Bosnia and Herzegovina is known to its rich biological diversity, endemic species and habitats as well as a series of relict ecosystems; species diversity has the highest level of endemism in Europe. Still, in spite of the country’s rich biodiversity, international obligations, and growing man-induced pressures, nature conservation efforts remain insufficient. Socioeconomic challenges, such as unemployment and poverty, have resulted in both the government communities focusing on immediate economic priorities rather than environmental issues, including biodiversity. Thus, biodiversity conservation is not seen as a national priority.

The project objective is to achieve practical improvement in management of protected area estate of BiH, providing for better biodiversity status through strengthened resilience of key biodiversity values to climate change impact and increased revenues to protected areas from sustainable recreation. The project is called to reduce the gap between the current capacities of protected areas (PAs) with their increasing vulnerability to emerging threats, on the one hand, and the growing needs to preserve and sustainably maintain the biological and ecosystem diversity, on the other. The project will aim to reduce newly emerging threats to the key biodiversity values and provide for sustainable management options and increased funding for PAs. The project will make an incremental effort in assisting the protected area management with tools and instruments aimed at diversifying and improving the sustainable, nature- based tourism offering in targeted PAs and neighbouring communities, thus providing for sustainable incremental income and a development option that will valorise the unique nature values without further threatening them. The project will also link the PAs to the funding opportunities provided by the governmental grant programmes for tourism development.

The Project has been financed by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and is directly implemented by UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina Country Office.

Under the direct supervision of the Project Manager, the Project Analyst will support the implementation of the project. The Project Analyst will be responsible for providing operational and technical support to Project Manager and Sector Leader in order to ensure successful implementation of the project activities and attainment of project objectives. These tasks refer both to the provision of support relevant for operational management of the Project (knowledge management and M&E, implementation of UNDP SES requirements and substantive reporting) as well as assuring the high-quality outputs of activities implemented within the Project.

The incumbent will be based in UNDP BiH office in Sarajevo.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Business direction and strategy – Strategic thinking
  • Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDP’s objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, potential risks and opportunities; linking the vision to reality on the ground, and creating tangible solutions.
  • Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP.
• Business direction and strategy – System Thinking
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.
• Business direction and strategy – Effective Decision Making
  • Ability to take decisions in a timely and efficient manner in line with one’s authority, area of expertise and resources.
• Business development – Knowledge Generation
  • Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need.
• Business development – Human-centered Design
  • Ability to develop solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process.
• Digital and Innovation Management – Data analysis         
  • Ability to extract, analyze and visualize data (including Real-Time Data) to form meaningful insights and aid effective decision making.

• Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Nature Sciences, Biotechnical Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Policy Sciences, Economics and or another related field is required.
• Bachelor’s degree in the areas mentioned above, in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.

• Up to two 2 years (with Master’s degree) or 2 years (with Bachelor’s degree) of relevant professional experience including work experience with ministries, national or subnational institutions that are concerned with management of natural resources, climate change and/or environmental management is required.

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Bosnian and/or Croatian and/or Serbian is required.

Required skills:

• Experience and knowledge of political and socio-economic context related to the national protected area system, biodiversity conservation, climate change and law enforcement at national and subnational levels.
• Proven experience in support to managing complex projects and projects component, particularly in politically sensitive environment.
• Proven experience in monitoring and studying the laws and by-laws and in particular documents relating to the environment operations.
• Proven experience to conduct desk research and needs assessments.
• Proven experience and knowledge of environmental management.

Desired skills:

• Experience in analytics and research and turning information into useful knowledge, relevant for biodiversity protection and resilience to climate change impact will be an asset.
• Experience in working with government, donors, and the United Nations system will be an asset.
• Proven experience in development and review of technical assessments, planning documents and financing mechanisms in field of natural resource and/or environmental management and climate change will be an asset.
• Experience and excellent understanding of environmental issues in BiH will be an asset.
• Experience and good understanding of post-war and post-socialist transition context, poverty, and local development support strategies will be an asset.

The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors. References may also include peers.
• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.
• Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns or other materials.