Janice Golding (DPhil. Oxon.) is Global Head of the Programme Coherence and Assurance Unit in the Policy & Programme Division at UNEP’s Headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. In this role, she is the overall focal point for results-based management and project cycle management in UNEP, and provides strategic advice to Divisions, Regional Offices and thematic coordinators during the development and implementation of projects to deliver UNEP’s Strategic Framework and Programme of Work. She chairs UNEP’s Project Review Committee and serves as the secretariat focal point of UNEP’s Concept Approval Group.
Previously, Janice worked at UNDP South Africa Country Office as Team Lead: Nature, Climate and Energy. There, she managed an expansive portfolio, covering national and regional projects, programmes and initiatives in climate and energy finance; environment and poverty economic transformation; water security; sustainable land management; and renewable energy development. In this role, she maintained close working ties with the Ministries of Environment, Energy, Finance, Social Development and their agencies, and with the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office, the UN Country Team and UNEP. She has also worked at the UNDP Headquarters New York (Bureau for Programme and Policy Support: Energy Unit) to strengthen global climate coordination and raise global energy ambition through the UN Secretary-General’s flagship Climate Promise and Climate Investment Platform initiatives.
Between 2012-2016, she was the division lead on sustainable development and green enterprise development at the Embassy of Switzerland in Pretoria. Prior to this, she was an independent consultant to UN agencies (e.g. International Labour Organisation), the private sector and bilateral development agencies of the United Kingdom and Germany. After working as a government ecological scientist at the South African National Biodiversity Institute and simultaneously serving as an IUCN Authority on Red Data Lists (IUCN Species Survival Commission) between 1999 – 2003.
Janice is a South African national. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute with postgraduate qualifications from the University of Cape Town and ESCP Business School (Intercultural Management). She is a certified UN Business Operations Strategy (BOS) 2.0 Practitioner.
