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Climate, Energy & Disaster Resilience
Our team supports UNDP Country Offices and national partners to address the unprecedented challenges of climate change, increasing demand for energy and growing exposure to disaster risk. Due to the strong relationship between all three, we adopt an integrated approach to help countries protect their people’s lives and livelihoods from impacts of climate change and disasters, and mitigate drivers of climate change through more sustainable use of energy. We support countries to manage risks to social vulnerability and build resilience of development results. We support over USD 100 million of grant assistance in the region for climate change, energy and disaster risk reduction projects, with strategic partners including the Global Environment Facility, the Green Climate Fund, and regional partners like the League of Arab States.
We focus on
Climate change mitigation and sustainable energy: scaling-up renewable energy and expanding energy access for the poor; launching climate change policies and low-emission development strategies; and reducing energy intensity in industry, buildings and transport sectors.
Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction: supporting projects for national climate adaptation plans and capacities to reduce vulnerability to droughts and disasters; promoting urban resilience to climate and disasters risks; and community adaptation for food and water security.
Resilient recovery and building back better: supporting partners in recovery efforts to build back from crises in a way that addresses future climate and disaster risks and integrates sustainable energy solutions. This supports a shift from crisis relief to recovery and climate-resilient development pathways.
Our Team
Kishan Khoday
Regional Team Leader - Climate Change, DRR and Resilience
Kishan has been with UNDP for 16y, specialized in country cooperation on climate change, energy and biodiversity, water and the environment; mobilizing and managing portfolios of over $300m from GEF, MP, EC, bilateral, private sector and government co-financing. Prior to starting his regional function in 2013, Kishan served in leadership roles for 13 years with UNDP Country Offices in China, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
Areas of Expertise: include country programming and strategic partnerships, the green pillars of the SDGs and new global climate change frameworks and finance mechanisms. He holds BSc and MSc degrees in environment and natural resource policy, and is a Juris Doctor in law specialized in multilateral agreements on climate change, biodiversity and the environment.
Stephen Gitonga
Regional Programme Specialist - Sustainable Energy
Stephen holds 23 years of experience on sustainable energy, climate change and the environment. Before his current regional function, he worked as Energy Policy Advisor with UNDP Headquarters, supporting policy advice and programme support for sustainable energy related activities across all regions and supporting UNDPs role in inter-agency processes for the SDG 7 on energy, the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative and roles in UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme.
Areas of Expertise: include design and management of programmes, providing policy and programming advice bringing extensive experiences on local capacity development on issues like energy and climate change.
Walid Ali
Regional Programme Specialist - Climate Change
Walid Ali holds over 10 years of experience in country policy and programme support on climate change and the environment, and their links to issues of poverty reduction in LDC and crisis contexts. He led development and implementation of number of flagship GEF and EC funded climate change and environment initiatives at the country level.
Areas of Expertise: including SDG 13 on climate change, the new global climate change agreement and new global climate finance mechanisms. Walid hold a PhD in Environment and Development and as Post-Doc in Environmental Economics.