BACKGROUND
The UNDP Strategic Plan embraces the complexity of development and commits the organization to help countries to 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 achieving 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 initiative is the UNDP Accelerator Lab Network which operates as part of UNDP’s sustainable development offering.
Position Purpose:
You are capable and excited about starting, designing, 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 interdisciplinarity, cross-cultural mindset and cross-sectoral 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, a natural strategic thinker, and a talented do-er. You understand systems, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and are capable of working within bureaucracies to make a 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.
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 Mapping Solutions: ethnographic methods and 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 sensemaking 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 and connects local dynamics and solutions 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. Digital: Embedding digital technologies and approaches into design, implementation, and deployment of projects and programmes at the national, regional, and global level. Systems transformation: designing portfolios to address complex structural challenges, applying long-term learning-oriented approaches to shift trajectories of entire systemsDUTIES & 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 Accelerator 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 bottom-up solutions, lead users and grassroots innovations related to sustainable development Convene a broad range of new partners with UNDP including artists, community organizers, and emergent movements to explore areas for collaboration on sustainable development Proactively manage risks by using ethnographic tools and methods, including those related to ethics and privacyConvene the processes of solution intake, assessment, and designing prototypes for diffusion:
Design and implement methods for sensing and building on indigenous knowledge and local solutions, consolidating, screening, and describing incoming Design criteria for consolidating incoming local solutions Conduct field research to determine the best methods for making solutions transferable, design methods to test and stretch ideas for their applicability, and diffusion as part of a portfolio approach. 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 those that they don’t address, therefore creating insights on the gaps) Design ‘things and tools’ needed to successfully scale indigenous knowledge, lead user solutions, turn its insights into systemic change. 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. Design methods for integrating collective intelligence into UNDP programmes and engage with programme and project managers to translate ideas into concrete practiceWorking out loud:
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 Jointly with the CO, support lab partners to develop an emerging pipeline of new initiatives, support other activities related to the design and operation of the Lab Proactively use blog posts and social media to share insights, attract partners and help position Accelerator Lab at the forefront of the exploration of new trends.Advocacy, Organizational learning, and interface with the core business of UNDP:
Help embed solutions mapping and lead user methodology within the CO portfolio, design and provide training that include various methodologies and steps to identify and work with lead users Provide technical consultation and training for national partners and the CO through various phases including asset mapping, developing a strategic portfolio logic, experiment design, prototype testing, and evaluation; Develop communication and other tools to transform field research into actionable intelligence Work together with your Accelerator Lab colleagues and experts to codify and advance the Accelerator Lab practice and solutions mapping in particular. Lead other activities related to the design and operations of the Accelerator Lab Design and deliver engaging and meaningful methods for reflection on learning from field research and grassroots innovation.People Management (Insert below standard sentence if the position has direct reports.):
UNDP People Management Competencies can be found in the dedicated site. Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities: N/A
This vacancy is archived.