The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the leading global environmental authority that sets the global environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment.
The Climate Change Division is the lead Division charged with carrying out the functions of UNEP in the field of environmental Climate Change. To fulfill its mandate, the work of the Climate Change Division focuses on: working with Members States and Partners to accelerate and support a just transition by addressing mitigation and adaptation gaps through enhancing implementation capacity, access to finance and technology, and building resilience. The Climate Change Division promotes sustainable development and effective policies for climate stability; support action so that countries progress on decarbonization, dematerialization, and resilience pathways in line with their climate commitments, aspirations, and needs; and foster transparency in reporting.
The Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT) was established in 2015 at the COP that adopted the Paris Agreement to support the implementation of the Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework. ICAT provides countries with tailored support and practical tools and methodologies to build robust transparency frameworks needed for effective climate action in sync with national development priorities. The projects ICAT supports relate to: building or enhancing transparency frameworks for mitigation; building a monitoring and evaluation approach for adaptation; building or enhancing frameworks to track progress in implementing nationally determined contributions; assessing the impacts of climate policies; estimating or enhancing projections of greenhouse gases; integrating and/or aggregating climate actions at the subnational level and for non-State actors; building a tracking system for just transition processes; establishing or enhancing a climate data system; and putting in place a framework to track climate finance. The Initiative for Climate Action Transparency is an unincorporated multi-stakeholder partnership steered by the Donor Steering Committee (DSC), conformed by its donors, Austria; Canada; Germany; Italy; the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF); and ClimateWorks Foundation (CWF), and includes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat as the dedicated UN body with a climate change policy mandate, and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS )as an ex-officio member. The Initiative is managed by UNOPS on behalf of the Donor Steering committee DSC. Within UNOPS, the ICAT Secretariat manages ICAT day-to-day activities, coordinating and guiding the work of the implementing partners.
The Government of the Republic of Zambia has committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20,000 Gg CO₂e by 2030 under a Business-as-Usual (BAU) scenario with limited international support, and up to 38,000 Gg CO₂e with substantial international support. It the NDC 2.0 (2021) the priority mitigation sectors included sustainable forest management, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy and energy efficiency, waste management, and industrial processes and product use. In the latest NDC 3.0 Zambia has enhanced its ambition, extending the priorities to include tourism and Infrastructure (buildings). For Adaptation, the efforts has been broadened to include water security.
To meet these goals, Zambia is aiming at strengthening national systems and tools for tracking NDC implementation, with support from the Initiative for Climate Action Transparency (ICAT). Zambia is engaging with ICAT through its international implementing partner, UNEP Copenhagen Climate Center (UNEPCCC). Through this collaboration, the country aims to address gaps in key areas such as NDC data management, policy and measure assessments, and the application of modelling tools for GHG projections and NDC tracking.
The ICAT project will support the establishment of comprehensive data management frameworks for GHG projections and progress monitoring of NDC implementation. The project will strengthen institutional capacities of the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA), the Ministry of Green Economy and Environment (MGEE) and other key sectoral institutions s responsible for NDC implementation. This will include capacity building in GHG emissions projections, baseline development, mitigation scenario analysis, and the tracking and reporting of NDC progress. In alignment with national priorities, the ICAT project will focus on the priority mitigation sectors identified in Zambia’s NDC 3.0
With this background, the ICAT in the Republic of Zambia will focus on:
1. Strengthening national capacity for GHG emission projections through training on methodologies and assessments, in particular for data focal institutions to support effective data collection and management;
2. Developing/Enhancing data management frameworks for GHG emission projections
3. Baseline projections and mitigation scenario development
4. Monitoring and tracking implementation of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) mitigation actions
5. Application of Sustainable Development (SD) ICAT methodologies on NDC tracking For the ICAT implementation in the Republic of Zambia, an expert in GHG baseline projections and mitigation scenario development is required.
The expert/consultant will work in close collaboration with the ICAT local team lead, GHG Inventory Coordinating Agency and the GHG Technical Working Group comprising experts from sector lead institutions for the AFOLU, Energy, Waste and Industrial Processes sectors and other data providers. This is to ensure the effective execution of project activities and timely delivery of project outputs and outcomes. The consultant’s responsibilities will include engaging with national authorities and key stakeholders to support the technical quality and timely submission of all deliverables. The work will contribute to achieving the overall and specific objectives of the ICAT project and in fulfilment of the workplan´s timeline.
International travel will/will not be required for this consultancy. The consultant will work in contact with the Project Coordinator in UNEP CCC, who will supervise technically and follow up on the compliance with the deliverables and the supporting tasks included. Those deliverables will be reviewed and certified within a period of no more than 14 days, after their receipt by the Project Coordinator. In all cases, the deliverables are considered completed after the review and approval of the Project Coordinator of UNEP-CCC.