Positioning and Engagament Specialist

UNDP is the development arm of United Nations. Present in 170 countries with over 17,000 people, UNDP works on the world’s biggest challenges, from rising poverty and inequality to a rapidly changing climate, the emergence of crises and the continued degradation and destruction of our natural world. Our UNDP Digital Strategy 2022 – 2025 aims to support our partner countries to unlock the power of digital to tackle these pressing issues. The strategy lays out UNDP’s ambition to use a rights-based approach to digital technologies to improve our development results and help build inclusive digital ecosystems globally that leave no one behind. These aims are supported by the transformation of our internal, operational systems and building an agile, digitally capable workforce.

The Positioning and Engagement Specialist will provide expertise and direction to position UNDP in the digital development ecosystem. The role will also build strategic partnerships and lead CDO and UNDP’s engagement opportunities in the digital development space.

Scope of Work:

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide expertise and direction to position UNDP in the digital development ecosystem
• Contribute to the development of key emerging policy agendas in digital transformation and future of development contexts, in collaboration with policy teams at UNDP. Bring in perspectives and expertise from the Global South, via UNDP Country Offices and the Regional Bureaux as appropriate.
• Develop CDO narratives and points of view on important and emerging digital development issues.
• Ensure consistency of CDO messaging across knowledge products, events, public advocacy, media engagements, and communications.
• Support overall coherence of CDO strategic approach across teams.
• Identify opportunities for meaningful, impactful, and forward-looking positioning on important and emerging digital issues.
• Identify advocacy opportunities through which to embed CDO key messages to strengthen UNDP’s position among peers and stakeholders, including but not limited to global and regional events, international outlets, online platforms, etc.
• Engage with other teams at UNDP and UN partners to provide guidance and input to ensure CDO points of view are reflected.
• As necessary, conduct and manage primary and/or secondary research and distil relevant lessons from projects and programmes to inform policy formulation and guidance.
• Engage relevant partners on research or advocacy, hire and manage vendor and/or research partners as needed.
• Lead the process of knowledge capture international know-how in relevant thematic areas and document project lessons, experiences, and best practices that may be useful in design and implementation of similar projects for organizational and external sharing and learning.
• Work closely with the communications team within CDO to ensure coherence in external advocacy messages.
• Build Strategic Partnerships and Lead UNDP’s Engagement Opportunities
• Identify and engage strategic partners in the digital development space, including but not limited to Member State governments, private sector, foundations, think tanks, and multi- stakeholder alliances.
• Assess, prioritize and deepen existing partnerships (including bilateral relationships and multi- stakeholder networks where UNDP has corporate participation).
• Identify and cultivate partners for CDO’s work, pursue overall resource mobilization and partnership opportunities for CDO, as well as support pillar engagement on the same for specific projects
• Serve as key focal point managing CDO’s relationships with key multi-stakeholder or inter- agency platforms (including but not limited to: IGF, UNGIS, WSIS and GSMA), further establishing UNDP’s leadership role in these collaborations.
• Advise and support CDO in ongoing Member State engagement to advance their understanding and support to our work – which may include briefings, meetings, events, newsletters and other updates.
• Advise and support UNDP’s engagement in high-visibility events, assess and advise on prioritization of event invitations, and support senior management (Administrator, AA, ASGs, CDO) on their engagement.
• Coordinate with colleagues at other relevant UNDP Headquarter/ regional/ country level offices to vet or propose key event opportunities on digital topics, and support with providing key messages/background material as needed
• Work closely with relevant bureau across UNDP (including ExO, Regional Bureaux and BERA) to ensure CDO’s partnership work is conducted in a coordination with others.
• Work with various CDO workstreams and BERA to target key stakeholder groups to grow awareness and engagement with the UNDP digital transformation agenda.
• Lead UNDP’s engagement in high-visibility events, assess and advise on prioritization of event invitations, and support senior management (Administrator, AA, ASGs, CDO) on their engagement.
• Coordinate with colleagues at other relevant UNDP Headquarter/ regional/ country level offices to vet or propose key event opportunities on digital topics, and support with providing key messages/background material as needed.

Minimum Qualifications:

Min Education requirements:    

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in Global Affairs, International Relations and/or Development Studies or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in the above-mentioned fields, in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree

Min years of relevant work experience:               

• A minimum of 7 years (with master’s degree) or 9 years (with bachelor’s degree) of experience in driving development programs and policies in a public, nonprofit, and/or development setting is required.

Required skills:   

• Demonstrated experience and understanding of digital technologies.
• Experience interacting with and steering stakeholders and partnerships across sectors towards a common objective.
• Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the competencies section   
• Demonstrated experience in collaborating with diverse stakeholders.
• Demonstrated capacity to capture and synthesize information on an ongoing basis to produce analysis and recommendations.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the latest trends with technology innovations (e.g. emerging technology, artificial intelligence)
• Demonstrated experience in crafting positioning strategies and documentation within digital development.

Required Languages:   

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

Source: https://estm.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/job/23240