Private Sector Financing Specialist

Details

Mission and objectives

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is committed to helping Uzbekistan build a modern, prosperous, democratic society, based on responsive government systems, people prepared for future challenges and opportunities, and an inclusive green economy.
UNDP first became active in Uzbekistan in 1993, and has over subsequent decades implemented hundreds of projects alongside the national government, business, civil society and academic. We are proud to be both Uzbekistan’s primary development partner and a leading member of the UN Family.
Through the continued trust of the Government of Uzbekistan, close collaboration with our fellow UN agencies and the support of national and international donors, UNDP has helped build Uzbekistan’s market economy, modernize its government, and improve the lives of its most vulnerable citizens. In addition, UNDP has helped Uzbekistan tackle some of the most prominent ecological and environmental challenges it has faced over past years.
The directions of UNDP’s work in Uzbekistan reflect the current UN Country Programme Document (CPD) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2021-2025. They also align with the national Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the 2030 Agenda, and Uzbekistan’s Development Strategy for 2017-2021. Throughout 2020 UNDP helped address the national health and socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is continuing to actively assist in Uzbekistan’s inclusive, green recovery.

Context

The Government of Uzbekistan is strongly commitment to achieving the SDGs. In 2018, the 16 national SDGs and their 125 corresponding targets were adopted. Simultaneously, an inter-agency Coordination Council for implementing the national SDG Roadmap was established, along with the creation of a bicameral Parliamentary Commission on SDGs.
The COVID-19 crisis slowed down Uzbekistan’s impressive SDG progress. The country’s substantial informal sector is leaving a large amount of people vulnerable and driving up poverty and inequality. Already prior to COVID-19, Uzbekistan’s available SDG financing was increasing too slowly to meet the country’s financing needs. Estimates from 2019 revealed Uzbekistan needs at least an additional, annual investment of USD 6 billion to meet the nationalized SDGs. In 2020, the IMF estimates addressing the external shock and the domestic impact of COVID-19 will require an additional external financing of about USD 4 billion, or 7 percent of GDP. The country’s SDG financing gap is projected to further widen in the immediate future. This DFA projects development finance flows to decrease from USD 55.1 billion (94percent of GDP) in 2019 to USD 45.1 billion (74 percent of GDP) in 2020. From 2021 onwards, total available development finance is projected to hover around 77 percent of GDP. To this end the country has not yet fully used alternative finance options such as the Islamic finance, impact, instruments blended finance, taxation, risk financing, green and impact investments, which could be instrumental to closing the SDG gap financing in Uzbekistan.
Assignment context
The Third International Conference on Financing for Development held in Addis Ababa in 2015 opened the debate on mobilizing the financial resources needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030. As a result, the Addis Action Agenda suggests adopting Integrated National Financing Frameworks (INFF) to support their national development strategies. These frameworks provide a platform for governments to formulate and apply a strategic, comprehensive, and results-oriented approach to financing their development goals. With this new approach, countries should establish their long- and medium-term strategies to mobilize the financing flows needed to finance the SDGs. UNDP in Uzbekistan has been long standing partner of the Government of Uzbekistan in delivering cutting edge knowledge, expertise and experience not only on environmental and social issues but from the perspective of financing for development. In 2021, UNDP Uzbekistan assisted in developing SDG Bond Framework to the Government of Uzbekistan, which resulted in issuance of 1st SDG Bond in CIS and Central Asian countries. The proceeds for the bond were allocated among 7 nationalized SDGs with amount of USD 235 million throughout the country. Apart from that UNDP in Uzbekistan working on attracting other innovative financing instruments to SDGs such as Islamic financing, blended finance, taxation, risk financing and impact investments.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of Programme Associate and overall coordination of Head of Inclusive Growth Cluster at the UNDP Country Office in Uzbekistan, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:
• Within the delegated authority and under the supervision of the Programme Associate or his/her designated mandated representative(s), the UN Volunteer Private Sector Financing Specialist will:
• Be responsible for exploring and developing innovative financing streams with corpo-rations, organizations, and foundations to develop new ways of mobilizing financing for SDGs in Uzbekistan, such as impact investments and public/private partnerships.
• Support country office with implementing and scaling the UNDP Financing for Devel-opment Portfolio in the country.
• Develop project concept notes by leveraging far greater sums of domestic govern-ment resources, IFIs, aligned external financing, in-country donor contributions, and investments from the private sector towards SDGs.
• Formulate effective tools, approaches and frameworks to work with the private sector to finance SDGs in Uzbekistan.
• Assist in implementing SDG Investor Mapping exercise in the country with strong fo-cus to green and gender related entrepreneurship projects.
• The UN Volunteer will report to the Programme Associate/Coordinator for SDG Fi-nancing portfolio.
• Furthermore, UN Volunteers are encouraged to integrate the UN Volunteers pro-gramme mandate within their assignment and promote voluntary action through en-gagement with communities in the course of their work. As such, UN Volunteers should dedicate a part of their working time to some of the following suggested activi-ties:
• Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant.
• UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day).
• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country.
• Provide annual and end of assignment self- reports on UN Volunteer actions, results, and opportunities.
• Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publica-tions/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.
• Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly arrived UN Volunteers.
• Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service when-ever technically possible.