Urban Planning Expert

Background

Enabel is the Belgian development agency. It implements Belgium’s governmental cooperation as well as interventions for other national and international donors. With its partners in Belgium and abroad, Enabel is offering solutions to address pressing global challenges: Climate Change, Urbanization, Human Mobility, Peace and Security, Economic and Social Inequality, and Global Citizenship. With 1,900 staff, Enabel manages about 170 projects in twenty-one countries, in Belgium, Africa and the Middle East. 

Background

Enabel has started the implementation of a new cooperation portfolio (NCP) for Palestine. This program on the one hand builds on the successes of governmental cooperation over the past decade and on the other hand, also provides a response to the Palestinian and global challenges of this decade. 

Belgian development cooperation has supported the Palestinian territories since 1993 - initially through delegated cooperation. Direct governmental cooperation was started in 1997 for an amount of 15 million euros and the fourth and provisionally last agreement (2011) evolved to 71.6 million euros (2012-2015). This program was extended in December 2020 with an additional budget of 10 million euros. The new portfolio started in 2022 for a period of 5 years (2022-2026), with a budget of 70 million euros.

The new portfolio, titled “Empowered youth in a green Palestine” (EYGP) will focus on 2 pillars: The first pillar focuses on the empowerment of youth based on a continuum between developing competencies, skills, access to employment and entrepreneurship, while the  second pillar is dedicated to climate action, based on support to the development of an emerging green and circular economy with the view to contribute to a sustainable and inclusive Palestinian society, and reduce environmental hazards and dependency on non-renewable natural resources. One of the results of pillar II is: “Green cities in Palestine are promoted through resilient urban planning, green inclusive services, and green buildings, taking into account the needs of vulnerable groups (women and youth), with one of the activities being “Support the development of public spaces in the urban areas in the selected clusters (Nablus, Tubas, Hebron, Bethlehem and Gaza).”In parallel, Enabel has implemented several third-party funded projects, mainly for the European Union. One of these projects, Resilience in Schools of East Jerusalem, aims at increasing the resilience of communities in East Jerusalem by providing support to school infrastructure and teaching and developing public and semi-public spaces in a variety of neighbourhoods.

Beginning of 2023, the Brussels Capital Region has also agreed to finance a top-up to the new portfolio, focusing, on the one hand, on the development of green urban corridors in cities, promoting active mobility, reclaiming street spaces for residents and piloting climate mitigation and adaptation research-actions through tactical urbanism, and on the other hand, on the development of energy performance rating tool for buildings.

Job description

Under the supervision of the Urban Planning and Infrastructure Expert (International), you will:

1.    Contribute to the implementation of the interventions by providing inputs for planning, execution, coordination, follow-up and monitoring, and evaluation of activities in order to ensure that the results of the programme (outputs – outcomes) are achieved within the set execution deadline.

2.    Provide the necessary technical inputs and expertise in Urban Planning and Urban Design in order to achieve technical performance in accordance with national and international norms and standards.

3.    Organise knowledge building and knowledge management in the field of in Urban Planning and Urban Design in order to create an inclusive, informed climate of trust within the programme/intervention.

4.    Contribute to change and strengthen the capacities of partners in order to contribute to the improvement of their organisation, processes and systems and of their staff’s competences.