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HEAD OF SOLUTIONS MAPPING |
UNDP |
Advert
Posted 2019-02-11 00:56:57
The
UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021 embraces the complexity of development and
commits the organization to helping countries find faster, more durable
solutions to achieve Agenda 2030. Important development trends like
urbanization, climate change, and rising inequalities pose significant
challenges on our path to achieve the 2030 agenda of achieving the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).
UNDP
has begun incubating a number of strategic initiatives aimed at ensuring UNDP
is ‘fit for purpose’ to deliver a new generation of solutions in line with the
challenges the world faces. One such key strategic initiatives is the
Country Accelerator Lab Network. The initiative is a recognition that
increasingly interrelated development challenges require going beyond business
as usual and single point, linear and silver bullet responses in
development. Instead, they call for an interdisciplinary approaches and
non-linear solutions that crowd in the collective efforts of variety of
partners and tap into local insights and the knowledge of people closest to the
problem and the solutions. The initiative is also a recognition and an
investment in the emerging momentum among a growing number of UNDP Country
Offices around joining together disruptive, cutting edge methodologies with
contextual, country-based insights and expertise to accelerate impact and
progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.
US:
We
are building the largest and fastest learning global network of Accelerator
Labs (initially setting up 60 labs in 60 countries) embedded within UNDP’s
global architecture and country platforms. The new offering builds on the
latest thinking from the fields of complexity science, lead user
innovation and collective intelligence to accelerate development
impact.
Our
network will surface and reinforce locally sourced solutions at scale while
mobilizing a wide and dynamic partnership of actors contributing knowledge,
resources and experience. The idea is to transform our collective
approach by introducing new protocols, backed by evidence and practice, which
accelerate the testing and dissemination of solutions within and across
countries. This will enable the global community to collectively learn from
local knowledge and ingenuity at a speed and at a scale that our societies and
planet require. This will be achieved by:
Building
on locally-sourced solutions, finding things that work and expanding on them;
Rapid testing and iteration to implement what works and go beyond the obvious
solutions;
Combining the best understanding, ideas and expertise to generate collective
knowledge;
Accelerating progress by bringing expertise, creativity and collective
intelligence to bear.
The Accelerator Lab will undertake i) external facing interventions addressing
priority development challenges, and ii) internally facing experiments to embed
new ways of doing development within the existing UNDP portfolio.
You:
You
are capable and excited about starting, design and managing activities, direct
engagement with local communities and collaboration across global
networks. You are driven by learning new things, figuring out how they
work and translating them across sectors. You tell stories of
emergent solutions and you gravitate to solving global development challenges.
You
have a natural inclination to interdisciplinary, cross cultural mindset and
cross sectorial experience with the cosmopolitan attraction for
diversity. You are driven by a strong sense of purpose and commitment to
make change happen and a keen eye to identify emerging opportunities and ‘at
the edge’ trends. You are open to discovery and exploration, capable of
articulating insights and ideas through visual thinking, open to serendipity
and discovery yet are pragmatic and constructive working with public sector
authorities. You are comfortable with ambiguity, capable of zooming out for
context and zooming in for content and execution- sharp in pursuit of
objectives, fast at adapting and changing course when needed. You have
superb competencies in program and portfolio management, are at ease with
decision-making processes and dynamics of different models of governance.
You
are curious, quirky and fun, natural strategic thinkers and a talented
designer. You understand systems, the good, the bad and the ugly, and are
capable of working within bureaucracies to make change, leverage technology to
extend, enhance and multiply exploration, discovery and execution. You
are digitally savvy, you hack tools, and you are keen to be a part of a large
global organization exhibiting United Nations values.
Duties
and Responsibilities
Lead
lab efforts in deep community immersion, collective intelligence and solutions
mapping
Developing
and sustaining positive relationships with a range of local community and
citizen groups;
Identifying and training local volunteers, recruiting Universities and think
tanks for sustaining long term community outreach and engagement and
identification of lead users, providing training and mentoring;
Translation of ethnographic and field research findings into learning and
action for the acceleration lab activities;
Design specific field research and participatory methods to focus on the most
vulnerable populations and those not usually engaged in public policy debates
on development methods;
Explore, document and increase understanding on emerging methods of tapping
into collective intelligence for sustainable development.
Convene the processes of solution intake, assessment and designing prototypes
for diffusion
Design
and implement methodology for in taking indigenous knowledge and local
solutions, consolidating, screening and further describing incoming ideas;
Design criteria/metrics for assessing consolidating incoming local solutions;
Conduct field research to determine best methods of making solutions transferable;
Test the solutions and potential ideas in real life context to understand
potential channels of spreading (including identifying private and public
sector venues for uptake);
Analyse system level issues that local solutions address (and don’t address,
therefore exposing gaps);
Design of ‘things and tools’ needed to successful scale indigenous knowledge,
lead user solutions, turning its insights into systemic change;
Design methods for integrating collective intelligence into UNDP programmes and
engage with programme and project managers to translate ideas into concrete
practice.
Undertake cultural and behavioral analyses for the accelerator lab portfolio of
experiments
Advise
on the accelerator lab’s experiment portfolio to ensure experiments are
designed based on people’s knowledge, behaviors and peer to peer methods of
managing and diffusing knowledge about sustainable development issues;
Ensure ethics framework is implemented for the lab’s portfolio of experiments;
Design methods to test accelerator ideas for their applicability and diffusion;
Integrate cultural norms, peer to peer methods and behavioral insights into
technology based experiments;
Convene a broad range of new partners with UNDP including artists, community
organizers and emergent movements to explore areas for collaboration on
sustainable development.
Work out loud and Organizational Learning
Lead
communication efforts and proactively use blog and social media to share
findings from field research;
Ensure UNDP’s communication efforts respect privacy and ethics considerations;
Liaise with the broader Accelerator Lab network and the support team to share
learnings and insights from the country-specific experience ;
Help embed solutions mapping lead user methodology within the CO portfolio,
design and provide trainings that include various methodologies and steps to
identify and work with lead users.
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.
Functional Competencies:
Innovation
– Ability to manage organizational resources and deployment in pursuit of
innovation approaches and initiatives.
Required
Skills and Experience
Education
Master’s
degree in Anthropology, Sociology, Behavioral psychology, Design,
Communications or related field and minimum of 2 years of professional
experience in development programming or policy; social innovation; partnership
building; engagement (public and private sector) and/or resource mobilization.
OR
Bachelor’s
degree in Anthropology, Sociology, Behavioral psychology, Design,
Communications or related field and minimum of 4 years of professional
experience in development programming or policy; social innovation; partnership
building; engagement (public and private sector) and/or resource mobilization.
Experience
Demonstrated
ability to undertake field research in remote communities and document
ethnographic evidence and honor expertise in usual places;
Demonstrate ability to work in participatory methods, follow the lead of people
as experts in their own sustainable development;
Experience in following areas is desirable but not necessary:
Professional
experience in development programming or policy and social innovation;
Proven professional knowledge and experience in approaches such as Ethnography,
behavioral insights, Qualitative and Quantitative User Research, service
journeys or human centered design;
Demonstrated ability to work with partners to help surface unarticulated needs;
Proven ability to design ethical frameworks for managing public sector
experiments.
Language
Proficiency
in written and spoken English.
Other
*The
Accelerator Labs will be comprised of a core team with niche capabilities that
focus on exploration, experimentation and ethnographic solutions
mapping. Within the first 6-8 months of the Lab fully functioning, each
member of the Core team will take the lead on one of the following functions:
Coordination
Training
Communications
The
Core team of the Accelerator lab will have capabilities in:
Experimentation (instituting
rapid learning about emerging challenges through design and running of a
portfolio of experiments that is coherent with the type of challenges that are
part of UNDP’s strategic plan, and
Ethnographic solutions mapping: deep immersion in community dynamics,
identification of and work with lead users, and implications of bottom up
solutions for the policy design
Exploration: The exploration function focuses on discovery and sense
making of emerging trends, implications for systemic impacts and risks, and
their potential for accelerating progress toward SDGs. Its work feeds
into the portfolio of experiments ensuring its coherence with the emerging
risks and opportunities (direct collaboration with the Experimentation Lead) and
connects local dynamics and solutions (link with the Ethnography Lead) into the
broader national and international ecosystem of potential funders, partners,
and allies thereby increasing the chances for acceleration. While
critical for the functioning of the Accelerator Lab, the exploration function
will also service the Country Office as determined and agreed with the UNDP
senior management.
Disclaimer
Important
applicant information
All
posts in the GS categories are subject to local recruitment.
Applicant
information about UNDP rosters
Note:
UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy
announcement. We may also retain applications and consider candidates
applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade
level and with similar job description, experience and educational
requirements.
Workforce
diversity
UNDP
is committed to achieving diversity within its workforce, and encourages all
qualified applicants, irrespective of gender, nationality, disabilities, and
sexual orientation, and culture, religious and ethnic backgrounds to apply. All
applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.
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