Transport Policy Specialist

The project Climate Action Pathways for Island Transport (CAP-IT): Accelerating the Decarbonization of Samoa’s Land and Maritime Transport Sectors is funded by the Government of Japan and implemented by UNDP is implemented over a 24-month period started on February 2023 and ending in February 2025. The UNDP Samoa MCO, Environment and Climate Change Unit (ECC) will implement this project under UNDP’s Direct Implementation Modality (DIM). UNDP will engage government and non-government entities, leveraging existing national institutional frameworks and coordination mechanisms to implement Samoa’s NDC, including the National Energy Coordination Committee as per UNDP. Academic institutions will be engaged to embed upskilling and capacity development efforts to strengthen local human capacity for Samoa’s transition towards zero-carbon islands. UNDP will collaborate with key Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to ensure meaningful engagement with community groups, especially the most marginalized including, women, youth and persons with disabilities across all stages of project implementation, to ensure that the interventions reflect and respond to the specific needs of all. Engagement of government and non-governmental entities will be done following UNDP rules and regulations.

Faced with escalating impacts of climate change compounded by the socioeconomic challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic, Small Island Developing States in the Pacific are taking the initiative in jump starting their green transformation to achieve a clean energy future and increasing resilience to climate pacts. Leveraging the countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that have outline the priorities and targets on clean energy and climate resilience, UNDP’s Climate Promise, the world’s largest offer of support to developing countries on designing and implementing these national climate commitments, is a uniquely positioned platform to support countries achieve ambitious climate targets under the urgent, necessary, and unpredictable situation faced by the Pacific SIDS. The Climate Promise framework serves as the chapeau for the 4 country-level implementations in Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu. The country-level actions and investments have been developed based on country specific needs within this framework to support countries towards realizing their green transformation ambitions for a more inclusive, gender-responsive, climate resilient future.

Samoa: While Samoa’s contribution to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is negligible, climate change mitigation remains a critical government priority in light of the already felt and predicted increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Samoa’s road transport sector, entirely dependent on fossil fuels, is the country’s largest emitter of CO2, accounting for 27.4% of GHG emissions (based on Samoa’s National GHG inventory, 2020). With vehicle ownership having increased by 69.5% since 2013, along with the subsequent increase of fossil fuel imports to meet the growing demands of this sector, the green transformation of the transport sector is a significant and necessary step towards realizing Samoa’s enhanced NDCs. With the transport sub-sector as the main source of GHG emissions within the energy sector (59% is contributed by land transport and 2.2% by maritime transport), Samoa must urgently pivot towards zero-emission economic development across both land and maritime transport systems to realize its Paris Agreement goals. These efforts require adopting a holistic approach addressing existing infrastructure, institutional, and technical limitations for Samoa to build inclusive, climate-resilient transport systems while meeting its sustainable development goals. To this end, the project envisions inclusive and accessible transformational change towards a green and low-carbon transport sector to support the achievement of Samoa’s enhanced NDCs, by creating an enabling environment through strengthened and gender-sensitive institutional governance, financial and technical capacities and accelerating the decarbonization of land and maritime transport systems.

In order to meet Samoa’s Second NDC target to reduce national GHG emissions by 26% from 2007 levels by 2030 (equivalent to 91 Gg CO2e), the rapid decarbonization of both land and maritime transport systems is fundamental. Research-based evidence, best practices and lessons learned globally indicate that a number of interventions can catalyze the paradigm shift required to decarbonize the transport sector, including electrification of transport systems, along with supportive policy and business model innovations to catalyze systemic electrification. 

The CAP-IT project aims to promote urgent and inclusive transformation of the land and maritime transport sectors towards decarbonization by accelerating the uptake of electrical vehicles and outboard motors in support of the achievement of Samoa’s enhanced NDCs for the energy and transport sector by 2030. This will be achieved through a three-fold approach: 

• Creating an enabling environment through strengthened and gender-sensitive institutional governance, financial, legal, and technical capacities for accelerating the decarbonization of both land and maritime transport systems. 
• Accelerating inclusive decarbonization of the land transport sector with a focus on adoption and imports of electric vehicles and accessible electrification service networks targeting public transport and public service delivery vehicles. 
• Introducing and piloting low-carbon outboard motors for Samoa’s fishing fleet through a gender sensitive grant mechanism for local fisherfolk and training scheme on installation, operation, and maintenance. 

This programme strategy takes a comprehensive gender-sensitive approach, based on the principles of leaving no one behind, towards green and zero-emission transformational change in the transport sector. Guided by the Samoa NDC Implementation Roadmap and Investment Plan (2021), the strategy identifies critical enablers supporting accelerated nationwide decarbonization of the land and maritime transport sector. Each pathway identified will ensure equal participation, access, and safety of land and maritime transport for all, focusing on marginalized groups such as women, the elderly, youth, children, and PWDs. In doing so, women and other marginalized groups who are too often neglected in the planning and implementation phases will be provided with a platform to ensure all perspectives are considered and factored in throughout project design and implementation.

Transport Policy Specialist will report to the Project Manager and work collaboratively with the international consultancy engaged by the UNDP CAP-IT team.

Support for implementation of the CAP-IT activities:

Activity 1.1: Legislative and Policy Framework Review

• Provide strategic guidance and oversight for the review and update of Samoa’s legislative and policy framework related to low-carbon transport.
• Collaborate with the international consultancy to align policies with international best practices.

Activity 1.2: Transport Optimization and Energy Efficiency Review

• Offer expertise in the review of the current transport system, guiding the identification of optimization and energy efficiency opportunities.
• Collaborate closely with the international consultancy to provide recommendations for enhancing energy efficiency in the transportation sector.

Activity 1.3: Decarbonization Strategy Development

• Provide strategic input for the development of a gender responsive Decarbonization Strategy aligned with the Sector Plan for Land and Maritime Transport.
• Work in collaboration with the international consultancy to include sub-sector specific NDC emission target reductions, abatement measures, and a monitoring framework.

Activity 1.4: Scoping and Feasibility Study on Investment Shifts

• Oversee the scoping and feasibility study on investment shifts away from carbon-intensive transport.
• Collaborate with the international consultancy to identify gender-responsive innovative finance mechanisms to support Samoa’s low-carbon transition.

Activity 2.1: Baseline Assessment

• Provide guidance on the baseline assessment of traffic volumes, vehicle registration, imports, ownership (disaggregated by gender and age), EV and hybrid vehicles, and market demand.
• Collaborate with the international consultancy to ensure comprehensive insights and analysis.

Activity 2.4: Sustainable Land Use and Mobility Plan

• Offer strategic direction for the development of a gender-sensitive Sustainable Land Use and Mobility Plan.
• Collaborate closely with the international consultancy to ensure alignment with project objectives and national development goals.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

 Competencies:

Core competencies:

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact. 
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems. 
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences.
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands. 
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results.
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration.
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity.

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies 

Business Direction and Strategy        

• Collective Intelligence Design: Ability to bringing together diverse groups of people, data, information or ideas, and technology to design services or solutions.

Business Development           

• Human-centred Design: Ability to develop solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process.

Business Management           

• Working with Evidence and Data: Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making.

Digital Innovation

• Experience Design: Knowledge of experience design methodologies and ability to design end-to-end experiences that meet user and business needs.
• User-centred design, user research, user testing: Knowledge of user-centred design methodologies and ability to apply them practically.

20230 Agenda: Planet              

• Nature, Climate and Energy : Climate change Policies: including international climate change regime and application: Climate Change Policies: Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)