Work LocationNairobi
Expected duration6 months
Duties andResponsibilities
Background and justification The current Urban Resilience Building portfolio of UN-Habitat is expanding in the Francophone African countries, especially in the Sub-Saharan Region and the Indian Ocean Region, including the proliferation of the City Resilience Action Planning tool (CityRAP) and other Urban Resilience/Disaster Risk Reduction activities in these countries. The Sahel region has been suffering from different conflicts which originated from indigenous populations claiming independence (Mali, spread into Burkina Faso and Niger) or caused by Boko Haram (North-East Nigeria, Northern Cameroon, Western Chad). As a result, approximately 14 million internally displaced people (IDPs), refugees or returnees have been displaced, with no possibility to return, through the rather porous boundaries of the Sahel. These massive movements of population have profound impacts on land tenure, property and on recipient urban settlements which have sometimes doubled or tripled in size in a few months. Local authorities are ill-prepared for such a rapid increase in population, with great challenges emerging in terms of basic services delivery, housing, fragile livelihoods among others, increasing not only the vulnerability of the population, but also conflict between host and displaced populations and violence within households. UN-Habitat aims at strengthening the Humanitarian-Development-Peace nexus in the region and to mobilize its spatial planning tools and multi-scaled territorial approach to understand the system of cities of the Sahel in order to help make the fast-growing Sahelian urbanization a more sustainable, inclusive, safe and resilient one. Support is needed within UN-Habitat’s Regional Office for Africa (ROAf) for undertaking the implementation of its activities in the Central Sahel (Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal) including the development of a Regional Assessment on the System of Cities of the Sahel and the implementation of the City Resilience Action Planning (CityRAP) Tool. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face multiple challenges due to their climate and remote geography in addition to narrow resource and export bases, exposure to global environmental challenges and external economic shocks. Climate change has triggered many consequences on SIDS such as devastating tropical cyclone seasons, both seasonal and accute drought, increased incidence of heavy rains; and a rise in sea level. Many SIDS face challenges to respond with adequate measures due to limited institutional capacity, scarce financial resources and a high degree of vulnerability to systemic shocks. UN-Habitat’s ROAf is expanding activities for SIDS under the “ROAf SIDS framework on Urban Resilience†and other projects on thematic areas around Urban Resilience, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change. More specifically, ROAf is already contributing to the African regional component of the Development Account (DA) project “Strengthened Capacities of African, Caribbean and Pacific SIDS for Green, Resilient and Pro-poor Pandemic Recovery†in the two pilot countries of Sao Tomé and Comoros. This project focuses on SIDS as a special group of countries that must be reached for a seamless transition to the recovery stage in recognition of the opportunity to transform economic, social and environmental systems towards sustainability and resilience. Comoros, located in the Indian Ocean, is a small and highly vulnerable SIDS. On top of the above-mentioned DA project on SIDS, UN-Habitat’s country program in Comoros implements projects such as the South-Eastern Africa (SEA) Urban Resilience Project with the Adaptation Fund including the implementation of CityRAP in a range of secondary cities, as well as the “Post-Kenneth Recovery and Resilience project†implemented with the Comorian government and funded by the WB, in which UN-Habitat is contributing to the durable development of a normative, legal and institutional framework to help strengthen the resilience of the Comorian territory by delivering technical assistance to the Ministry of Urbanism. Duties and Responsibilities Under the overall supervision of the Human Settlements Officer (HSO) in the Regional Office for Africa, and in close collaboration with the Technical Leading Team (TLT) of the project and the National Project Manager in Comoros, the Urban Resilience Specialist will be responsible of providing substantive and administrative contribution to regional work on the Central Sahel, the African regional component of the DA project on SIDS and the country programme in Comoros. Within the Regional Office for Africa, he/she will have to support in: – Contributing training on writing bankable projects and disseminating the Resilience Framework for Action with purpose of resource mobilization in seven (07) cities under Sahel Urban Resilience project (under Outcome 2 of Sahel project). – Contribute technical assistance for the implementation of the CityRAP tool in Comoros under the SEA Climate Urban Resilience Project. – Contributing technical expertise to the further development of material for the CityRAP tool. – Contributing to the DA15 project in Senegal, Burkina Faso and other French-Speaking LCDs “Harnessing urbanization for a more resilient, inclusive and green recovery in French-speaking Least Developed Countriesâ€. – Providing technical inputs to the delivery of the African regional and pilot components of the project “Strengthened Capacities of African, Caribbean and Pacific SIDS for Green, Resilient and Pro-poor Pandemic Recoveryâ€. – Contributing to the development and delivery of capacity building activities for the different activities of the UN-Habitat portfolio in Comoros.
Qualifications/special skills• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Urban Planning/Design, Architecture, Environmental Studies, Sustainable Development or Development Studies, International Relations and/ or other relevant discipline with a focus on human settlements equivalent is required. • Minimum of 2 years of working experience in Urban Planning, Architecture, Graphic Design, Project Management, or related fields at international level is required. • Familiarity with the concepts of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and urban resilience, and a demonstrable understanding of urban development processes, urban planning, urban social issues, urban policy analysis is required. • Good understanding and knowledge of urbanization issues in the Sahel region. • Experience within multi-cultural international institutions would be considered an asset. Skills • Capacity to analyze and synthesize information. • Ability to work in team and individually to achieve organizational goals with a high degree of responsibility, often under pressure. • Excellent communication and writing skills. • Excellent communication and writing skills.
LanguagesEnglish and French are the working languages of the United Nations. Fluency in oral and written English and French is required. Knowledge of another UN language is an added advantage.
No FeeTHE 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.
