Technical Officer; Regional GEF​/Eastern Europe Asia)

Position: Technical Officer (Regional GEF/Eastern Europe Central Asia)
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 Secretariats of the International 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 specialized technical UN Agency, applying unique technical knowledge, information and capacity to one of the world's great challenges: feeding 9 billion people while maintaining and restoring the environment. The FAO-GEF portfolio - currently comprised of over 400 projects worth over USD 2 billion in GEF investments - is growing steadily as countries demand more of what FAO has to offer.

As a GEF Agency, FAO works with Member Nations and partners to access GEF financing for strategic projects that help countries achieve sustainable food systems transformation to improve agriculture production, access value chains, reduce hunger and improve nutrition all while sustainably utilizing and conserving biodiversity, improving land and water management, reducing pollution, and mitigating and adapting to climate change. The GEF Programme is aligned with FAO's core competencies and strategic priority areas, including sustainable agriculture, fisheries, forestry and land and water management.

FAO's GEF portfolio extends across all five of GEF's focal areas (Biodiversity, Climate Change, Land Degradation, International Waters, and Chemicals and Waste) as well as the Least Developed Countries Fund, the Special Climate Change Fund (LDCF/SCCF) and the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF). The Europe and Central Asia Region is a small but mighty part of FAO's GEF programme, comprising 7% of the total FAO-GEF portfolio.

The OCB-GEF Unit provides thematic advice and guidance to FAO in the key priority programming areas of the GEF and works closely with colleagues from across FAO to help Member Nations in developing projects for GEF financing and their implementation. This position will serve as a key member of the FAO-GEF team in the Europe
- Central Asia region while providing high-quality thematic guidance and specific technical knowledge to OCB-GEF team, FAO-GEF teams in other regions, countries, and partners to support project development and implementation.

This position is located in the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment (OCB) at FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy.

Reporting Lines The Technical Officer (Regional GEF/Eastern Europe Central Asia) reports to the Executive Coordinator, OCB-GEF Unit, and works in close coordination with REU-GEF Focal Point, REU BH and the OCB-GEF team.

Technical Focus Identification, design, implementation support and monitoring of FAO-GEF projects and programmes and those of other environmental financing mechanisms. It includes supporting and contributing to strategic and policy work, with a focus on the nexus between global environmental challenges and sustainable agriculture, including climate change and resilience, land, water, fisheries, forestry, biological diversity and other environmental services.

Key Results Research, technical analysis and project related services to support the delivery of programme projects, products and services.

Key Functions Researches and analyses technical, social, economic, environmental, institutional and technology related information, data and statistics and/or related policy issues to support the delivery of programme projects, products and services.

Produces a variety of technical information, data, statistics and reports as well as input for technical documents and web pages.

Provides technical support/analysis to various assessments, studies and initiatives; provides technical backstopping to field projects.

Collaborates in the development of improved/updated tools, systems, processes and databases.

Participates in multidisciplinary teams and/or leads working groups/teams; collaborates with other Divisions/Offices/Centres and promotes best practices.

Collaborates in, provides…