Posting Title: Urban and Participatory Planning Project Lead Department/Office: United Nations Human Settlements Programme Duty Station: NAIROBI Posting Period: 17 March 2021 - 27 March 2021 Job Opening Number: 21-United Nations Human Settlements Programme-151978-Individual Contractor United Nations Core Values: Integrity, Professionalism, Respect for Diversity Result of Service To provide technical support to the programme Work Location Nairobi (Home-based during COVID-19 restrictions) Expected duration 6 months Duties and Responsibilities Background The United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-Habitat, is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. The main documents outlining the mandate of the organization are the Vancouver Declaration on Human Settlements, the Habitat Agenda, the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements, the Declaration on Cities and Other Human Settlements in the New Millennium, and UN General Assembly Resolution A/56/206. The Urban Practices Branch (UPB) is the thematic branch at UN-Habitat with a mandate to develop normative and operational support to national and local government in urban planning, design and management related areas of work, such as national urban policies, metropolitan planning, strategic and detailed planning, urban-rural linkages, urban regeneration, public space, urban planning and innovation and urban planning and climate change. The Planning, Finance and Economy Section (PFES), inside UPB, is the section focused on the areas of territorial planning, strategic and structure planning, detailed planning, urban regeneration, neighbourhood design, public space, urban economy and finance. Following 10 years of experience in building cloud infrastructure, data center companies have realized that participatory and sustainable urban planning is crucial to ensuring that datacenters - large installations where servers are stored - contribute to their communities, comprising datacenter employees, affiliates and host communities, in a positive way. As part of the efforts to make datacenter communities more sustainable and inclusive, UN-Habitat has been requested to support the indexing, benchmarking and participatory planning component of the industry. The project related to this consultancy covers a 9 months "Second phase" of an anticipated 3-4 year project. Across the 3-4 years, UN-Habitat proposes to bring its expertise and experience in urban planning and design to provide support to the datacenter industry to build and operate data centers that have a measured increased positive social, economic and environmental impact in local communities. UN-Habitat will apply participatory and sustainable urban planning methodologies and approaches to specific datacenter locations, as well as provide technical advice to the development of wider urban planning strategy. Combined, this will lead to concrete improvements in datacenter communities as well as a long-term strategic shift in datacenter community sustainability and inclusivity. As a result of the Discovery Phase of the project developed during 2019 and 2020, UN-Habitat developed a series of recommendations for the better integration of urban planning processes and tools into data-center communities. The "Second phase" of the project focuses in 5 activities: Support datacenter leadership to strengthen their capacity to utilize the results of the Discovery phase, Apply UN-Habitat's approach in two more datacenter communities in countries to be confirmed Carry out action planning in two Swedish towns Organize two digital public participation projects in two Swedish towns and, Outline a dynamic playbook to capture all key facets of the project and enable the industry to apply sustainable and inclusive urban planning and stakeholder engagement processes across its datacenter community development portfolio. The Individual Contractor will work under the direct supervision of the Programme Management Officer of the Planning, Finance and Economy Section with the overall supervision of the Chief of the PFES and Coordinator of UPB. She/he will contribute to the implementation the project by performing the following tasks: 1. Manage the technical and operational components of the "Second Phase" of the project. 2. Liaise with international and national and local stakeholders to coordinate the activities related to the project including workshops, meetings, site visits and outreach/communication. 3. Liaise with the project donor to coordinate activities and reports, 4. Organize the participatory process, including workshops and bilateral meetings with datacenter communities, partners and local government 5. Support the identification of priority areas and projects for the implementation of concrete projects to improve the quality of life of datacenters' communities. 6. Conduct research and gather required data at the national and local level according to the requirements of the project in the area of participatory urban planning 7. Co-organize and co-deliver workshops and trainings in coordination with the project team on participatory urban planning, 8. Communicate with national and local stakeholders to identify additional resources for the participatory planning process and project implementation. 9. Support translation activities from Swedish to English and vice versa during the project duration and the participatory activities 10. Prepare reports related to the activities conducted in English to support reporting activities to the donor Qualifications/special skills Competency: Professionalism: Knowledge and understanding of theories, concepts and approaches relevant to urban planning and design. Strong analysis of urban form, urban systems, underlying social, legal and financial mechanisms and the political context. Ability to develop strong graphic materials (concept plans, diagrams, street sections) as well as substantive reports. Knowledge of urban development issues. Knowledge of approaches to stakeholder engagement/management, participatory design and conflict resolution. Planning and Organizing: Ability to prioritize activities and assignments and to easily switch between different projects. Management: Ability to manage smaller project teams, divide workload and sustain efficiency. Teamwork: Ability to work collaboratively with colleagues to achieve agreed goals. Communication: Excellent written and oral presentation skills in English. Excellent capacity to produce and manipulate graphic documents and drawings. Good presentation skills. Ability to communicate complex interventions in a clear language and convincing narratives. Sketching capabilities to effectively communicate in workshop settings and teams. Academic Qualifications: Advanced University degree in Architecture or Urban Planning, or related social science field discipline that is relevant for sustainable urban development and urban planning and design is required. A first-level university degree in combination with two years experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree Experience: Minimum 5 years experience in project management and participatory planning with working experience in drawing and preparing plan graphical material using computer assisted design tools is required. Strong graphic representation skills required. Good hand drawing / sketching is an advantage. Experience in stakeholder participation, engagement and management is required. Language: English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this position, fluency in English and Swedish is required. Knowledge of another UN language is an advantage. 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. cb7cDFy-owT1v
