analyst

UNDP•New York, NY

About The Position

UNDP’s Social and Environmental Standards (SES) underpin UNDP’s commitment to mainstream social and environmental sustainability in its interventions (portfolios, programs, and projects). The standards aim to: Strengthen the quality of programming by ensuring a principled approach; Maximize social and environmental opportunities and benefits; Avoid adverse impacts on people and the environment; Minimize, mitigate, and manage adverse impacts where avoidance is not possible; Strengthen UNDP and partner capacities for managing social and environmental risks; and Ensure full and effective stakeholder engagement, including through a mechanism to respond to complaints from project-affected people. The SES are an integral component of UNDP’s quality assurance and risk management approach to programming. To this end, UNDP has a global SES team that is hosted by BPPS and involves global and regional SES technical advisors matrixed to relevant Regional Bureaux. The SES team provides advisory and oversight services to UNDP operations, aiming to fuel the integration of SES into project design and guiding the SES risk assessment and management in compliance with the UNDP SES Policy. The UNDP SES team is seeking a junior SES expert that will provide desk research in support of urgent corporate priorities and produce communications materials to support the SES team’s implementation of the 2024 SES audit recommendation on knowledge management. The work will include support to UNDP’s GCF-funded portfolio.

Requirements

Advanced University Degree in the field of development studies, social or environmental/natural sciences, political science, integrated natural resource management, international environmental law or related subjects
A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the areas mentioned above in combination with two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree
Minimum of 2 years of international or national working experience working in fields relevant to social and environmental standards/safeguards such as gender equality, labour standards, stakeholder engagement, grievance redress, biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation etc in the context of international development
Experience in the use of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.)
Experience with graphic design software to create visual pieces and using design software such as Adobe Design Premium, In-Design, Illustrator, CorelDraw, Canva or similar

Nice To Haves

Demonstrated experience in communications for multilateral institutions or other international development agencies
Familiarity with UNDP policies, procedures and practices is desirable

Responsibilities

Refining and rolling out (communications and outreach) of oversight and monitoring templates and tools to strengthen SES and GRM oversight capacity and practices
Elaborating UNDP incident reporting procedure and guidance
Facilitating (inter-)regional learning through case studies and workshops/trainings based on learning from GCF portfolio
Documenting relevant insights to inform future APR reporting, SES guidance, tools, (institutional) oversight mechanisms or support materials
Ensure UNDP maintains a robust set of Social and Environmental Standards that is grounded in UN norms, standards and frameworks, to ensure UNDP remains a high integrity and accountable partner
Collect data on SES implementation to be able to report on corporate SES performance indicators for use within UNDP’s internal decision-making (e.g. Risk Committee) and external communication with donors, partners, and other relevant stakeholders
Regularly review and update UNDP SES risk management procedures based on lessons learned, evolving risks, and feedback from project teams and affected communities
Follow global trends in social and environmental standards and pilot-test new approaches and tools
Continually adapt and build learning-based guidance materials to support effective and efficient implementation
Development of training programs for UNDP staff, partners, consultants, and local stakeholders to ensure they understand and can implement UNDP SES requirements
Support SES awareness raising, capacity-building and institutionalization initiatives in UNDP country offices
Document SES stories and cases and facilitate strengthened knowledge exchange on SES across UNDP and with partners
Maintain a vetted and trained pool of high caliber SES consultants, at global and regional levels and across a range of SES topics, for deployment to support SES implementation