Climate Adaptation Economics Consultant

The consultant will support the development and application of a policy-relevant evidence base on the adaptation finance gap for children, quantifying the cost of adapting child-critical social services to climate change and estimating the economic and socio-economic returns of these investments. The work will inform policy, planning and financing decisions to support social sector commitments in NDCs and National Adaptation Plans.

Responsibilities

• Conduct baseline and evidence mapping of existing data and research on adaptation needs and costs of child-critical social services, including relevant approaches to assessing the economic and socio-economic returns of adaptation investments.
• Develop a replicable costing framework for child-responsive adaptation, including the financial costs of adaptation and the full scope of returns.
• Apply and test the methodology in one or more selected country contexts, to be agreed during the inception phase, taking into account data availability, methodological requirements, and policy relevance.
• Generate country-level estimates and assess feasibility of developing broader headline estimates of adaptation finance needs and returns for children, including through application across additional countries, regional analysis and/or extrapolation.
• Produce a scalable model and methodological framework that can support wider application by UNICEF, governments and partners.

Requirements

• Masters in Economics, climate economics, data science, statistics, environmental economics, public policy, climate science or equivalent areas.
• A minimum of 8 years of relevant experience with a specialized focus on environment and climate change, economics, data science, statistics, econometrics, financial analysis, sustainable development etc.
• Demonstrated experience developing economic simulation models, cost-benefit analyses, or macroeconomic analytical frameworks.
• Demonstrated experience in climate change adaptation economics, including costing adaptation needs and/or assessing costs and returns of resilience investments is highly desirable.
• Experience working with international datasets and cross-country comparative analysis.
• Experience conducting policy-oriented analytical work and producing technical reports or knowledge products.
• Strong understanding of climate finance architecture and adaptation finance required.
• Demonstrated expertise in economic modelling, statistical analysis, and sensitivity analysis.
• Proficiency in Excel and at least one statistical software package (R, Stata, Python, or equivalent).
• English is required; knowledge of another UN language would be advantageous.
• Experience applying economic analysis to child-critical or social sectors would be an asset.

Skills

• Climate Adaptation Economics
• Economic Simulation Modeling
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Macroeconomic Analytical Frameworks
• Climate Change Adaptation Economics
• Costing Adaptation Needs
• Resilience Investment Assessment
• Cross-country Comparative Analysis
• Policy-Oriented Analytical Work
• Technical Report Preparation
• Climate Finance
• Climate Adaptation Finance
• Econometric Modelling
• Statistical Analysis
• Sensitivity Analysis
• Excel
• STATA
• Python

Languages

English