Chief Economist

The UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and Central Asia (RBEC) works in 18 countries and a territory across the Western Balkans, Caucasus, Western CIS, Central Asia, and Türkiye. RBEC consists of 17 Country Offices; there is also an Office in Kosovo (UN Security Council 1244/1999), and one Project Management Office (PMO) located in Cyprus. RBEC HQ is in New York, USA, while RBEC’s Regional Hub for Europe and Central Asia – Istanbul Regional Hub (IRH) – is in Istanbul, Türkiye.

Under the direct supervision of the RBEC Regional Hub Manager in Istanbul and with a secondary line to the Director of the Inclusive Growth Team in BPPS in New York, the Chief Economist will lead the implementation of RBEC substantive engagements on economic policy and inclusive growth and financing for the SDGs to broaden influence, build partnerships and unlock technical and financial resources to deliver on UNDP’s strategic offer in Europe and Central Asia. 

The Chief Economist will lead the Istanbul-based Inclusive Growth (IG) Team and work closely with the SDG Finance Team, with other IRH-based teams. The Inclusive Growth team and the SDG Finance team are part of the wider Global Policy Network and focus on integrated solutions that tackle inequality of opportunities and advance sustainable human development to achieve prosperity for all.  Such solutions include: 

• Developing new poverty and inequality metrics and tools.
• Expanding and improving social protection, including promoting the care economy, focusing on the most vulnerable first.
• Protecting and enhancing the productivity and resilience of informal workers and informal enterprises.
• Supporting national counterparts to harness and shape the future of work opportunities.

Position Purpose

The Chief Economist will lead the production of flagship knowledge products (e.g. Regional Human Development Reports), steer high-level policy dialogues, advise the senior management on the implications of significant policy developments in the region, provide high-level technical advice to country offices, and nurture relationships with prominent thinkers, think tanks, international financial institutions (IFIs), and other key partners. 

In doing so, the incumbent provides intellectual leadership and expertise to support UNDP’s positioning, in particular on Signature Solution 1 of the UNDP Strategic Plan (Poverty and Inequality), and in communicating UNDP’s value proposition to countries and other stakeholders in the region. S/he will lead the substantive engagements with traditional and emerging partners, with a special focus on frontier issues, as well as leverage external relations and lead advocacy efforts for programs led by RBEC and BPPS. These latter will in turn be supported by the partnerships team, in collaboration with the broader Istanbul Regional Hub.  The incumbent will engage regularly with the UN and with other multilateral and bilateral partners, including the International Financial Institutions, to develop strategic alliances. 

As a member of the RBEC Senior Management Team, provide updates and information related to economic trends in the region, thereby elevating priority issues for attention, problem solving, risk management; and contributing to Bureau strategic planning and prioritization, including as related to new opportunities and contributions to regional priorities and the UNDP Strategic Plan. 

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 to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.

Duties and Responsibilities

Lead in Regional Forward Analysis 

• Undertake a continuous review of the economic, political, and social environment in the region, identifying and analyzing economic trends and emerging issues that may impact the region’s development, the Bureau’s programming portfolio and the strategic planning process.
• Analyze and aggregate development trends at regional level to inform the formulation of UNDP’s policy advice, knowledge products and diagnostic tools.
• Analyze and advise on key areas for action on sustainable development and SDGs in the RBEC region.

Ensure effective engagement with public and private partners on regional economic policy, inclusive growth and financing issues and identification of new business opportunities

• Ensure the representation of UNDP on regional economic policy and inclusive growth issues in various forums for policy dialogue, partnership negotiations and advocacy to position the UNDP Strategic Plan in the region.
• Initiate and steer high-level policy dialogue series for diverse groups, including policymakers, academics, think tanks, and journalists, while creating synergies between strategic policy/positioning in inter-governmental and inter-agency forums, partnership development, and knowledge generation, and strengthening UNDP’s research networks.
• Identify business development opportunities to enhance partnerships with International Financial Institutions, Development Finance Institutions, and other financial actors, focusing on potential areas for joint analysis, technical cooperation, and financing.
• Collaborate closely with the RBEC Strategy & Planning Team and with IRH teams to translate analyses and emerging opportunities into new regional programmes and country projects.
• Collaborate closely with the Strategy & Partnerships Team to develop constituencies around the various regional priority themes and programmes to raise UNDP’s visibility and advance UNDP’s positioning in these areas.
• Work closely with the partnerships team in IRH to ensure coordinated and effective engagement with partners.

Provide strategic analysis and develop products to support UNDP’s strategic positioning in the region

• Prepare and launch flagship reports on key issues facing the region, and lead and/or provide substantive direction and guidance on major publications (including the regional Human Development Report) and guidance to Country Offices, the Regional Bureau Director and BPS including on national Human Development Reports and other strategic country-level knowledge products.
• Lead the production and quality assurance process of knowledge products (regional reports, joint analyses, policy papers) on aspects of economic policy reflecting the heterogenous development stages of countries in the region.
• Contribute actively to strategic documents, concept papers, and messages on development solutions and the SDGs in the region, in consultation with UNDP leadership across the region.
• Maintain an active roster of world-class academics, researchers, and policymakers for periodic engagement and consultations.
• Foster a culture of evidence-based policymaking on inter-disciplinary topics, including through online and in-person capacity building orientations.

Lead knowledge management and community of practice networking

• Represent RBEC on the Editorial Board and support the elevation of key regional and CO policy papers for UNDP.
• Oversee, influence, and promote policy dialogue in the thematic areas through cross-regional exchange of knowledge and collaboration, and synthesis of knowledge emerging from the development and implementation of programs across thematic areas.
• Provide substantive expert advice in the Community of Practice for Poverty and inequality.
• Guide and coordinate the cross-regional exchange of knowledge by collaborating with policy teams in Regional Hubs and Global Policy Centers to research, develop and share knowledge-based tools and guidance to help influence/advance policy dialogue on priorities for inclusive growth, including the reduction of inequalities, poverty eradication, and sustainable human development.
• Oversee the knowledge generation, analysis, documentation, and codification of results/lessons learned on inclusive growth, ensuring that knowledge sharing, and content management is in line with the knowledge management strategy.

Leadership and Management of the IRH Inclusive Growth Teams

• Lead the Inclusive Growth Team by establishing the business process design and its implementation for effective workflows, teamwork, and equitable distribution of workload.
• Oversee and direct the planning, resource provision, management, operations, activities, and priorities of the Team to ensure high levels of performance, efficiency, and engagement.
• Under guidance from the IRH Director, approve the annual work plan, collaboratively set objectives, performance measurements, standards, and expected results, and deliver within agreed budgets and timeframes.
• Ensure close collaboration between and within the teams and with the other RBEC teams in the IRH and New York to provide high quality, timely, and effective support to Country Offices across the region through information sharing, collaboration on initiatives, problem solving and solution-finding.
• Promote a knowledge sharing and learning culture within the Team, including through timely performance management and feedback, identification of learning and career development opportunities for team members, in line with the People 2030 Strategy.
• Ensure close coordination of policy engagements between RBEC HQ, the Istanbul Regional Hub, and Country Offices.

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: Supervises IRH Inclusive Growth Team Leader.

Competencies

Core:
Achieve Results:

• Prioritize team workflow, mobilize resources, drive scalable results/strategic impact.

Think Innovatively:

• Easily navigate complexity, encourage/enable radical innovation, have the foresight.

Learn Continuously:

• Create systems and processes that enable learning and development for all.

Adapt with Agility:

• Proactively initiate/lead organizational change, champion new systems/processes.

Act with Determination:               

• Able to make difficult decisions in challenging situations, inspire confidence.

Engage and Partner:

• Construct strategic multi-partner alliances in high stake situations, foster co-creation.

Enable Diversity and Inclusion: 

• Create an ethical culture, identify/address barriers to inclusion.

People Management:

UNDP People Management Competencies can be found on the dedicated site. 

Cross-Functional & Technical: 
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 Management: Portfolio 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.

Digital & Innovation: Systems thinking & transformation              

• Understand that complex problems need a non-reductionistic, holistic approach.
• Ability to explore challenges from multiple perspectives by zooming in and out, with a focus on relationships and flows rather than individual elements; understand how certain dynamics and conditions are driving and influencing an issue.
• Ability to develop a collective understanding of a mapping system and its dynamics (e.g. flows or resources, information; power relations); can handle ambiguity and can help others navigate it.
• Being able to identify intervention points to leverage change and system transformation by setting out a coherent collection of multiple interventions to probe the system for desirable effects.
• Understand that change is non-linear and unpredictable; be comfortable and able to work with emergence.

Business Management: Communication               

• Ability to communicate clearly, concisely, and unambiguously, both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience.
• Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media, and other appropriate channels.

Business Management: Partnerships 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.

Business Development: Collective Intelligence Design   

• Ability to bring together diverse groups of people, data, information or ideas, and technology to design services or solutions.

2030 Agenda: Prosperity – Inclusive Growth

• Multidimensional Poverty and Human Development.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in Economics, Development Studies, Public Policy, or closely related academic fields is required; or
• A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the above-mentioned fields in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• Holding a Ph.D. in a field related to the above is an advantage.

 Experience:

• Minimum of 15 years (with master’s degree) or 17 years (with bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience in providing policy advice, advancing the development and implementation of inclusive growth, poverty eradication, and equality approaches in different development contexts, including experience working in developing country settings is required.
• Experience with international institutions and donors are desired.
• Proven track record and leadership experience in the UN System or multilateral organizations related to economic policy, inclusive growth, poverty eradication and reducing inequality is desired.
• Demonstrated strong analytical skills in economic and social dimension of sustainable development is required.
• Demonstrated excellent communication and analytical skills (written, verbal, interpersonal, and intercultural) is required.

Language:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Working knowledge of other UN languages is desired.