Policy Designer

In 2023, Bhutan graduated from the UN list of Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Over the past decades, the country has made remarkable progress in reducing income and multidimensional poverty, aligned with its commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite the impressive progress, the country is grappling with critical socio-economic challenges such as large-scale emigration of the productive and skilled labor force, youth unemployment, declining fertility rate, increasing trade deficit, and shrinking fiscal space. These challenges take place amidst a slow post-pandemic economic recovery and against the broader backdrop of structural challenges, such as limited economic diversification, a still-nascent private sector, absence of robust regulatory and institutional framework. 

Bhutan’s 13th FYP (2024-2029) sets out the ambitious target of doubling the size of the country’s economy within the next five years and then doubling it again over the subsequent five year, reaching USD 10 billion by 2034, a target year that Bhutan plans to reach the high-income status. To achieve this, Bhutan must maintain a nominal GDP growth rate of approximately 11.9% annually for the next 12 years1. If development plans uphold as projected, the GNI per capita would experience an annual increase of 11% over the same period, propelling Bhutan into the ranks of upper-middle-income Southeast Asian countries. 

Recognizing the challenges and potential opportunities in Bhutan’s 21st-century economy, the Royal Government of Bhutan aims to accelerate and foster a robust economic recovery and growth. It is in this context that the Royal Government of Bhutan requested UNDP’s policy advisory assistance to support the Prime Minister’s Office in a high-level consultation and the subsequent development of a development roadmap for the realization for the government’s development vision as outlined above. 

At the core of UNDP’s policy support and high-level consultation is the institutionalization of a Policy Innovation Lab, that will execute three key functions of carrying out on-demand policy analysis and provide advisory services, undertake targeted policy analysis and experimentation through people centred and innovative design approaches and oversight of the implementation of the visioning exercise roadmap and strategies to accelerate the implementation of the 13th FYP and achieve the target of developed economy by 2034. 

To support this initiative, UNDP seeks to recruit a Policy Designer.  The Policy Designer will report to the will report to the Deputy Resident Representative at UNDP and Director, Office of the Cabinet Affairs and Strategic Coordination and Director, Office of the Prime Minister.
 

Provision of Advisory Support

• Provide advisory services and technical support to the Prime Minister’s Office on critical policies using innovative tools and methods
• Provide support to agencies on logic and new directions/pivots for existing or new policies being developed through application of innovative human centered approaches

Design and Prototyping:

• Lead the design of innovative policy solutions by applying design thinking, prototyping, and systems thinking methodologies.
• Develop, test, and iterate prototypes to identify viable, scalable policy solutions.
• Create journey maps, service blueprints, and other visual tools to inform policy development.

Ensure Stakeholder Engagement:

• Facilitate co-creation workshops with stakeholders, including government agencies, civil society organizations, and communities.
• Work closely with policymakers, subject matter experts, and end-users to ensure policy designs are grounded in real-world needs and insights.

Provide Research and Insights:

• Conduct user research and gather qualitative and quantitative data to inform policy design.
• Translate research findings into actionable design principles and strategic policy recommendations.

Provision of Collaboration and Communication:

• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, including technologists, analysts, and evaluators, to ensure that design solutions are feasible and impactful.
• Communicate design insights, prototypes, and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Facilitate Capacity Building:

• Support the lab in building internal capacity for design-led policy innovation through training, knowledge sharing, and mentoring.

Build Strategic Partnership and Resource Mobilization

• Identify opportunities for resource mobilization and new partnerships and support proposal and partnership development efforts
• Develop partnerships and network with local innovators, youth organizations, NGOs, the private sector, local media and academia to build and provide a space to nurture and test new and innovative ideas and build local capacity.
• Undertake any other related actions as requested by the Prime Minister’s Office

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

Core competencies: 

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible
• Act with Determination:  LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies: 

Business Direction and 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

Digital and Innovation    

• Innovation Management: Being able to create the strategies, conditions, structures and systems to enable innovation at an organisational level; Ability to navigate uncertainty and ambiguity, is able to manage projects-based principles of adaptation and emergence; Ability to shape demand for innovation services, navigate political constraints and make the case for allocation of resources to innovation, connect the appropriate innovation approaches based on business needs and make the case for innovation to be integrated at the planning level within their context; Having in-depth theoretical and experiential knowledge of innovation processes, methods, capabilities.
• Regulatory sandboxes: Manage or advise on setting up a regulatory testbed that stay true to the core principles of an organisation while making it easier of certain players to test out new propositions, operational or business models; Ability to determine and advocate the purpose of a sandbox, what is the experiment for, what potential learnings look like and build a business case to invest in it; Ability to extract learnings from previous experiences and posses firm understanding of what rules are essential and why, and which can stand flexibility; Being able to anticipate, assess and manage risks, identify and resolve deficiencies in skills and expertise, set clear boundaries around the scope and duration of the experiment and have a clear exit strategy
• Innovation capacity building: Ability to define and create the conditions for trying out new ways of working or introducing new problem-solving approaches to an organization; Ability to develop, manage and evaluate a learning curriculum that raises awareness, builds confidence, strengthens innovation capabilities around a certain method, tool or technique; or helps develop an innovation mindset; Ability to create the authorising environment (mandate, incentives) to embed and spread new ways of working; In-depth knowledge of one or more innovation methods, broad knowledge of innovation processes and innovation management; Ability to align a learning and development strategy with broader innovation strategy

Partnerships 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

Business Management

• Communication: Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner 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 Development   

• Knowledge generation: Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need.

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in Social Science (Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Economics, International Development), Environmental Science, Transition or Complexity Science, Engineering Design (industrial or service design, architecture, urban planning), Communications, Business, or a related area is required. Or
• A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the areas mentioned above, in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:         

• Applicants with a master’s degree (or equivalent) in a relevant field of study are not required to have professional work experience.
• Applicants with a bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) are required to have a minimum of two (2) years of relevant professional experience in the field of innovation management, design research and international development either in public or private sector.
• Proven experience of working effectively in a team with diverse cultural and academic backgrounds.
• Relevant work experience in application of innovative tools and methods in policy process would be an asset.
• Additional years of work experience in areas of either qualitative social research, human centered design, user experience, behavioral insights, or futures and foresights would be an asset.
• Demonstrated experience in conducting field or remote qualitative research is desired.
• Demonstrated experience in crafting research tools and outputs for qualitative research is desired.
• Demonstrated ability to design policy experiments, validate hypotheses and test prototypes is an asset.
• Proven experience and knowledge about application of innovation in solving complex issues in private or public sector (assessed through generating ideas, prototyping, and developing solutions with real impact is an asset.
• Prior experience in working in an innovation lab in public or private sector would be an advantage is desired.

Required Languages:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Working knowledge of another UN language is desired.