Digitization Expert

Details

Mission and objectives

Update

Context

Efficient access to justice is being undermined across the Caribbean region by delays within several key stages of the criminal justice process, resulting in major backlogs of cases. The identified backlogs have been occasioned by pervasive human and technological resource and capacity constraints, which, in turn, have contributed to massive bottlenecks in the work of the investigators, public prosecutors and courts. The reasons for these backlogs are numerous, ranging from weaknesses in police data capture, outdated court case handling systems and processes, paper-based evidence management systems, limited digitalization of corrections system processes and witness tampering and intimidation, which disproportionately affects women and victims of gender-based violence and intimate partner violence. The Partnership of the Caribbean and European Union on Justice (PACE Justice) encompasses eight countries namely Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago. The project’s ultimate objective is to: enhance the institutional capacities of police forces, prosecutors, lawyers, courts and prisons in the Caribbean to effectively and efficiently manage criminal cases and reduce the backlog of cases in the criminal justice sectors across the Caribbean region. To achieve these objectives, UNDP and partners will develop interventions for: 1. The deployment of enabling technology and systems training to improve efficiency of criminal justice administration. 2. The empowerment of stakeholders through gender-aware capacity building across all elements of the administration of justice, with a focus on service design and delivery. Given the broad geographic and implementation scope of the project, a team has been established in the Barbados Multi-Country office. To support the implementation of the PACE Justice Programme, national Justice Sector Reform Committees (Working Committees) will also be established in each beneficiary country.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Team Lead- PACE Justice, the Digitization Expert IUNV will help to oversee the effective and ethical execution of the overall project. The duties encompass a targeted scope of work, addressing the need for enabling the sharing of data across various agencies and platforms, ensuring interoperability between and among criminal justice stakeholders, and the need to effect institutional and behavioral change such that citizens, residents, and judicial end-users feel confident in the modernization the criminal justice system with the end goal of enhancing access to justice and human rights considerations. The UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks: 1. Work closely with the PACE Working Committees in each of the beneficiary countries and other judicial stakeholders to map the workflow processes in targeted agencies with an aim to identify the agencies collecting data, agencies sharing data and how da-ta is shared. (e.g. collaborating with Police, DPP, Magistrates Court, High Court and Prison.) 2. Relying on the previous analysis of ICT needs, refine the data needs of justice sector agencies and make recommendations. 3. Produce concrete recommendations on the readiness and capacity of agencies to re-ceive hardware/software inputs from the project. 4. Develop a framework to govern the implementation of the hardware and software re-quirements of justice sector agencies. 5. Conduct training needs assessments and make strategic recommendations for training across justice sector agencies. 6. Develop and implement a project strategy for the strengthening of national and regional justice sector agencies to generate data required to support evidence-based decision making in beneficiary countries. 7. Provide technical in-country support to beneficiary countries (e.g. coordinating train-ings, conducting site visits). 8. Support national officers, Country Offices and other personnel by providing technical oversight and guidance. 9. Provide support to engineering teams to troubleshoot and resolve technical challenges and issues that arise during implementation. 10. Provide advisory services to governments, justice sector agencies, regional partners, civil society organizations and other key stakeholders on digitalization, modernization and interoperability. Stakeholder Management 1. Act as a liaison between the UNDP and PACE Working Committees for digitization is-sues related to the project. 2. Collaborate with PACE Working Committees to gather project requirements and align expectations. Project Management Support 1. Assist with drafting and reviewing technical scopes, and Terms of Reference for pro-curement of all goods and services for the project. Monitoring and Evaluation 1. Work with the M&E Analyst to prepare comprehensive project evaluation reports in re-spect of digitalization and modernization across the eight countries, including lessons learned and recommendations for future projects.