Background

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a global organization with 18,000 staff working in approximately 170 offices globally. UNDP works in development and crisis settings with the aim to achieve the eradication of poverty, reduction of inequalities and exclusion, and sustained development results. Coming together under the new framework of the Global Policy Network (GPN), the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) and Crisis Bureau (CB) sit at the core of UNDP’s global policy, programming, and knowledge capacities.

The current revitalization of these functions aims to better capture UNDP’s knowledge, innovations, good practices and lessons learned from country, regional and global experience, drawing from a network of internal and external expertise, in order to address complex problems. To this end, UNDP has launched an online engagement platform, SparkBlue that brings together the internal Communities of Practice (CoPs) with the ability for UNDP to conduct external consultations. The platform offers UNDP staff and interagency colleagues to host online Consultations for networking and knowledge exchange and the opportunity for a broad audience to share solutions and work together on ideas and proposals and to vote on policy recommendations.

A key role under this initiative is the role of the technical engagement consultant. The Technical Engagement Specialist provides technical advice and acts as liaison between the project manager and the developers for SparkBlue and DataFutures Platform as well as the SDG Integration website. The Technical Engagement Specialist will report to the SDG Engagement Specialist.

Duties and Responsibilities

Through this consultancy, support will be provided to SDGi and the SparkBlue community until 31 January 2022 with the following deliverables:

1.       Define and implement a content strategy and approach for digital engagement platforms at UNDP                                      

• Conceptualize, research and advise on the latest trends in new technology industry standards, best practices and benchmarks based on expertise and available business intelligence, including new emerging digital platforms, to maximize strategic digital engagement in the content strategy;                                                                                         
• Provide technical advisory services to help conceptualize and recommend existing and new technologies to UNDP teams wishing to explore the development of new online engagement platforms.
• Develop and maintain regular content review and training processes, working across the organization to ensure a consistent and coherent approach to digital content and engagement

2.        Provide technical guidance and support to UNDP’s Communities of Practitioners (CoP) facilitators

• Provide training and coaching to the CoP Facilitators in using UNDP SparkBlue
• Provide day-to-day support to UNDP colleagues with any technical difficulties they may have in accessing and using SparkBlue
• Provide technical advisory support to CoP Facilitators wanting to conduct External consultations on SparkBlue
• Provide management with monthly reports on SparkBlue
• Work with Office of Information Management and Technology (OIMT) as needed
• Act as the liaison between UNDP Knowledge team and the developers
• Provide guidance and support for content upload and management
• Ensure quality assurance guidelines are met to ensure quality content on platform
• Coordinate with CoP facilitators in keeping the SparkBlue knowledge base up to date
• Hold standing user calls to announce new features, answer questions, and enable users to share their experience with others

3.        Manage the long-term agreement with Drupal Companies

• Manage the roster of Drupal companies under the Long-term-agreement with UNDP
• Manage an internal tracking sheet of Drupal Companies
• Act as the liaison between UNDP colleagues and Drupal companies
• Provide quarterly updates to management on the usage of Drupal companies

4.        Management and Oversight of external facing part of SparkBlue

• Manage the external consultations on the external facing part of SparkBlue
• Provide technical and advisory support to UNDP, UN entities, NGO’s and other external stakeholders that are interested in hosting an external consultation on the Engagement Hub.
• Ensure that bugs and problems are logged into JIRA
• Ensure that risks are escalated to the Digital Strategist
• Maintain a list of active admins of the Engagement hub
• Maintain a list of development practitioners on Mailchimp including ensuring that the list is properly segmented to facilitate targeted emails by region and interest area

5.        Liaise and manage relationship with Developers and provide technical support to the teams

• Data Futures Platform
• SDG Integration Website  

Institutional Arrangement -  The Technical Engagement Specialist will report directly to SDG Engagement Specialist in SDG integration team, BPPS. The position sits under the knowledge and learning pillar of the SDG integration team. 

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 while exercising good judgement.

Required Skills and Experience