Programme Specialist - DRR at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Position Purpose

• The DRR Programme Specialist is based in the UNDP Sub-Regional Resilience Hub in Nairobi and reports to the Africa Regional Team Leader on Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery. The Programme Specialist provides day to day country office support and supports the implementation of regional or multi-country programs and projects. Programme Specialist will provide substantive quality and coherent policy, technical, advisory and programme services within the Africa Region, and ensure alignment with the UNDP Strategic Plan and contribute to advance the credibility and recognition of UNDP’s capabilities in this knowledge domain and associated community of practice.
• S/he provides substantive support to the thematic area of disaster risk reduction, recovery and resilience in the region and works in close coordination with the global nodes on Disaster Risk Reduction (Bangkok) and Recovery (Nairobi). S/he also works in close coordination and collaboration with other GPN teams under the Planet group (Climate, Energy, DRR/Recovery and Environment).
• The Programme Specialist will support the Regional DRR/Recovery Advisor/ Team Leader in providing technical expertise and policy and programme advisory services to requests coming from the Country Offices and, where appropriate, to government as well as key UN and external partners.

S/he Is Responsible For Supporting The Following

• Policy development and positioning
• Programme formulation, implementation, and capacity building.
• Partnership development and resource mobilization
• Knowledge management, advocacy, and internal/external communications
• Results management, monitoring, and reporting.
• UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across units, functions, teams, and projects in multidisciplinary teams to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.

Key Duties And Responsibilities
Ensure Policy development and positioning

• Advise and support development of regional policy documents on DRT’s thematic workstreams including DRR, recovery, resilience building and related aspects for regional, sub-regional and national level application in line with UNDP Strategic Plan, Signature Solutions, and other corporate guidance and to help identify opportunities for development of new policies and guide the overall team priorities and workplans.
• Fosters linkages with global policy documents, discussions and corporate guidance notes on these issues and undertakes in-depth analysis to orient them towards the African context for application at regional, national, and sub-national level through synthesized guidance and inputs.
• Works with other practice areas like sustainable development, poverty, livelihoods, conflict, climate change mitigation and adaptation, environment etc. and ensure integration of disaster and climate risk considerations into their regional and national policies and strategies.
• Engages with regional inter-governmental organizations and UN agencies to advance coherence of policy approaches and ensure reflection of UNDP’s strategic priorities and approaches.
• Participates in regional, sub-regional and national policy deliberations to highlight specific areas of interest for UNDP and advance DRT’s thematic practice.
• Coordinates closely with global and regional DRT sub-teams to share reflections on policy and programmatic perspectives from Africa into the global and respective regional policy discussions and vice versa by compiling experiences and good practices from UNDP CO teams/colleagues.
• Engages with other GPN teams to foster cross-practice linkages and integration.
• Supports regional inter-governmental organizations and national counterpart ministries/agencies with specific guidance and inputs on issues related to DRR, recovery, resilience and risk-informed development for their national, sub-national and sectoral risk management and development policies and programmes.

Ensure Programme formulation, implementation, and capacity development.

• Analyzes regional, sub-regional and national risk management and development context to identify opportunities for expanding UNDP support on DRR, recovery, resilience, and risk-informed development.
• Advise and Support formulation of comprehensive regional, sub-regional, country and/or sectoral DRR programs or on specific thematic areas within the overall workstreams of DRT, UNDP Strategic Plan, Signature Solutions, and other corporate frameworks through programs/projects.
• Advances a cross-practice approach by integration of DRR practice with CC/CCA, energy, conflict-fragility, governance, and other programmatic initiatives of the GPN and coordinate with GPN teams in identifying strategic and synergistic areas for collaboration, joint programming, and implementation.
• Advise and support UNDP COs to develop DRR and recovery related programmatic interventions and helps respond to immediate needs and priorities identified by national governments and counterpart agencies.
• Improves program delivery by fostering coordination between UNDP, national government agencies working on DRR and recovery through a systematic analysis of national risk management context and development priorities.
• Develops capacities of regional, sub-regional, national, and sectoral ministries/agencies as well as of UNDP COs to develop, manage, implement, monitor, and report on their DRR and recovery interventions.
• Facilitates interface with global flagship programs led by the global DRT Team to ensure optimization of resources and capacities for enhanced programmatic impact and to support capacity development initiatives through trainings, information exchanges etc.
• Fosters coordination with other UN agencies implementing their regional, sub-rational and national programs to advance a coordinated UN approach.
• Guides countries with development of their CCA and UNSDCFs with specific reference to integration of disaster/climate risk management concerns therein for a stronger UNCT approach.
• Provides technical support to national government in monitoring progress and the achievement of their commitment on the Sendia Framework and the reporting requirements for other strands of the 2030 Agenda especially SDGs, Paris Agreement and New Urban Agenda.
• Identifies mission-critical roles for the thematic area in disaster response and recovery and provides timely technical policy and programme advice for crisis situations coordinated by the Crisis Bureau including contributions to UNDP SURGE for country offices.

Build strategic partnership development and resource mobilization.

• Supports strategic partnerships with regional inter-governmental organizations and regional teams of UN agencies particularly with UNDRR, UN Habitat, African Union, RECs, intergovernmental authorities, national governments, NGOs, etc. for greater coordination on policy and programmatic issues related to DRR and recovery and for mainstreaming risks into development and other regional priorities.
• Strengthens UNDP’s partnership with regional and national technical, academic and research institutions.
• Contributes to the development of a regional resource mobilization strategy, identifies potential donors and development partners, including regional development banks, and maintains regular engagement with their counterparts through newsletters and information exchange.
• Contributes to the global resource mobilization strategy developed by global DRT by providing timely information and intelligence about existing and emerging donor priorities.
• In collaboration with BERA, supports the Team Leader to engage with regional partners and develop/implement resource mobilization plan under corporate guidelines, including to fulfill corporate and donor reporting, advocacy, and information-sharing requirements.

Facilitates knowledge management, advocacy, and internal/external communications.

• Contributes to relevant GPN Community of Practices in the thematic areas of disaster risk reduction, recovery, and resilience, with a particular focus on supporting the regional Community of Practice on Crises Prevention and Resilience.
• Oversees the knowledge extraction, analysis, documentation, codification of results/lessons learned in the specific thematic area, ensuring that knowledge sharing, and content management is in line with guidelines and performed using corporate tools.
• Facilitates the development and sharing of knowledge-based tools and guidance to help influence/advance policy dialogue in the thematic area and present such material at various fora.
• Coordinates cross-regional exchange of knowledge by collaborating with policy teams in HQ on research.
• Contributes to the CoP on Resilience from regional and national perspectives and contributes blogs, write-ups, articles showcasing UNDP’s policy and programme initiatives, progress, and accomplishments.

Ensure Results management, monitoring, and reporting.

• Guides country offices with strengthening their results management capacities and processes through application of RBM, MSP and other programming principles.
• Guides regular monitoring and tracking of results from various regional, sub-regional and national projects/programs.
• Advises and supports COs meet their reporting obligations for various corporate, global and team reporting requirements as well as global reporting processes and tools.
• Develops country office capacity and familiarity with various corporate and global reporting tools like the Sendai Framework Monitor, ROAR, IWP, Dashboard etc.
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organisation.

Competencies
Core
Achieve Results:

• Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact.

Think Innovatively

• Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems.

Learn Continuously

• Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences.

Adapt With Agility

• Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands.

Act With Determination

• Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results.

Engage And Partner

• Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration.

Enable Diversity And Inclusion

• Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity.

Cross-Functional & Technical
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.

Business Direction and Strategy: Strategic Thinking

• Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDP’s objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, potential risks, and opportunities, linking the vision to reality on the ground, and creating tangible solutions.
• Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP.

Business Direction and Strategy: Effective Decision Making

• Ability to take decisions in a timely and efficient manner in line with one’s authority, area of expertise and resources.

Business Direction and Strategy: Negotiation and Influence

• Ability to reach an understanding, persuade others, resolve points of difference, gain advantage in the outcome of dialogue, negotiates mutually acceptable solutions through compromise and creates “win-win” situations.

2030 Agenda: Planet - Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery

• Climate Risk Management.

Business Management: Portfolio Management

• Ability to select, prioritize and control the organization as programmes and projects, in line with its strategic objectives and capacity; ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives and the maintenance of business-as-usual, while optimizing return on investment.

Business Management: Working with Evidence and Data

• Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making.

Education
Required Skills and Experience

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in Economics, Business Administration, Climate Change, Disaster Risk Management/reduction, Social Sciences, or related disciplines. Is required. OR
• A first-level university degree in the areas mentioned above, in combination with two (2) additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience

• Minimum of 7 years (with master’s degree) or 9 years (with bachelor’s degree) of professional work experience providing policy advice and programme support in the general area of Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Risk Management, preferably in the region in different development contexts is required.
• At least 4 years’ experience in designing and delivering disaster risk reduction and recovery related policy and programme support that fosters linkages with resilience, climate change and other themes is required.
• Proven ability to turn knowledge of global and regional DRR and recovery policies, frameworks and principles into policy, strategic and/or practical guidance is desired.
• Ability to establish networks and partnerships with knowledge and experience of UNDP and UN system policies and programming is desired.
• Strong and relevant experience working in developing country settings and disaster-prone regions, including experience in disaster/crisis contexts is an asset.
• Experience working in the Africa region is an asset.

Language

• Fluency in English, both written and oral is required.
• Working knowledge of another UN language preferably relevant to the region in which this position is based is an asset.