Background

 
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core principles at UNDP:  we value diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, we foster inclusion as a way of ensuring all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, and we ensure equity and fairness in all our actions. Taking a ‘leave no one behind’ approach to our diversity efforts means increasing representation of underserved populations. People who identify as belonging to marginalized or excluded populations are strongly encouraged to apply. Learn more about working at UNDP including our values and inspiring stories.

 
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.

UNDP works with countries to expand people’s choices for a fairer, sustainable future.  UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2022-25 aims to build a more agile, anticipatory UNDP that embraces complexity, actively manages risk, continually adapts and seeks to learn alongside delivering results.   The Strategy and Futures (S&F) Team in the Executive Office supports the UNDP Administrator in building a more agile, anticipatory UNDP, alert to the trends and changes of an uncertain world and ready to respond to many different futures.

The S&F Team is responsible for two pillars of work: strategy and futures. Both pillars intersect and help inform each other. The strategy pillar is responsible for shepherding the Strategic Plan and for providing direction to the corporate systems that underpin our planning and reporting. This includes developing the organization’s strategic plans and driving the midterm review of the plans. The futures pillar’s focus is to connect, cohere and amplify the various futures efforts across UNDP, linking people and resources of knowledge and experience into and to establish a futures ecosystem, enabling UNDP to achieve stronger development impact. 

The Planning Specialist (Strategy and Futures), as part of the S&F Team, will be required to work closely with other members of the S&F Team, other units in the Executive Office, as well as across UNDP more broadly. 

How the required services will contribute to the work of the unit

The Planning Specialist will be instrumental in defining and articulating clear strategic objectives, ensuring they are seamlessly integrated into the organization's strategic plans. This role involves a proactive approach to improving and adapting corporate planning systems, ensuring they are resilient and responsive to UNDP's evolving needs and goals. The specialist will also support mid-term reviews of the UNDP’s strategic plans to evaluate progress against set objectives and recommend strategic adjustments as necessary. Additionally, the specialist will provide strategic advice on emerging opportunities and challenges, actively scanning the horizon for issues that could impact the success of UNDP's objectives and advising on how to navigate these dynamics to maintain the organization's forward momentum.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Planning Specialist will be responsible for the following functions:  
  • Strategic plan development 
  • Implementation and Development of Corporate Planning Systems  
  • Coordination & Communication Support  
  • Knowledge Management & Partnerships  
  • Representational Activities  

Corporate strategic planning 

  • Support the development of UNDP’s strategic plan and its reviews and assessments, including the midterm review. 
  • Collaborate with key stakeholders to articulate, define, and refine strategic objectives. 
  • Ensure alignment of the strategic plan with the organization’s mission, vision, and long-term goals. 
  • Facilitate engagement and communication across departments to ensure coherence in organizational planning efforts. 

Improvement of Corporate Planning Systems   

  • In coordination with the Strategy Lead, the Planning Specialist partners with cross-functional internal UNDP teams in improving the corporate planning and priority-setting systems to enable effective implementation of the Strategic Plan.  
  • Coordinates cross-functional teams to distill information and insights from the corporate planning system to inform on priority settings to senior management through the provision of high-quality analytical outputs and policy advice.  
  • Develops recommendations that effectively informs decision-making in line with the Strategic Plan and UNDP’s overall mandate and priorities.   
  • Facilitates the alignment of results and resources across all UNDP business units within UNDP’s corporate results framework.  
  • Facilitates continuous improvement in the corporate planning system design and implementation to reduce the burden of corporate reporting while also delivering real-time analytical products and reporting system capabilities.    

Coordination & Communication Support  

  • Establishes effective working relationships with counterparts at all levels in UNDP and manages them effectively to facilitate knowledge sharing in support of the design and implementation of corporate planning and priority-setting systems for UNDP.  
  • Supports Country and Regional Offices in the quality assurance for corporate results definition and reporting.  
  • Establishes effective working relationships with counterparts in other UN System agencies, funds and programmes, and with bilateral and multilateral partners to facilitate knowledge sharing and effective coordination of planning and priority-setting processes, in support of more coherent system-wide mechanisms and processes for planning with the UN System.  
  • Advocates for broad communication and outreach planning policies that promote compliance with UNDP’s mandate, accountability and reporting requirements.    

Knowledge Management & Partnerships  

  • Keeps abreast of the impact and effectiveness of UNDP’s corporate management systems and connects that knowledge and lessons learned to future development and improvement.  
  • Participates in knowledge management and practice networks as appropriate.    

Representational Activities  

  • Represents the Executive Office when required with the presentation of the strategic plan to UNDP audiences and/or external audiences to support wider implementation and interpretation.  
  • Advocates for the corporate planning system and how it connects to the mandate and vision of the Executive office.  
  • Interprets the impact of the corporate planning system on the policy and management function of the Organization to ensure that back office and front office functions are fully integrated.  

Institutional Arrangement

The Planning Specialist reports to the Strategy Lead in the Executive Office’s Strategy and Futures Team.
 

Competencies
Core Competencies
  • Achieve Results: LEVEL 4: Prioritize team workflow, mobilize resources, drive scalable results/strategic impact
  • Think Innovatively: LEVEL 4: Easily navigate complexity, encourage/enable radical innovation, has foresight
  • Learn Continuously: LEVEL 4: Create systems and processes that enable learning and development for all 
  • Act with Determination: LEVEL 4: Able to make difficult decisions in challenging situations, inspire confidence
  • Engage and Partner: LEVEL 4: Construct strategic multi-partner alliances in high stake situations, foster co-creation 
Cross-Functional & Technical competencies:
  • Strategic Thinking - 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 
  • Effective Decision Making - Effective Decision Making:
    • Ability to take decisions in a timely and efficient manner in line with one’s authority, area of expertise and resources 
  • Communications - Communications: 
    • Excellent writing and editing skills.  Open to feedback to enhance quality of writing.
    • Able to summarise complex topics in a clear, readable and succinct style
    • Able to adapt communications’ tone and substance to the specific audience 
    • Able to prepare and present authoritative advice
    • Skilled at building a narrative around a set of data and its accompanying visualizations to help convey its meaning in a powerful and compelling fashion
    • Comfortable with working rapidly and to multiple deadlines
  • Effective decision making - Effective decision making:
    • Able to take decisions in a timely and efficient manner in line with one’s authority, area of expertise and resources
  • Co-creation - Co-creation: 
    • Able to work with a diverse group of stakeholders, understand their interests and perspectives and tap into them as a creative source, creating collaboratively towards mutual ends 
  • Design thinking - Design thinking: 
    • Able to identify and challenge assumptions and biases, and to generate new perspectives and frames that help redefine the problem, solution and opportunity
    • Able to work with incomplete information, ambiguity and opposing views, needs and constraints and synthesize them into solutions that are viable, technically feasible and useful
    • Understand that change is non-linear and unpredictable; and that complex problems need a holistic approach
  • Tech literacy - Tech literacy: 
    • Able to apply or adapt digital tools to create new insights or develop solutions.
  • Strategic engagement - Strategic engagement: 
    • Able to capture and sustain interest and agreement of senior management and secure their buy-in to new perspectives or strategic recommendations.
  • Effectiveness - Effectiveness: 
    • System-wide approaches to strategic planning and results

Desired skills in addition to the competencies:

  • Familiarity with UNDP's corporate planning processes
  • Be flexible in handling change, and adopt new ideas, approaches and ways of working
  • Participate in, support, contribute to or drive meaningful change in UNDP 
  • Be comfortable with ambiguity and effectively managing multiple demands
     
Required Skills and Experience

 
Education:
  • Master’s degree in fields related to Social Policy, Public Policy, Politics, Development Economics, Development Studies or a related area.
  • A first-level university degree (e.g., Bachelor’s) in combination with two 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 with the United Nations system, with sound knowledge of UN/UNDP systems, procedures and policies. 

Required skills:

  • Strategic Planning 
  • Coordination
  • Strong communication and interpersonal skills

Language:

  • Excellent knowledge of English, as well as writing, presentation and communication skills. 
  • Fluency in other UN languages is an asset.

The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

  1. Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors. References may also include peers.
  2. A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.
  3. Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns or other materials.
Disclaimer

 

 
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.

 
Non-discrimination

 
UNDP has a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual exploitation and misconduct, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.  

 
UNDP is an equal opportunity and inclusive employer that does not discriminate based on race, sex, gender identity, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, age, language, social origin or other status. 

 
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