UN-HABITAT Local Urban Planning Consultant Jobs in Kenya

UN-HABITAT Local Urban Planning Consultant Jobs in Kenya

About UN-HABITAT

UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable and resilient towns and cities. It is the focal point agency for all urbanization and human settlement matters within the UN system. UN-Habitat envisions well-planned, well-governed and efficient cities and towns, with adequate housing, infrastructure and universal access to employment and basic services such as water, energy, and sanitation.

UN-Habitat Urban Planning and Design Lab
The Urban Planning and Design Lab (Urban Lab) is an initiative from UN-Habitat to promptly respond to the requests of national and local governments to support sustainable urban development. The Urban Lab is the integrative facility of the Agency where innovative processes and partnerships are translated into tangible and transformative solutions to complex urban challenges.

Throughout, the Urban Lab acts as a neutral broker, managing knowledge in complex stakeholder settings to resolve multi-sectoral, multi-scalar and multi-stakeholder challenges.

The Lab brings together a multidisciplinary team of urban planners, environmental, data-science, mobility, legal and financial experts, providing a holistic and proactive approach to sustainable urbanization. Hence, the Lab captures the necessary thematic disciplines, experts, actors and stakeholders.

In this context, the Urban Lab applies an integrated approach to systemic and strategic planning to deliver transformative change for sustainable urbanization and to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the New Urban Agenda.

The Urban Lab falls under the Planning, Finance and Economy Section, which is part of the Urban Practices Branch and Global Solutions Division

Resilience Informed Urban Planning support to the Naryn Urban Resilience Programme (NURP), Kyrgyzstan

The Kyrgyz Republic is a land-locked, lower-middle-income country located in Central Asia. Most of Kyrgyzstan’s borders run along mountain crests. Kyrgyzstan’s great distance from the oceans and the sharp change of elevation from adjacent plains strongly influence the country’s climate.

Deserts and plains surround Kyrgyzstan on the north, west, and southeast, making the contrast with the climate and landscape of its mountainous interior all the more striking. The challenges indicate that resilience strategies need to consider the increasing unpredictability of natural hazards. Impacts from natural hazards are both physical and infrastructural impacts as well as impacts to individual investments into social and economic development measures.

Naryn is the capital of Naryn oblast and nowadays the main functional and territorial entities inherent in cultural, educational, administrative, business, trade and industrial oblast centers are developing here. The landscape of the area with the elongated narrow strip of urban neighborhoods is the slight slopes of the coastal terraces of the mountain river Naryn, the channel of which runs along the bottom of a deep floodplain.

The national initiatives contributes to the effective development, increasing the growth rate of the economy of Naryn and the region through attracting direct international investment in the economy, which will enhance the role of Naryn Oblast in the nationwide differentiation of labor. Thus, in the medium and long term, the city of Naryn has a huge potential to become an important “growth point” of the socio-economic development of Naryn Oblast.

Despite the socio economic, spatial, and environmental challenges, there are opportunities for the country to shape urban development to increase resiliency and foster economic opportunities. As such, the major focus should be on achieving an adequate standard of infrastructure to ensure adequate living conditions and to support local economic development.

To address the challenges and trends of urbanisation, UN-Habitat in partnership with AKAH will support and contribute to long term national and regional strategies in achieving the SDGs through improving urban, socio-economic, and environmental resiliency in Nary. The proposed targeted interventions and city-wide strategies will propose spatial recommendations which can be scaled up to address broader challenges at the regional level.

The objective of UN-Habitat’s assignment is to provide advisory support to the Aga Khan Foundation Kyrgyzstan (AKF, part of the Aga Khan Development Network, AKDN) and related Aga Khan (AK) agencies and Naryn’s government in strengthening resilient urban planning and development capacities in Naryn city, Naryn oblast and at the national level as a basis for sustainable economic development.

Reporting and Communication

The consultant will be hired under the overall supervision of the Head of the Urban Lab. The consultant will report to the Project Manager for Naryn in the Urban Lab according to the activities need. The consultant is expected to continuously liaise and coordinate with the Urban Lab, and a minimum of one follow-up calls a week will take place to discuss the activities development at the country level.

The activities developed by the consultant, including meetings and communications with local stakeholders at the country and city level, will be discussed and agreed in advance with the Project Manager in the Urban Lab.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of the Chief of the Planning, Finance and Economy Section, the Urban Lab manager, in coordination with the UN-Habitat Regional Offices and in close collaboration with UN- Habitat thematic Sections, the incumbent of the post will have to fulfill the following duties and responsibilities:

Provide technical support to the project team with stakeholder engagement and communication.

Facilitate the communication between stakeholders and overcome potential linguistic barriers.

Provide technical support to the project team to collect accurate data from city authorities to be used in the preparation of urban plans.

Advise and work with the Urban Lab team to analyse, collect, compile and interpret data to guide and inform the Naryn project;

Provide technical expertise in urban design proposals for the Naryn project;

Provide technical expertise for the urban design guidelines and building codes for Naryn.

Review project outputs and provide technical recommendations.

Adapt and develop methodologies and approaches for sustainable urbanisation and resilience planning.

Provide technical advice for the development of the capacity building activities and thematic learnings to build capacity of city authorities.

Host multi-stakeholder workshops, including organization and moderation.

Coordinate with project partners on participants attendance and arrangements of any logistical needs for engagement events like workshops, focus groups, exhibitions.

Translate key documents in English and Kyrgyz.

Safeguard the cross-cutting issues of the project that are considered in each project: Climate Change, Gender Equality, Human Rights, Youth, Children and Elderly Persons, and Disability.

Engage on other activities with the Urban Lab and the Planning, Finance and Economy Section if required.

Qualifications/special skills

Academic Qualifications/Education:

Minimum advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in Architecture, Urban Planning and Design, Urban and Environmental Studies, or related field that is relevant for sustainable urban development is required. A first-level university degree in combination with two years qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Work Experience:

A minimum of 2 years of experience in all levels of urban planning and design with direct proven experience in drawing and preparing plan graphical material using computer assisted design tools is required.

Strong writing and text editing skills in English required.

Experience working with government entities and/or international organizations will be an asset.

Good hand drawing / sketching of macro-scale plans is an advantage.

Experience in regional and territorial scale planning will be considered an advantage.

The candidate may present a portfolio of plans and designs of which he/she is the author.

Language skills:

For this consultancy, fluency in oral and written English and Kyrgyz is required. Knowledge of Russian language will be an asset.

How to Apply

For more information and job application details, see; UN-HABITAT Local Urban Planning Consultant Jobs in Kenya

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