Back Extended deadline: Programme Specialist, P3, Suva, Fiji

The Position:

The post of Programme Specialist is located in the UNFPA Pacific Sub Regional Office in Fiji and reports directly to the International Programme Coordinator. The Programme Specialist oversees project management and implementation and works in close collaboration with the Programme managers, Country Teams; Advisers, M&E team, and Implementing partners. This position will entail travel to Pacific countries.

How you can make a difference:

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s global Strategic Plan (2022-2025) focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture UNFPA’s strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action in the last Decade of Action to achieve Agenda 2030 including the SDGs. UNFPA Strategic Plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations, and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of health pandemics and climate crises on women’s and young people’s access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.

In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction. UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.

Job Purpose:

The Programme Specialist will support programme coordination and management of the Transformative Agenda programme. S/he will manage relevant programme components implemented at the regional and national working closely with the nine country teams, regional team, and regional implementing partners, and provide support to reporting and knowledge management. The Programme Specialist will work within an integrated and coordinated approach, which is fundamental to the Sub-regional Office and UNFPA’s overall strategy.

You would be responsible for:

Programme Management and Implementation

• Support the development and timely receipt of national and regional annual work plans and budgets from implementing partners and support recruitment of consultants as needed;
• Ensure that financial and narrative reporting obligations are met: SIS reporting, work plan progress reports, amongst others;
• Ensure that regular reviews and adjustments are made based on operational matters to achieve optimum results;
• Bring to the attention of UNFPA management challenges in a timely manner and proposing solutions and alternate strategies for achieving results;
• Provide oversight and technical assistance to ensure that activities in the agreed annual work plans are implemented in a timely manner, within budget and are of good quality;
• Participate actively in meetings and desk reviews and undertaking monitoring missions to assess progress in implementation, including appropriate substantive and administrative follow-up actions;
• Analyze and interpret the political, social and economic environment and identifies opportunities for UNFPA assistance and intervention. Keeps abreast of new policy developments and strategies analyzing policy papers, strategy documents, national plans and development frameworks, and prepares briefs and inputs for policy dialogue, technical assistance coordination, and development frameworks;
• Contribute to the development, formulation and facilitation of programme design and resource mobilisation efforts in close coordination with the Director, Deputy Director, International Programme Coordinator as well as the technical and country programme teams.

  Monitoring and reporting

  • Support organization and execution of the TA Steering Committee meetings, Midyear programme meetings, Annual Regional Planning Meeting and other relevant regional meetings;
  • Coordinate narrative reporting for donor reports;
  • Provide technical support to monitoring and evaluation activities.

    Capacity Development

    • Coordinate the development and support the implementation of a capacity development strategy to strengthen overall capacities in the region;
    • Provide guidance for capacity building for technical and programme support; and synergy between regional programme and other activities at the country level;
    • Provide capacity development support to staff in the priority countries, and to other junior professional staff, associates and consultants.

      Communication, knowledge management and partnerships

      • Strengthen relationships with key internal and external partners, and contribute to high quality interactions and clear communications with regional donors, partners and stakeholders;
        • Ensure implementing partners working on related activities are communicating adequately with each other to minimize duplication and enhance synergies;
        • Support organization of annual review and planning meetings in collaboration with other UNFPA staff to ensure timely preparation of AWPs and disbursement of funds to implementing partners;
        • Provide support to the process of technical/annual and financial reviews of the TA programme funds through the preparation of internal documents to assess progress of implementation;
        • Assist in advocacy and policy dialogue to further the advancement of ICPD through sub-regional policies and programming frameworks;
        • Coordinate and develop technical and strategic presentations and briefing notes, contribute to speeches, conference papers and other relevant donor briefings;
        • Coordinate the development of relevant advocacy and communication/information materials at the regional and national level for the Transformative Agenda;
          • As a focal point for knowledge management for the TA programme maintaining a repository of information;
          • Contribute to the creation and sharing of knowledge by summarizing and documenting results, lessons learned, successes and best practices, strategies and approaches and identifying training needs of project personnel.