Background

Despite pockets of progress and encouraging signs of political maturity, the Governance challenges in Iraq remain significant. The country is still hampered by widespread corruption; a civil service that is oversized and operating at insufficient levels of effectiveness and efficiency; a judicial system that is gradually reforming and modernizing but still needs major support and accompaniment; a human rights agenda which is in its early days of implementation and an independent electoral Commission that still needs support and guidance to consolidate the institutional gains it has made over the past few years.

UNDP is leading the UN’s work on promoting democratic Governance, in line with its mandate. It is also co-Chairing the UNDAF Priority Working Group on Governance and Human Rights with UNHCR and the Government of Iraq. The current main areas of Governance work include Rule of Law, Human Rights, Public Sector Modernization, Electoral Support, anti-Corruption measures and Local Area Development Programme. Significant new initiatives are currently being developed to continue current important work in Civil Society Organizations and the Council of Representatives.

UNDP Iraq has just finalized and signed the new Country Programme Document (CPD) 2015 – 2019 with the Government setting out UNDP’s corporate strategic areas. The main outcome areas of the CPD are: 1: Enhanced resilience of communities through targeted support on local governance, livelihoods, gender equality, social protection and environmental challenges. 2: Enhanced resilience of governance systems to be more decentralized, accessible, responsive, transparent and accountable for the realization of rights of citizens, and for inclusive and equitable growth and environmental governance; 3: Resilient policies promoting sustainable development.

One of the key portfolio areas which is being developed to respond to the CPD priorities – which in turn respond to the priorities of the Governments 2013-17 National Development Plan – is the Enhancing, Accountability, Responsiveness and Participation (EARP) portfolio. This portfolio includes support to civil society actors; support to strengthening the oversight role of the Council of Representatives; support to promoting Youth activism; and, support to promoting local level social cohesion, community based measures and the electoral process. The overall concept behind this being to promote the widest possible involvement of the Iraqi people into the political life of their country.

In light of the above, UNDP-Iraq intends to recruit a Portfolio Manager for Enhancing Accountability, Responsiveness and Participation, who will report to the Deputy Country Director, to provide management support and coordination across all the projects of the portfolio. The incumbent is also expected to provide high quality technical advisory services to the relevant Government Counterparts and wider Iraqi stakeholders.

Duties and Responsibilities

General Duties:

Under direct supervision of the Deputy Country Director (DCD), the EARP Portfolio Manager will be required to provide leadership and coordinate the portfolio's activities.

Additionally, he/she will:

• Keep abreast of all significant developments, both in Iraq and internationally, on EARP issues and coordinate closely with counterpart Iraqi institutions, international stakeholders, lead agencies and adapt work plans and programme strategies, as required;
• Work effectively towards incorporating and applying HRB/ RBM/ MDGs approaches as well as addressing cross cutting themes (i.e. environment, employment, human rights, gender mainstreaming) in all portfolio plans and programming exercises;
• Serve as the primary interlocutor between the Country Office and the Government of Iraq counterpart officials and institutions (public and private) partnering on EARP issues;
• Provide technical expertise and lead the development of new initiatives in this area, followed by strategies to build partnerships and mobilize resources. Further to this end, the Portfolio Manager will spearhead all resource mobilization efforts for the portfolio;
• Develop the portfolio’s mandate outlining its key practice areas. Develop EARP strategy/ position papers and prepare presentations in line with the developed mandate to present to a variety of audiences;
• Ensure effective utilization of technical and financial resources of the portfolio and shared resources within the Country Office, ensuring programmatic cohesion and efficiency;
• Coordinate and build partnerships with UNCT members, for the enhancement of technical strength and programmatic synergies in the area of EARP;
• Responsible for the overall monitoring and evaluation of all programmes/projects in the portfolio and reporting on progress to the DCD;
• Coordinate with the Country Office Communications team to ensure proper visibility programmes' activities and timely reporting to donors;
• Ensure that project/programme requirements and requests from the DCD are being coordinated across all projects of the Portfolio;
• Ensure a harmonized strategic and implementation approach across all projects of the Portfolio that are in line with the UNDAF and the CPD;
• Direct and manage the portfolio team, consisting of programme advisors, technical and programme specialists and support staff;
• Ensure that the portfolio’s overall technical direction is maintained and flexibly adapted to meet the challenges experienced during implementation of the programmes and projects under the portfolio, remaining responsive to opportunities and promptly addressing externalities;
• Coordinate and work with the Programme/Project Managers and other CTAs to ensure complementarity/harmonization with the activities and plans of the other programme portfolios;
• Assist the project specific teams in ensuring smooth project delivery and that financial delivery targets are being met in a timely manner;
• Ensure that any intense work peaks of any project teams are met with temporary human resource measures from within the portfolio that allow the project teams to cope with the tasks at hand;
• Ensure that any corporate requirements are being coordinated across the portfolio’s projects in a coherent and timely manner.

Specific Duties and Responsibilities

Within the context of working in support of the strategies and values as set forth in the UNDP corporate policies, with full commitment and engagement in the realization of the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Portfolio Manager will manage the portfolio, displaying leadership and communications skills. He/she will undertake the following duties and responsibilities:

Technical Advisory:

• Serve as the focal point of UNDP for the provision of overall technical and management support to the GoI on matters related to EARP;
• Provide top quality technical and managerial advice to the Government and other Iraqi counterparts on issues of EARP;
• Assist in defining the strategic direction of the EARP portfolio.

Overall Management:

• Lead the development of new initiatives and programmes in the areas of EARP;
• Operationalization of UNDAF/ CPD in collaboration with the main partners and other UN Agencies;
• Advise the DCD regarding deliverables as well as constraints on implementation of the portfolio’s work plans, and seek support from other parts of the Country Office to resolve obstacles and bottlenecks;
• Represent the portfolio at all meetings with the Country Office senior management team as well as with donor coordination meetings related to the portfolio’s thematic areas;
• Reviewing the portfolio’s projects and suggest necessary programmatic changes/ amendments to reflect HRB/ RBM/ MDGs approaches in addition to ensuring the proper incorporation of cross cutting themes (i.e. environment, employment, human rights, gender mainstreaming);
• Prepare portfolio work-plans, ensuring complementarities and coordination with other portfolios and present work plans to the management team;
• Engage regularly with relevant parts of the Country Office to ensure alignment of programme goals with the revised GoI and UNCT priorities;
• Coordinate across the Country Office to develop joint programmes and seek technical and programmatic partnerships from other Country Office programmes;
• Ensure timely and well-sequenced execution of approved work plans and programmes;
• Undertake regular reviews of the portfolio work plan and make necessary revisions;
• Enhance synergies and functionalities within the portfolio;
• Prepare financial projections and monitor progress and delivery of portfolio programmes/projects;
• Advise on staffing requirements and administer recruitment processes in collaboration with the Programme Management and Support Unit (PMSU);
• Prepare staffing tables, job descriptions for advertisement and ensure effective and consistent administrative and operational support to the DCD;
• Participate as required on staff recruitment and consultancy procurement panels;
• Ensure smooth operation and harmonious interaction with other units and portfolios and identify solutions to bottle necks;
• Ensure that all projects within the portfolio are updated on the ATLAS/ ERBM platform;
• Follow up on audit recommendations including timely reporting of all exceptions;
• Management of the team’s generation, dissemination and application of knowledge, best practices and programme results for advocacy, resources mobilization, learning and practice development;
• Sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice;
• Organization of trainings for the operations/ projects staff on programme;
• Provide day to day direction and leadership to guide the work of the portfolio team (consisting of programme advisors, technical and programme specialists and support staff).

Monitoring and Evaluation:

• Work with the PMSU to develop M&E plans and implement them;
• Oversee and ensure maintenance of risks and issues logs of each programme/project within the portfolio, manage and mitigate the risks and issues appropriately, and raise them to senior management as required;
• Manage the oversight of progress made towards achieving all outputs and outcomes as stated in the portfolio’s work plan;
• Lead quarterly and annual reviews of portfolio results and suggest any revisions required in the work-plans and implementation modalities;
• Prepare progress tracking indicators in consultation with the PMSU;
• Monitor the implementation of the Programme Work Plans and report on progress to pillar management team regularly.

Communications and Reporting

In close cooperation with the Communications Unit, the EARP Portfolio Manager will be responsible for the following:

• Proactively participate in UNDP regional and international forums on thematic areas related to the portfolio’s mandate, and liaise -where appropriate- with HQ and regional bureau to that end. (This ? could include engaging in thematic discussions, contributing with analytical papers, publications, knowledge networks…etc);
• Coordinate with the PMSU on resource mobilization through identifying projects which donors can potentially be interested in funding, and subsequently through developing Project Concept Notes. Support advocacy efforts directed to donors to fund priority activities;
• Development and maintenance of strategic partnerships and support to resource mobilization, Identification of possibilities for joint programming;
• Ensure, at all costs, that regular reporting is provided to the UNDAF Trust Fund, donors, Government stakeholders and UN counterparts, that satisfy the need for informative, clear and transparent reporting that places on record all significant events, progress and outstanding issues, and that monitors the drawdown of the Programme’s resources;
• Supervise the recording and dissemination of best practices and lessons learned;
• Ensure the visibility of portfolio activities through regular updating on achievements and develop advice on the visibility material (newsletters, publications….etc.);
• Regularly update the Portfolio events calendar for information sharing purposes within the portfolio and the Country Office as a whole and ensure the regular updating of information and files on the shared drive.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Promoting ethics and integrity, creating organizational precedents;
• Building support and political acumen;
• Building staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation;
• Building and promoting effective teams;
• Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication;
• Creating an emotionally intelligent organization;
• Leveraging conflict in the interests of UNDP & setting standards;
• Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning;
• Fair and transparent decision making; calculated risk-taking.

Functional Competencies:

Advocacy/Advancing a Policy-Oriented Agenda:

• Builds consensus concerning UNDP’s strategic agenda with partners on joint initiatives;
• Dialogues with national counterparts and other stakeholders to strengthen advocacy efforts, incorporating country, regional and global perspectives.

Results-Based Programme Development and Management:

• Identifies country needs and strategies using a fact-based approach;
• Makes use of a variety of resources within UNDP to achieve results, such as cross-functional teams, secondments and developmental assignments, and collaborative funding approaches;
• Ensures the full implementation of country programme and Financial Resources to obtain results.

Building Strategic Partnerships:

• Makes effective use of UNDP’s resources and comparative advantage to strengthen partnerships;
• Creates networks and promotes initiatives with partner organizations.

Innovation and Marketing New Approaches:

• Creates an environment that fosters innovation and innovative thinking;
• Conceptualizes more effective approaches to programme development and implementation and to mobilizing and using resources.

Resource Mobilization:

• Contributes to the development of resource mobilization strategies at CO level;
• Actively develops partnerships with potential donors and government counterparts in all sectors at country level;
• Strengthens the capacity of the country office to mobilize resources.

Promoting Organizational Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

• Promotes UNDP as a learning/knowledge sharing organization.

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise:

• Possesses expert knowledge of advanced concepts in primary discipline, a broad knowledge of related disciplines, as well as an in-depth knowledge of relevant organizational policies and procedures;
• For managers: applies a broad knowledge of best management practices; defines objectives and work flows, positions reporting relationships in such a way as to obtain optimum effectiveness for the unit/branch;
• Keeps abreast of new developments in area of professional discipline and job knowledge and seeks to develop him/herself personally;
• Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of information technology and applies it in work assignments;
• Demonstrates expert knowledge of the current programme guidelines and project management tools and manages the use of these regularly in work assignments.

Global Leadership and Advocacy for UNDP’s Goals:

• Advocates for increased priority given to human development issues internationally and in national planning frameworks;
• Advocates for increased resources at international and national level.

Client Orientation:

• Anticipates constraints in the delivery of services and identifies solutions or alternatives;
• Proactively identifies, develops and discusses solutions for internal and external clients, and persuades management to undertake new projects or services;
• Advises and develops strategic and operational solutions with clients that add value to UNDP programmes and operations.

Technical skills:

• Strategic planning, ability to think on one’s feet, identify entry points for targeted interventions for maximum benefit and leveraging of Programme resources;
• Ability to manage multi-disciplinary team;
• Diplomatic communication skills, mature judgment and ability to lead a team effort harmoniously;
• Ability to prioritize of work activities to meet organizational goals and organize and oversee work processes efficiently to achieve quality results;
• Remote management.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced Degree (Master Degree) in planning, economics, political science, engineering, management, social science or related field.

 Experience:

• Minimum 15 years of experience in any areas of the following, participatory and democratic/good governance, participatory planning, community level development and empowerment, preferably working in and on post conflict or conflict countries;
• Proven experience in key management positions for at least 5 years;
• Proven ability to direct multi-disciplinary teams in a multilateral work environment;
• Track record with of successful programme management preferably with 7 years minimum within the UN, WB or international donor community;
• Experience with and knowledge of UNDP policies and procedures is a must;
• Experience with UN or international organization working in Iraq would be an advantage;
• Previous UN Experience\ is preferred;
• Experience in usage of computers, office software packages (MSWord, Excel, Power point, Internet).

 Language:

• Articulate proficiency and command of the English language, both written and oral;
• Knowledge of Arabic language would be a strong asset.

 Other requirements:

• Possessing of the appropriate degree of experience and maturity, with the corresponding communication skills so as to effectively interact with Ministers, Ambassadors, senior UN officials and stakeholders;
• Willingness to undertake regular field visits and interact with different stakeholders in Iraq is a must;
• Ability to maintain managerial and operational goals in a fluid environment;
• Female candidates are encouraged to apply.
• Knowledge of Prince2 and other Results Based Management software would be an asset.
• Knowledge of PeopleSoft software (ATLAS) is also an asset.