UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s policy work is carried out through a network of advisors and specialists located at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels, to ensure that local knowledge and context specific expertise is linked to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP provides its policy advisory and programme support functions through the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains, in support of the signature solutions and organizational capabilities envisioned in the Strategic Plan. Within the GPN, the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan and works closely with the Crisis Bureau (CB) that has the responsibility to guide and implement UNDP’s corporate crisis-related strategies and vision for crisis prevention, response and recovery. 
 
In line with its Strategic Plan, UNDP supports countries to eradicate poverty and reduce inequalities and exclusion through five inter-related areas of environment and climate work: (i) sustainable management of ecosystem goods and services; (ii) scaling up of climate change adaptation and mitigation; (iii) sustainable, affordable and accessible energy services; (iv) sustainable management of chemicals and waste; (v) improved water and ocean governance. These areas of work are fully aligned with the four environmental outputs of the Strategic Plan and are financed through various sources including the Global Environment Facility, Green Climate Fund, and other bilateral/multilateral donors.
 
UNDP has specialized technical and policy advisory teams in New York, Addis Ababa, Geneva, Istanbul, Bangkok and Panama working to catalyze environmental and climate finance for climate-resilient, sustainable development. These teams provide support to UNDP country offices and work closely with staff in other Bureaus through the Global Policy Network to develop country capacities needed to design and implement regulatory and financial incentives, remove institutional and policy barriers, and create enabling policy framework that attract and drive public and private sector investment into sustainable development and the SDGs. In doing this, UNDP assists partner countries to access, combine, and sequence resources from a wide range of funds, financial instruments, and mechanisms. 
 
UNDP’s Environment, Climate Change, and Energy work is organized into substantive technical teams (Biodiversity, Water and Oceans, Food and Agriculture Systems, Energy and Climate Change Mitigation, Climate Change Adaptation, Chemicals & Waste, and Climate and Forests) with a Principal or Senior Technical Advisor (PTA/STA) being the team leader within each area. Each team leader supports and guides a team of Regional Technical Advisors (RTAs) or Specialists (RTSs) based in regional hubs from where they support UNDP’s country offices and partners in their region, as well as policy and programme advisors or specialists.
 
UNDP recognizes healthy ecosystem services and biodiversity as the foundation of human wellbeing and sustainable development. It sees nature-based solutions as essential solutions for tackling multiple developmental challenges, be they climate crisis, inequality and poverty, insecurity and migration.  UNDP’s approach to bringing the development agenda to biodiversity discourse enables it to engender increased public, business and government support for biodiversity conservation and sound ecosystem management.  broadening the support base necessary for achieving global biodiversity goals. UNDP, as a convener, mobilizes global, national and local level actors, governments, businesses, non-governmental organizations and communities to communicate the value of biodiversity for it to be integrated in national and local development, sector and fiscal planning processes and practices. UNDP, with 300 country level ecosystems and biodiversity projects in 130 countries, combined with a set of global projects, such as the Biodiversity Finance Initiative, Nature for Development Programme, Green Commodities Programme, linked to country level work, connects people on the ground to the national, regional and global decision makers and influencers, as well as fostering exchange and learning between communities, landscapes, governments in different countries and continents.  
 
The Government of Sweden, through Sida, has agreed to fund a four-year, USD$40m global Strategic Collaboration Programme designed to strengthen UNDP capacities to achieve its overall SD vision for poverty eradication through a more integrated, coherent approach to the environmental and climate dimensions of the UNDP Strategic Plan. The priorities of the Framework aim to advance a more integrated, programmatic and strategic approach that strengthens the environmental dimension of UNDP’s overall sustainable development vision. This will involve a medium to long-term process that strengthens UNDP internal institutional capacities to deliver on its Strategic Plan and operationalize its newly formed Global Policy Network (GPN), while in turn also enabling UNDP and partners to more effectively and efficiently deliver on-the-ground results. In this way, this Framework will ensure better dialogue, stronger partnerships, and a more coherent set of country-focused sustainable development solutions.
 
In line with UNDP’s Strategic Plan, the objectives of the Sida Strategic Collaboration Programme, and complementary initiatives, the Senior Technical Advisor, Biodiversity and Nature-based Economy will provide strategic and technical leadership and oversight to UNDP’s global work on wildlife conservation and creation of nature-based economy. This includes technical leadership for Sida Programme work on biodiversity and climate-resilient community development in priority countries and landscapes, through conceptualizing and overseeing a range of actions at the livelihoods-wildlife nexus to unleash synergies between conservation and community development.
 
The Senior Technical Advisor will represent UNDP in global fora, partnerships and initiatives related to biodiversity conservation, and lead on the identification, establishment and strengthening of multi-sector partnerships and programmes to support wildlife conservation that recognize links to poverty reduction, local economy development and good governance, and that facilitate the engagement of non-traditional actors.