PNUD recruits 01 Head of Exploration
PNUD
Luanda, Angola
Head of Exploration
Luanda, Angola
Job Identification
4504
Locations
Luanda, Angola
Posting Date
06/27/2022, 01:50 PM
Apply Before
07/11/2022, 04:59 AM
Job Schedule
Full time
Agency
UNDP
Grade
NOA
Vacancy Type
Fixed Term
Practice Area
Effectiveness
Bureau
Regional Bureau for Africa
Contract Duration
1 Year with Possibility for extension
Education & Work Experience
Master’s Degree
Required Languages
Proficiency in written and spoken Portuguese and English.
Vacancy Timeline
2 Weeks
Mobility required/no mobility
no mobility required
Job Description
Background
UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
Background and Organizational Context
The UNDP Strategic Plan 2018-2021 embraces the complexity of development and commits the organization to helping countries to find faster, more durable solutions to achieve Agenda 2030. Important development trends like urbanization, climate change, and inequality 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 78 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.
Position Purpose
The Head of Exploration is expected to design and manage activities, directly engage with local communities and public sector authorities, and collaborate across global networks.
Identify emerging opportunities and ‘at the edge’ trends, articulating insights and ideas through visual thinking.
Manage projects and activities using a strategic systems lens and leveraging innovation and technology to extend, enhance and multiply exploration, and implementation.
Duties and Responsibilities
In this section list up to five primary functions/accountabilities of the position (Typically one sentence each) and examples of duties that must be performed to successfully accomplish key responsibilities.
Horizon scanning and market intelligence for the Angola A Accelerator Lab
Identify, visualize, and communicate emerging development trends, data, technologies and issues with a particular focus on the edges and “below the radar screen” events, opportunities and players, and systemically map their impacts on economy, environment, society, and livelihoods of the poorest.
Together with the Accelerator lab team, map and assess local solutions and define pathways for their scale up in policies or markets
Identify new sources of evidence and insights, analyze and visualize patterns in unstructured sources of data, present new insights in accessible and comprehensive ways to enable sensemaking and analysis
Together with the Accelerator Lab Team contribute to proactively explore and identify the new methods/approaches and frontier knowledge to tackle development challenges, collaborate with the Experimentation lead to turn these into learning options for addressing specific policy issues in the country
Contribute to the formulation of the Accelerator Lab service lines to the UNDP Country Programme based on findings from horizon scanning, systems’ mapping, and local knowledge
Partnership and resource mobilization
Provide support to mapping potential partners across the public and private sectors with versatile expertise to strengthen the Lab’s capacities for acceleration thereby expanding the Lab’s distributed network both nationally and internationally
Together with the Accelerator Lab Team explore the diversification of funding and investment sources through proactively mapping potential partners and building value proposition for their investment in the Lab and its portfolio of experiments
Collaborate with programme / project managers and CO senior management to anticipate the emerging needs, shape the demand from the clients and support the CO to develop a pipeline of emerging projects responding to those
Contribute insights and provide input to the programme managers and CO senior management to coordinate targeted partnership and communication activities for relevant projects / initiatives.
Organizational learning and interface with the core business of UNDP
Support identification of future skills required for the Accelerator Lab, the Country Programme and Lab’s clients
Together with the Accelerator Team contribute towards the design and delivery horizon scanning trainings for partners and UNDP, help embed horizon scanning and attention to the ‘edge’ activities in the CO and with the partners
Organize and implement knowledge sharing and network events.
Support other activities related to the design and operations of the Accelerator Lab
Working out loud
Share findings from the exploration on future trends, new methodologies/approaches, potential partnership, funding opportunities, and others within UNDP and with partners.
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.
Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities: N/A
Competencies
Core
Achieve Results:-LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline
Think Innovatively:-LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements
Learn Continuously:-LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback
Adapt with Agility :-LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible
Act with Determination:-LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident
Engage and Partner:-LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships
Enable Diversity and Inclusion:-LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination
UNDP People Management Competencies can be found in the dedicated site. N/A
Cross-Functional & Technical competencies
Digital & Innovation -Data analysis -Ability to extract, analyse and visualize data (including Real-Time Data) to form meaningful insights and aid effective decision making
Digital & Innovation-Data storytelling and communications -Skilled in building a narrative around a set of data and its accompanying visualizations to help convey the meaning of that data in a powerful and compelling fashion.
Digital & Innovation-Innovation ecosystem curation -Ability to identify key players in an ecosystem, engage with them and mobilise them to build a community and over time a movement around a common mission that can bring about changes at the system level. Ability to give sense of purpose and build trust, develop programmes of activities and platforms to build and strengthen relationships.
Digital & Innovation-Creative facilitation -Ability to design workshops that considers and addresses multiple interests, agendas, worldviews; set out clear objectives and engaging activities; select appropriate tools, materials, resources that are needed to enable or support the activities.
Ability to swiftly build rapport with participants and create a safe space (on- and offline) where they feel comfortable to share their views, concerns, experiences and reflections; supporting this with a range of tools to stimulate active participation.
Ability to facilitate inclusive conversations, ability to work with a diverse set of people with different backgrounds, seniority and expert levels, using different approaches tailored to fit the people in the room, drawing out the perspectives and ideas of each individual and making decisions through deliberation and discussion across a group.
Ability to pace a session, adjust to the abilities and energy levels of attendees and the nature or purpose of an exercise. Being flexible and able to improvise; adapting and changing approaches in response to the needs, while staying true to the intent and objectives of the session.
Digital & Innovation-Futures & foresight-Ability to look at information from the past and present, identify patterns and trends and use them to inform decision making with a long-term view.
Being sensitive and able to scan horizons and pick up weak signals of change, explore their potential implications and assess their impact and urgency. Using creativity and imagination to communicate insights in compelling and engaging ways to challenge current mental models; ability to develop scenarios, speculative designs to present future visions or by making it experiential.
Being able to facilitate debate and discussion about possible futures; help people to feel comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty.
Digital & Innovation-Story telling -Ability to empathise with people’s perceptions, motivations, feelings and mental models and craft narratives to build an emotive argument for change accordingly.
Ability to present data, insights or information in compelling ways to mobilise resources, talent or action.
Ability to choose media and channels that is fit for purpose to reach specific target audiences.
Partnership management -Multi-stakeholder engagement and funding -Knowledge and ability to forge multi-stakeholder partnerships, and remove any obstacles to resource mobilization and multi-stakeholder funding platforms
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
Master’s degree in Social sciences, Data Science, Statistics, Physics, Computer Science, or related field
OR
Bachelor’s degree in a related field with additional 2 years of relevant experience will be given due consideration in lieu of Master’s degree
Experience:
Minimum 2 years of professional experience (Bachelor’s Degree) in development programming or policy; social innovation; partnership building; engagement (public and private sector) and/or resource mobilization
Demonstrated capacity in horizon scanning;
Experience in the following areas is desirable but not necessary:
Professional experience in partnership building and engagement (public and private sector) and resource mobilization;
Proven professional knowledge and experience in at least one of the following: Future thinking and Foresight, research, and Systems Mapping;
Key awareness of key global and regional trends;
Demonstrated access to networks of edge innovators experience in development programming or policy and social innovation;
Proficiency in written and spoken Portuguese and English.
Please note that continuance of appointment beyond the initial 12 months is contingent upon the successful completion of a probationary period.
Disclaimer
Important information for US Permanent Residents (‘Green Card’ holders)
Under US immigration law, acceptance of a staff position with UNDP, an international organization, may have significant implications for US Permanent Residents. UNDP advises applicants for all professional level posts that they must relinquish their US Permanent Resident status and accept a G-4 visa, or have submitted a valid application for US citizenship prior to commencement of employment.
UNDP is not in a position to provide advice or assistance on applying for US citizenship and therefore applicants are advised to seek the advice of competent immigration lawyers regarding any applications.
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.
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