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 carried out at HQ, Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy. In this context, UNDP invests in the Global Policy Network (GPN), a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains and 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.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocatesf or UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Bureau (CB) to support emergency and crisis response.  BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working.  BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts. 
 
UNDP’s 2018-2021 Strategic Plan emphasizes the critical links between environmental sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and broader efforts to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda and Paris Agreement. As part of the Global Policy Network in the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support, UNDP’s Nature, Climate Change, and Energy (NCE) Team promotes and scales up integrated whole-of-governance approaches and nature-based solutions that reduce poverty and inequalities, strengthen livelihoods and inclusive growth, mitigate conflict, forced migration and displacement, and promote more resilient governance systems that advance linked peace and security agendas. 
 
The NCE Team works with governments, civil society, and private sector partners to integrate natural capital, environment and climate concerns into national and sector planning and inclusive growth policies; support country obligations under Multilateral Environmental Agreements; and implement the UN’s largest portfolio of in-country programming on environment, climate change, and energy. This multi-billion dollar portfolio encompasses: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services including forests; Sustainable Land Management and Desertification including food and commodity systems; Water and Ocean Governance including SIDS; Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation; Renewable and Modern Energy; Extractive Industries; Chemicals and Waste Management; Environmental Governance and Green/Circular Economy and SCP approaches. This work advances crosscutting themes on innovative finance, digital transformation, capacity development, human rights, gender equality, health, technology, and South-South learning.
 
In addition to UNDP’s bilateral partnerships on natural capital, environment and climate, UNDP is an accredited multilateral implementing agency of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Multilateral Fund (MLF), the Adaptation Fund (AF) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) which  includes the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund (GEF Trust Fund); the Nagoya Protocol Implementation Fund (NPIF); the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF); and the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF)). As part of UNDP’s partnership with these vertical funds, UNDP provides countries specialized integrated technical services for eligibility assessment, programme formulation, capacity development, policy advice, technical assistance, training and technology transfer, mobilization of co-financing, implementation oversight, results management and evaluation, performance-based payments and knowledge management services. 
 
The UNDP Water & Ocean Governance Programme is one of the main global mechanisms contributing to the delivery of the freshwater and ocean aspects of the UNDP Strategic Plan and the organization’s contribution toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The WOGP set of projects and programmes bring a diverse suite of actors together to address the challenges related to SDG 6: sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, and SDG 14: to conserve and sustainably use ocean, seas and marine resources. The WOGP consists of a number of coordinated programmes and projects that deliver on particular aspects and subthemes, and support water, coastal and ocean-related endeavors throughout UNDP and in collaboration with a wide range of implementation partners, including governments, the UN system, intergovernmental organizations, NGOs and the private sector.  The WOGP works at national, local, global and regional levels to enhance ‘good water and ocean governance’ in five mutually reinforcing and inter-linked thematic areas:

• Safe, equitable and climate-resilient water and sanitation services;
• Integrated coastal and watershed management;
• Transboundary rivers, lakes and aquifers;
• Large Marine Ecosystems and regional fisheries;
• Global, cross-cutting and learning.

The Environmental Finance Unit is organized into substantive technical teams (Biodiversity, Water and Oceans, 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) and Specialists (RTSs).  As well as being a member of a technical team, each RTA/RTS is also a member of a regional team, which consists of RTAs/RTSs from all technical teams working together under the leadership of a Regional Team Leader (RTL).  The regional teams are based in regional hubs (Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Istanbul, Panama) from where they support UNDP’s country offices and partners in their region.  
 
The RTS for Water, Ecosystems and Biodiversity works under the overall supervision of the Environmental Finance Unit PTAs on Water & Oceans and Ecosystems and Biodiversity. RTSs have a secondary line of reporting to the Regional Team Leaders based in the Regional Hubs. The RTS will be based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, will supervise one Programme Associate, and is expected to travel frequently. RTSs may be periodically redeployed, in accordance with capability, consent, and due process, to a different regional hub as needed.