Insurance Development Specialist

UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility

The collaboration between the insurance industry and the development sector has grown significantly over the last five years. Key initiatives, such as the Insurance Development Forum, Insurance Resilience Global Partnership and the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance, have evolved into significant policy and standard setting partnerships, bringing together countries, the development sector, and the private and mutual/cooperative sectors of industry. The Tripartite Agreement between the German Government, UNDP and Insurance Development Forum (and its private sector members) is a flagship example of such transformative partnerships. Increasingly, these partnerships are moving beyond policy to programming, with a strong focus on not only delivering insurance and risk financing solutions to countries and communities, but also on long-term transformational change of insurance markets.

UNDP’s growing work in this space has led to the creation of the Insurance & Risk Finance Facility (IRFF), within the SFH. This work covers a range of critical areas where insurance and risk transfer solutions and collaboration with the industry can add significantly to achieving and delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.)Covering insurance for development, sovereign risk financing, insurance investments, resilient, and more, UNDP’s work will look to not only develop and deliver insurance solutions together with countries and communities, it will also look to work with partners to transform insurance markets, working on legislation, regulation and institutional capacity.

UNDP’s dedicated team working on insurance, risk and resilience financing, is now being enhanced with additional capacity to deliver on all the global activities around insurance for development and insurance innovation.
 

Leadership, Coordination and Coherence

• Provide leadership and representation across UNDP’s work in the inclusive insurance and resilient nature (natural assets and human wildlife conflict) space;
• Play a key coordinating role across all key global forums for inclusive insurance and resilient nature, including within the Insurance Development Forum, as well as with key partners such as the Microinsurance Network A2ii, Milliman, ICMIF, Generali, BioFin and Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance.
• Actively connect these key global fora and partnerships with UNDP’s work at the country level and focus on translating global policy discussions into practical action.
• Contribute to the UNDP’s corporate work by providing strategic advice, advocacy support, and critical analysis and information on inclusive insurance and resilient nature (natural assets and human wildlife conflict), to enhance UNDP’s overall positioning, including the preparation of briefing notes, presentations, speeches, etc.
• Lead all the global innovation work of the IRFF in particular the implementation of the Insurance Innovation Challenge.

Effective Technical/Policy Leadership

• Provide technical leadership and support to all of UNDP’s work in inclusive insurance and natural resilience (natural assets and human wildlife conflict), and support all work, global, regional or at a country level (where appropriate);
• Lead developing and implementing UNDP’s workstream for inclusive insurance at the country level, working across both supply and demand sides, covering legislation, regulation and institutional capacity development, as well as advocacy and awareness raising for both government and potential beneficiaries, and finally insurance distribution partners;
• Lead developing and implementing UNDP’s workstream for natural resilience at the country and global levels, collaborating with key stakeholders and initiatives to develop implementation models for this line of work.
• Design training and education packages on areas relevant to the contributions of insurance to development, and deliver and support their rollout across countries, regions and UNDP country offices;
• Work across UNDP teams of the Global Policy Network to develop programming in related areas such as inclusive growth, gender and women’s empowerment, SME development, health, rural development, nature resilience and human wildlife conflict, and actively develop and implement work with UNDP teams working in these areas, with a focus on joint delivery of work at the country level and joint fund-raising to support that work;
• Facilitate the integration of work on inclusive insurance and resilient nature as part of the Insurance and Risk Finance Facility’s integration UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub.

Programme Identification, Development and Resource Mobilization

• Lead UNDP’s work across Insurance for Development areas and interventions, from project identification, through technical inputs, partnership collaboration, fund-raising and delivery;
• Proactively seek to resource all projects in development, and actively support the overall team’s effort (as well as that identified with country offices and the team’s regional specialists) to raise financing;
• Actively explore and develop strategic alliances with key partners for joint fundraising and service-delivery;
• Contribute to the development of strategic programmatic partnerships with both internal and external partners to advance the implementation of Inclusive Insurance initiatives as part of UNDP’s Insurance and Risk Finance Facility;

External Engagement, Knowledge Management, Advocacy, Research and Evidence

• Lead on insurance for development knowledge management, advocacy and research issues for the IRFF, as part of the team’s wider package of work.
• Facilitate the development of marketing, policy, learning and advocacy materials related to the team’s work, as well as in support of both the Sustainable Finance Hub and wider GPN, especially as it relates to insurance for development.
• Where appropriate represent the IRFF across media, and actively contribute to its work through a strong social media presence supported by regular expert articles.
• Develop strong relationships with donor financing and technical teams on insurance for development and provide regular guidance on policy and programming changes within donors that could impact on resource mobilization.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

• The role will report to the Senior Technical Advisor of the IRFF.
   

•  2030   Agenda Partnerships - SDG Finance:
  • Insurance for development 
• Business Management - Results-based Management: 
  • Ability to manage programmes and projects with a focus at improved performance and demonstrable results   
• Business Management   Partnerships Management: 
  • Ability to build and maintain partnerships with wide networks of stakeholders, Governments, civil society and private sector partners, experts and others in line  with UNDP strategy and policies.   
• Business   Direction and Strategy - 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  
• Business   Direction and Strategy - System Thinking: 
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other
    parts of the system   

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section:

• Demonstrated experience working in inclusive insurance, insurance innovation especially in developing countries is highly desirable.
• Experience in results-based and results-oriented project implementation and management is an advantage.
• Experience in managing teams, inspiring and mentoring staff, facilitating their capacity development, and resolving conflicts is desired.
• Experience managing projects across issues of strategy, financing, administration, and human resources in NGO/CSO, private sector, academia and/or intergovernmental stakeholders is desired.
• Experience in overseeing and guiding the development of communications and knowledge management strategies and products is desired
• Working experience in UN or other international organization, and knowledge of UNDP policies, procedures and practices are advantageous