Research support in Sustainable Energy for Development

Details

Mission and objectives

The UNDP Sustainable Energy Hub is a network of partners that work alongside countries to transform energy systems though an integrated agenda focused on the policy, technology and financial shifts that shape sustainable economic development. We help countries build net-zero, people-centered societies driven by a just, sustainable energy transition. Our core principle is to promote an integrated agenda that supports energy for development, including by mobilizing partners to enable 500 million additional people to have access to sustainable, reliable, affordable energy by 2025, leaving no-one behind.   
The global transformation of energy systems has already started, but is being altered by the current geopolitical context. However, this transformation must be accelerated, and it must be done in a way that advances the Sustainable Development Goals. The Sustainable Energy Hub is UNDP’s answer to these challenges. To drive the systems-level change needed, the Sustainable Energy Hub aims to bring about a completely new way of thinking, doing business, connecting people and knowledge.  
UNDP’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan has put sustainable energy at the heart of a joint corporate mission, and UN-Energy has pledged to reaching key energy milestones by 2025. UNDP will focus efforts on mobilizing partners and catalzing action to provide access to sustainable, affordable, and reliable energy – both electricity and clean cooking – to 500 million people by 2025, focusing on the world’s poorest communities. UNDP will not do this alone – our role here is to mobilize strong, meaningful, impactful partnerships to deliver action on the ground. We aim to bring about a new way of thinking about energy and advocate for an integrated, inclusive approach, where all stakeholders participate meaningfully in its design.

Context

The Sustainable Energy Hub (SEH) is a network of partners that work alongside countries to transform energy systems though an integrated agenda focused on the policy, technology and financial shifts that shape sustainable economic development. We help countries build net-zero, people-centered societies driven by a just, sustainable energy transition. Our core principle is to promote an integrated agenda that supports energy for development, including by mobilizing partners to enable 500 million additional people to have access to sustainable, reliable, affordable energy by 2025, leaving no-one behind.   
One of the three pillars of the SEH offer is Thought Leadership, which includes a development of materials to guide the conversation and agenda on sustainable energy in order to contribute to global strategic objectives and policy. To this end, the SEH is seeking online volunteers to support in the research effort to contribute innovative and data-driven ideas to support this effort.

Task description

Conducting research on themes related to energy and the sustainable development nexus, the volunteers will contribute to thought leadership publications including bulletins, policy briefs, talking points, and training materials to support development stakeholders in sustainable energy and support global policy. The key roles of the volunteer include to:
– Conduct thorough research on specified themes related to energy and sustainable development, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy policy, and climate change.
– Collect and analyze data from various sources, including academic journals, industry reports, and case studies.
– Contribute to the development of research papers, policy briefs, and presentations that will support UNDP’s sustainable energy initiatives.
– Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team of experts and stakeholders to exchange knowledge and insights.
Multiple volunteers will be selected to create a research team, and each member of the team will focus on a specific thematic area according to expertise including in gender, critical minerals, AI, finance, etc.
The final outputs from this assignment include, within the specific thematic area chosen based on your expertise:
– the completion of a special edition bulletin,
– contribution to a policy brief,
– development of a literature review,
– drafting of a 2 minute video script,
– curation of a dataset of statistics and published resources,
– support to generation a set of several infographics