UNDP Jobs - 53133- Policy Specialist: Community and Network Managemen

Policy Specialist: Community and Network Management

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

FTA International

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

29-Jan-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

P-3

Duration of Initial Contract :

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Job Purpose and Organizational Context

The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas. BPPS works closely with UNDP’s Crisis Response Unit (CRU) to support emergency and crisis response. BPPS ensures that issues of risk are fully integrated into UNDP’s development programmes. BPPS assists UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.

The Development Impact Group focuses on assisting UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results-based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working. It will enable UNDP and others to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven by identifying, testing, learning, sharing and institutionalizing what works, including through effective development cooperation, South-South and Triangular Cooperation and higher quality UNDP programming. It acts as a hub on all aspects of results-based management and development performance monitoring and analysis as well as a hub that identifies, collects, and share ideas on new and better ways of working across the UNDP network, social innovators, and the development community. The Development Impact Group is composed of two sub-areas: Programme Effectiveness and Development Effectiveness. The two teams work closely to understand and deepen UNDP’s and the international community’s understanding of what works and what does not work in effecting development change at country level in UNDP’s SP programme priority areas, and how this understanding can drive knowledge creation and dissemination, innovation and scaling up, and more productive partnerships.

The Strategic Plan 2014-2017 envisions UNDP to be “a more knowledge-driven, innovative and open institution” and to achieve “greater organizational openness, agility and adaptability to harness knowledge, solutions and expertise”. It demands the “utilization of South-South and triangular cooperation, in particular, to share knowledge on policy and institutional issues”, emphasizing that UNDP’s “role will be that of a knowledge broker, builder of capacities and facilitator of exchanges driven primarily by programme countries themselves, working with other interested stakeholders.”

Reporting to the Policy Advisor, Knowledge and Innovation, the Policy Specialist: Community and Network Management is responsible for maintaining and improving upon the high quality and satisfaction levels of UNDP’s facilitated knowledge networking services, and for ensuring sufficient resource deployment to networking activities directly related to the delivery of UNDP’s Strategic Plan. The specialist will also serve as a key resource for capacity development of government counterpart organizations in the

successful results-oriented use of standing knowledge networks. The specialist will also focus on advocacy and knowledge sharing about focused-scale, curated knowledge crowdsourcing activities, primarily online but within a framework that leverages face-to-face and offline activity as well. Given the core theme of the corporate Knowledge Strategy is that UNDP must first and foremost seek out the best knowledge and expertise, no matter where it might lie. Developing and maintaining strategic knowledge networks that can be quickly and reliably queried is necessary to ensure rapid and real-time knowledge sharing. The community management function will serve a critical need across the Development Impact portfolio. Working to ensure quality community management and advisory services to Regional Bureaux, Country Offices, and other UNDP teams, the Policy Specialist works towards advancing UNDP’s credibility as a universal virtual convener, ensuring coherence and quality technical advice in this area.

S/he is responsible for:

Knowledge networks and communities;
Capacity Development of UNDP teams;
Technical guidance and support;
Awareness and engagement.

Duties and Responsibilities

Coordinate the delivery of UNDP’s long-term, facilitated knowledge network function:

Conduct needs assessment and mapping exercises with internal, system-wide, and public counterparts on optimum community and network development and management;
Develop community development plan templates, toolkits, and learning modules, calculate budgets and assess business requirements;
Support the development of corporate policy and guidance on knowledge networks and communities, and the related tools for the implementation of global policy standards, including testing and roll out tools and methodologies in focus areas to provide “how to” guidance;
Develop work plans and coordinate stakeholders for implementation of knowledge networks and communities
Serve as client focal point and advisor during the implementation of long-term facilitated knowledge networking projects;
Ensure that networks and communities build upon technical platforms and tools, both to ensure end-user experience consistency and consolidation of network activity reporting across initiatives;
Share knowledge on the use of networking and virtual consultation practices to better design and deliver public services and policy making with national counterparts; and
Identify policy initiatives, continuously providing inputs for improving and adapting policies for different contexts on key emerging policy agendas, in collaboration with policy teams in the Regional Hubs, and by coordinating and commissioning new research including through the Global Policy Centers.

Provide overall support and capacity development to UNDP teams needing facilitated knowledge networking solutions for policy and programme development:

Serve as lead service facilitator for UNDP’s community and network management services;
In collaboration with the respective advisors ensure that UNDP’s South-South, Effective Development Cooperation, and Innovation Support functions are fully aligned and enabled by the latest community management engagement and satisfaction techniques;
Maintain status log and report on same activities to all audiences; and
Promote cross-network initiatives and coordinate cross-regional network support services.

Serve as a global content expert on virtual and offline network and community management processes for development, providing technical guidance and support

Support the policy teams in the Regional Hubs in providing technical advice that responds to country office needs, including through the provision of professional development and backstopping;
Refine and roll out best practices and evidence-based lessons on effective networking and community management processes to CO staff (In conjunction with OHR);
Apply integrated multi-disciplinary approaches to meet policy and programming needs in line with corporate guidance and standards;
Participate in Development Solution Teams (DST) which provide cross-cutting solutions to address the country office needs; and
Contribute to the quality assurance of policy services and foster policy innovation to enhance programme delivery through proactive engagement with policy teams in Regional Hubs and HQ.

Coordinate with UNDP and other organization communications functions to ensure wide awareness and engagement in facilitated network and community processes:

Provide expertise in social media utilization for network development, curation and demand management;
Serve as expertise focal point for the effective use of the Teamworks platform for facilitated knowledge networking solutions;
Integrate network management processes into corporate and other knowledge campaigns;
Support and collaborate with other knowledge management specialists in the delivery of community support and wide dissemination of knowledge products;
Identify substantive inputs for international fora to help shape global and regional development strategies, citizen engagement policies, norms and standard by researching, developing, and sharing knowledge-based tools, such as policy positions/practice notes/concept papers to help influence/advance policy dialogue and present such material at global and regional forums; and
Support partnerships with think tanks, academia and other development partners for policy research, development and innovation; including the incubation of new business and policy ideas.

Competencies

Core Competencies:

Innovation:

Ability to make new and useful ideas work.

Leadership

Ability to persuade others to follow.

People Management:

Ability to improve performance and satisfaction.

Communication:

Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform.

Delivery:

Ability to get things done.

Technical/Functional:

Primary:

Knowledge Networking:

Ability to communicate within and at large, participate in peer communities and engage substantively.

Knowledge Services Delivery

Ability to manage organizational resources and deployment in pursuit of knowledge management optimized approaches and initiatives).

Representation:

Ability to productively share UNDP knowledge and activities (at UN and other venues).

Knowledge Facilitation:

Ability to animate individuals and communities of contributors to participate and share.

Advocacy:

Ability to advocate a point of view and influence others.

Knowledge Facilitation:

Ability to turn raw information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to stated need.

Programme/Project Management:

Ability to plan, organize, and control resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals.

Secondary:

Partnerships:

Ability to engage with other agencies and forge productive working relationships.

Brief & Speech Writing:

Ability to prepare quality briefs and/or speeches.

Report Writing:

Ability to prepare quality reports.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in communications, international relations, public relations, economics, business administration, social sciences or related disciplines.

Experience:

5 years of professional work experience providing policy advice and programme support in knowledge management and facilitation;
Project management experience, including managing knowledge networks and/or advocacy campaigns using digital platforms, is desirable;
Hands-on experience working with multiple social media platforms is also desirable;
Experience working in developing country settings is an asset.

Language:

Fluency in English, both written and oral;
Working knowledge of another UN language is an asset.