GEF Project Design Specialist

Organizational Setting
The Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment (OCB) works to ensure that countries and stakeholders respond to the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. OCB provides a cross organizational coordination role on these issues and is the focal point to major multilateral environmental agreements including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conferences (UNFCCC), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

OCB also assists FAO Members in their responses towards the interlinked challenges of food security, climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation including through facilitating access to climate and environmental financing such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In addition, OCB hosts the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme, the Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as well as FAO’s work on environmental safeguards and leads the Programme Priority Areas on Climate Change (PPA BE1) and Bioeconomy for Sustainable Food and Agriculture (PPA BE2).

Organizational Setting
The Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment (OCB) works to ensure that countries and stakeholders respond to the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation. OCB provides a cross organizational coordination role on these issues and is the focal point to major multilateral environmental agreements including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conferences (UNFCCC), and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

OCB also assists FAO Members in their responses towards the interlinked challenges of food security, climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation including through facilitating access to climate and environmental financing such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In addition, OCB hosts the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme, the Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as well as FAO’s work on environmental safeguards and leads the Programme Priority Areas on Climate Change (PPA BE1) and Bioeconomy for Sustainable Food and Agriculture (PPA BE2).

FAO is a lead implementing partner agency of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The GEF is a multilateral family of funds dedicated to confronting biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution, and supporting land and ocean health. The GEF is a financing mechanism for five international environmental conventions: the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), the UNCBD, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the UNFCCC that could be financed by the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund, the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF).

FAO is one of the top GEF partner implementing agencies worldwide, with a portfolio of more than 300 projects valued at more than USD 1.8 billion in grant financing and more than USD 10 billion in cofinancing. FAO supports eligible countries in accessing resources from all of the GEF family of trust funds. The Office of Climate and Biodiversity (OCB) hosts the FAO-GEF Coordination Unit (OCB-GEF), which serves as the liaison unit in FAO with the GEF.

OCB-GEF works closely with colleagues from across FAO’s technical divisions and regional and subregional offices in a FAO-GEF community to support countries. GEF project design specialists successfully interviewed, approved, and assigned to this roster will work with this FAO-GEF community worldwide to assist countries. The purpose of this call is to provide the FAO-GEF community with a list of qualified candidates to support and/or lead GEF project formulation, monitoring and evaluation and/or planning processes.

The…