The Urban-Act project supports the transformation towards low-carbon and resilient urban development in the Asia-Pacific region. It assists government partners in aligning policies, regulations, and services with climate and sustainability targets. The project invests in knowledge transfer to strengthen the capacities of institutions, decision-makers, and technical staff. Despite the commitment of Urban-Act partner countries (China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand) to their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and national urban policies, barriers remain in managing a successful transition to sustainable and climate-friendly urban development.
Urban-Act focuses on four key outputs: improving the institutional environment for climate-sensitive urban development; implementing evidence-based and inclusive climate-sensitive spatial and urban planning; identifying project concepts for urban climate action investment; and enhancing knowledge through regional networking, exchange, and learning. Additionally, the Urban-Act Webinar Series strengthens the project’s knowledge sharing and learning approach at regional, national, and city levels.
Through twelve structured monthly webinars featuring expert presentations and interactive components, Urban-Act project partners and external participants will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue and enhance their practical knowledge of low-carbon and climate-sensitive urban development.
To date, the United Nations and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), along with partners, support the transformation towards low-carbon, resilient urban development in the Asia-Pacific. ESCAP enhances climate-conscious knowledge by facilitating communication and knowledge exchange between the Urban-Act project and external stakeholders. By engaging external experts to raise awareness of key issues in climate action for low-carbon, resilient cities, Urban-Act partners, pilot countries, and cities can reflect on their learnings and actions implemented throughout the project. All these efforts will be achieved through conducting research on existing regional and national smart city initiatives and frameworks to extract lessons learned and best practices, facilitating stakeholder engagement to support research and validation processes, developing practical regional and national guidelines, establishing metrics for success, and facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing.
To support the development of Urban Act Project implementation, ESCAP is seeking an Cities and Climate Change Technical Assistant and research who will fulfill the following duties and responsibilities under the direct supervision of ESCAP’s Sustainable Urban Development Section and the Project Coordinator. Objective: The Urban-Act project aims to support the transformation towards low-carbon and resilient urban development as well as contribute to the implementation of national climate change targets and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Under the direct supervision of the Urban-Act project coordinator and general supervision of Chief, Sustainable Urban Development Section, the Cities and Climate Change Technical Assistant will be responsible for visualizing data for Urban-Act knowledge products, in particular policy briefs as well as Voluntary Local Review. The role encompasses research, data analysis and visualization for climate data analytics, coordinating the delivery of Urban-Act climate conscious webinar series, including managing registration, certification and zoom technical coordination; support end-to-end video production for urban act knowledge products and media outreach; and support with additional administrative support for events related to Urban-Act as needed.