Economics Specialist

Rain-fed agriculture sector seems to be the mainstay for most its population, with the majority heavily relying on the sector for subsistence livelihood. However, the sector is highly susceptible to climate variability and environmental challenges such as deforestation, soil erosion, and tropical storms and cyclones. With Malawi being an agriculture-based economy, it heavily relies on tobacco, tea, and sugar as major exports. So far, the country has limited industrialization, with a small manufacturing sector focused mainly on processing agricultural products. In addition, the high population growth rate of the country puts a lot of pressure on the land, health, and educational resources. The situation is further aggravated with high poverty and inequality, with Malawi remaining one of the world’s least-developed countries, with significant rural-urban disparities. 

Despite the challenges, Malawi has significant potential and various opportunities, which if harnessed could help the country to transition on an irreversible path of economic transformation. Some of these opportunities and initiatives include the following: 

1. Investment in Renewable Energy: Opportunities for harnessing solar, wind, and hydroelectric power to reduce dependence on imported fuels.
2. Tourism Potential: Leveraging natural resources, including wildlife and Lake Malawi, to boost sustainable tourism.
3. Regional Integration: Participation in regional economic communities like SADC and COMESA, as well as the AfCFTA offers potential for market access and economic diversification.
4. International Partnerships: Ongoing partnerships with international donors and organizations, including the UN system, private sector, civil society, and academia offer great opportunity to support development initiatives and reforms.

In view of the aforementioned development context, UNDP Malawi seeks to recruit an Economics Specialist to support the Country Office in its engagements with the Government of Malawi on key development issues including macroeconomics linked to poverty eradication, economic governance, trade including the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), private sector development, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Africa Agenda 2063, local economic development, South-South and Triangular Cooperation, financing for development, and the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation.
 

Position Purpose

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Economics Advisor, the Economics Specialist monitors emerging development trends and policy issues at national and local levels and their linkages to UNDP Portfolios/Programmes, undertakes research and policy analysis, and advises Malawi Country Office Senior Managers on appropriate actions to pursue. He/She will support and complement the policy and analytical work of the Economics Advisor and programme work of the portfolio managers and the DRR. The Economics Specialist will also contribute to the Country Office’s policy dialogue with Government of Malawi, Development Partners, other UN Agencies, the Private Sector, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Academia and other key actors in the society. She/he will also support the Country Office in maintaining a network of partners from other UN Agencies, International Financial Institutions (IFIs), CSOs, private sector, and academia in his/her area of expertise.

UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across units, functions, teams, and projects in multidisciplinary teams in order to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.

• Collects, analyzes, and synthesizes macroeconomic issues linked to the SDGs, Agenda 2063, and AfCFTA related interventions and best practices, paying attention to poverty, gender, inequality, human development, unemployment, and other development issues and proposing policy options to strengthen UNDP programmes and policy advisory services. 
• Contributes to high-quality policy support to the Country Office on key policy and development issues with the Government of Malawi, UN System, and other strategic partners including donors, most notably on inclusive green growth, poverty eradication, environmental sustainability, and economic governance to support the achievement of the SDGs, Agenda 2063, and ultimately the national development priorities. 
• Contributes intellectual and policy advisory support to the Government and partners, notably on the implementation, monitoring, reporting, and evaluation of Malawi 2063 and its successive 10 Years Implementation Plans, thereby ensuring the mainstreaming of the SDGs and human development issues in national planning and budgeting processes.
• Contributes intellectual and policy support to the conceptualization and drafting of national human development reports, SDG reports, Voluntary National Review (VNR and  Local Voluntary Review (LVR) reports and other strategic flagship knowledge products of UNDP at global and national levels. 
• Keeps abreast of national, local, regional, and global economic trends and issues and analyzes their implications on UNDP programmes and the realization of the SDGs, Agenda 2063, AfCFTA, and national development frameworks.
• Collects and contributes to alternative policy support through the preparation of policy and programme documents on key development issues including the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, Common Country Assessment, Country Programme Document, and other strategic documents.
   

2- Provides high quality economic inputs to programmes, the national budget debate, development finance and building a sustainable financing architecture, SDGs, and trade

• Contributes to the Country Office’s work as integrator of the UN System by supporting the identification, analysis and promotion of alternative development solutions, data analysis for development monitoring and to inform policy formulation and planning, and identification of strategic options for UNDP programmes and financing of the SDGs.
• Undertakes research and performs analysis to support the design and implementation of innovative programmes and financing strategies, as well as advancing opportunities that UNDP could explore to expand its programming in development financing areas such as green and/or blue bonds, debt swap mechanisms, crowdfunding platforms, basket funds, carbon & climate financing, blended finance, impact investment, trade finance, etc.
• Prepares top quality and relevant socio-economic reviews and reports through analysis and interpretation of economic and statistical data relevant to the country’s development process and to inform programme design, implementation, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation.
• Identifies strategic areas and interventions for UNDP technical and policy advisory support on development finance, MSMEs development, inclusive and sustainable growth, economic governance, environmental sustainability, and trade related interventions.
• Supports the Government of Malawi in partnership with other development actors on the implementation, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation of the AfCFTA and other trade related agreements. 
• Supports the work on the implementation of the integrated national financing framework including the development of the financing strategy, operationalizing the SDG Investor Map and the Digital Finance Ecosystem Assessment and Strategy and other development financing interventions.

3-Advise and contributes to forging strategic partnerships and the resource mobilization strategy of the Country Office with key development actors.

• Gathers data and information that support the forging of strategic partnerships and resource mobilization strategy of the Country Office with key development partners including government institutions, donors (bilateral and multilateral partners), other UN Agencies, private sector, civil society, and academic and research institutions based on the strategic goals of UNDP and the needs of the country, particularly relating to the SDGs and national priorities.
• Undertakes analysis and research relative to information on donors, and subsequently prepares substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation. 
• Identifies medium- to long-term programming opportunities for UNDP, as well as the appropriate national implementing partners for them, as well as potential financing opportunities that can be mobilised. 
• Identifies bottlenecks for domestic and foreign investors relative to inclusive and sustainable development projects in Malawi.
• Contributes to supporting the work on MSMEs including building their productive capacity, while working with the private sector development team and other development actors including financial institutions, training institutions, donors, civil society, etc. 
• Supports the design and development of proposals to build partnerships and mobilize resources from these sources and explore programming opportunities within the innovative financing ecosystem. 

4- Advise and help strengthening of policy and technical environment to enhance development cooperation and effectiveness based on international principles of development cooperation focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Providing  the national High-Level Forum on Development Cooperation and the Development Cooperation Group to meet regularly to feed into national dialogue, policies and development cooperation strategy. 
• Provide technical and professional guidance in the production of knowledge products on developments financing and financing instruments for consideration by development cooperation dialogue structures.
• Support the review the existing policy framework in line with international agreements on effective development cooperation including Global Partnership fotr Effective Development Cooperation to ensure that development cooperation aspects are properly addressed and sufficiently defined in the development cooperation policies. 
• Provide technical support to the implementation of the development cooperation information management system for efficient and effective and efficient management of aid flows.
• Provide technical support to the formulation of policy documents for development cooperation and effectiveness and the development cooperation strategy.  

5- Participate to Knowledge building discourse for integrated programme/portfolio management:

• Contributes to the generation and sharing of knowledge products to strengthen programme/portfolio/project design, implementation, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation.
• Supports the building of staff capacity to understand and use economic data across the various Country Office interventions.
• Coordinates and performs knowledge extraction, analysis, documentation, codification of results/lessons learned on private sector partnerships and public-private partnerships and other development partners.
• Prepares briefing notes, talking points, remarks, and speeches on relevant thematic areas as may be required.
• Produces knowledge products such policy briefs, papers, articles, and strategic knowledge products to give more visibility to all UNDP interventions and its work with the Government of Malawi. 

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities : Yes

Business Direction & Strategy – System Thinking: Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.

Business Direction & Strategy – Effective Decision Making: Ability to take decisions in a timely and efficient manner in line with one’s authority, area of expertise and resources 

Business Management – Partnership Management: Ability to select, prioritize and control the organization’s programmes and projects, in line with its strategic objectives and capacity; ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives and the maintenance of business-as-usual, while optimizing return on investment

Partnership Management- Relationships Management: Ability to build and maintain partnerships with wide networks of stakeholders, Governments, civil society and private sector partners, experts and others in line with UNDP strategy and policies

Partnership Management – Resource Mobilization: Ability to identify funding sources, match funding needs (programmes/projects/initiatives) with funding opportunities, and establish a plan to meet funding requirements

Partnership Management-  Strategic Engagement: Ability to capture and sustain attention, interest and agreement of high-level, influential policy and decision makers and secure their buy-in of high-level vision and objectives

Business Management – Portfolio Management: Ability to select, prioritise and control the organizations programmes and projects, in line with its strategic objectives and capacity; ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives and the maintenance of business-as-usual, while optimising return on investment