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Coordinator - Uganda Tourism Ecosystem Platform

Kampala

  • Organization: UNDP - United Nations Development Programme
  • Location: Kampala
  • Grade: Consultancy - SB-4 (SC8/SC9), Service Contract, Local Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Environment
    • Poverty Reduction
    • Sustainable trade and development
    • Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction
    • Public, Private Partnership
    • Managerial positions
  • Closing Date: Closed

Background

Tourism has been recognised as one of the key drivers of Uganda’s social and economic transformation over the last 10 years. In line with global trends, the tourism sector in Uganda has grown, creating a positive impact on employment creation and foreign exchanging earnings for the country. The sector has emerged as the single largest export earner and contributed to 6.6% of the national GDP and to 15.7% of total exports in 2016. The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to employment, including jobs indirectly supported by the industry is 5.8%

Notwithstanding this positive trend, the sector has not lived up to its full potential largely due to low competitiveness. Compared to neighbouring countries like Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, the competitiveness of Uganda’s tourism sector is still relatively low, resulting in lower numbers of visitors. This is mainly because of a narrow product range, relatively high prices, and inadequate skills of employees, low quality of services, an unfavourable tax regime, and high operational costs.

Despite the potential to include low-income people and local communities in tourism value chains, they are still largely excluded. Those people and communities living near and around Uganda’s tourism attractions have largely not been able to transform the experience of having tourist visitors in their area into business and income earning opportunities; for instance, through offering community based tourism products or providing goods and services to companies, lodges or restaurants that cater to tourists in these areas.

A mapping study of the tourism sector in Uganda revealed that there are four systemic challenges that are constraining sustainable and inclusive growth of the sector. These include: a) limited information on inclusive business practices; b) lack of policy incentives that promote inclusive business practices; c) limited capacity of tourism MSMEs to include low-income people and local communities into their value chains and d) absence of market linkages between key market players, including tourism MSMEs and local communities. Furthermore, the current sector coordination mechanisms are inadequate, incoherent and lack the resilience to effectively address the four challenges identified above.

Inclusive businesses present a promising approach to realize the sector’s full potential for socio economic transformation and bring the benefits of economic growth in tourism directly to low-income people. Inclusive businesses are defined as businesses that include low-income people on the demand side as customers, and on the supply side as owners, employees, producers and entrepreneurs at various points within the value chain. They build bridges between business and the poor for mutual benefit by bringing the benefits of economic growth directly to low-income communities. Inclusive businesses create a strong foundation for profit and long-term sustainability and growth by bringing previously excluded people into the marketplace. By including low income people and local communities in tourism value and supply chains the tourism sector could increase its competitiveness and potential social economic transformation.

Rationale

In line with its Private Sector Strategy, UNDP is becoming increasingly well positioned to support inclusive growth and development and contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to through innovative approaches of inclusive market development (IMD). Through IMD, UNDP engages the private sector and other stakeholders to improve opportunities for the poor to participate in markets.

The UNDP 2013 flagship report “Realizing Africa’s Wealth - Building Inclusive Businesses for Shared Prosperity” calls for greater coordination of the diverse tourism stakeholders to achieve greater impact for inclusive businesses and ultimately low-income people. Inclusive Business Ecosystem Initiatives (IBEI) have been particularly successful in creating such inclusive business ecosystems. These initiatives coordinate diverse stakeholder in the ecosystem - companies, governments, development partners, civil society organizations (CSOs), research institutions and intermediaries - at multiple levels to ensure that individual activities build on and reinforce each other.

An essential part of the IBEIs are multi-stakeholder platforms that bring together all relevant stakeholders of the inclusive business ecosystem in a collaborative manner. A collective, coordinated and systemic intervention is needed to address the above-mentioned challenges and catalyse sustainable and inclusive growth of the sector.

In this regard, UNDP and Government of Uganda have developed an initiative aimed at strengthening the tourism inclusive business ecosystem in Uganda. The initiative – Uganda Tourism Ecosystem Platform (UTEP) – was established in April 2017, and is intended to catalyse inclusive growth and development of the tourism sector in Uganda. The UTEP brings together all relevant tourism stakeholders under one common platform to design and implement targeted interventions that address the above-mentioned ecosystem challenges that inhibit the growth of inclusive businesses. The Platform includes the Government of Uganda, Private Sector, Business Associations, Business Service Providers, Development Partners, Civil Society and Academia. The vision of the Uganda Tourism Ecosystem Platform is: “Uganda as a preferred sustainable and inclusive tourism destination with a tourism sector that creates opportunities for all”.

UNDP sees Coordinators of multi-stakeholder partnerships and platforms as playing a critical part in effective multi-stakeholder collaboration. They take responsibility for:

Building and maintaining productive working relationships between the partners

Preparing, facilitating and following up on platform meetings and decisions

Keeping discussions on track and ensuring that the partnership is innovative, appropriate and efficient

Encouraging the partners to achieve optimal benefit and impact

Maintaining a focus on sustainable outcomes

Mobilizing additional resources for the partnerships

UNDP is looking for the services of an Ecosystem Platform Coordinator to support and facilitate the functioning of the Uganda Tourism Ecosystem Platform. The Platform Coordinator will be responsible for coordination of stakeholders and activities of the platform, monitoring implementation of the platform action plan, and mobilizing additional resources. S/he is expected to be knowledgeable about multi-stakeholder coordination, have a good understanding of the Uganda tourism sector landscape and experiences in dealing with key public and private tourism stakeholders and have technical knowledge on inclusive business practices.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall supervision of the UNDP Uganda Country Director, the direct supervision of the Team Leader – Inclusive Green Growth Programme and technical oversight and support from the responsible UNDP Uganda Programme Officer, the Platform Coordinator will undertake the following tasks:

Coordination of platform:

Undertake activities to operationalize the platform and ensure that all documentation for its full operation are in place; including the governance structure, partnership agreements, vision and collaborative action plan, a performance monitoring and evaluation plan and any other required documents.

Promote and advocate for the platform among all active and potential stakeholders; and act as a first point of contact for platform stakeholders and agencies on the work of the platform;

In consultation with stakeholders organize platform meetings; facilitate those meetings as well document and monitor the implementation of decisions made by the platform;

Build effective partnerships through regular interactions with project stakeholders and share information transparently across the whole network, including by updating the platform website as well as the stakeholder mapping and database

Ensure engagement of platform stakeholders in the planning and implementation of platform activities; monitor the work of the platform against the collaborative action plan, follow up to ensure successful implementation of platform activities, and hold platform members accountable for the plan’s delivery;

Develop concept notes for platform activities, and Terms of Reference (ToRs) for consultants

Develop platform technical reporting mechanisms and prepare platform progress reports.

Organize annual reviews of the performance of the platform, including the membership and partnership framework, and the implementation of the agreed-upon interventions, as necessary.

Identify and support development and dissemination of knowledge products, best practices and lessons learnt from the platform and platform activities.

Resource Mobilization

Develop a resource mobilization strategy for the platform and platform activities in close collaboration with the UNDP Country Office, including preparation of briefs and specific fund-raising strategies and approaches where useful. Key target group for resource mobilization includes donors, development partners, impact investors and other private sector players.

Draft public information materials and online content in support of current and new partnerships and resource mobilization strategies.

Interact with external partners (e.g. donors, development partners, impact investors, private sector) to advertise for and promote the platform and platform activities.

Mobilize additional resources for the platform and platform activities in close collaboration with the UNDP Country Office

Competencies

  1. Facilitation skills: Successful convening and relationship-building – particularly in the early stages of a partnership – requires Coordinators to manage a range of encounters between key players, whether in the form of one-to-one meetings, small group activities or larger task-oriented workshops. For an IBEI this also means to drive collective thinking and identify common ground to align strategies of stakeholders. In this role, the Coordinator needs to listen actively, ask the right questions and play a neutral role on content in the negotiation process.
  2. Synthesising information & record keeping skills: An IBEI coordinator will need to be highly capable of managing complex data and layers of information and experience. He/she will need to ensure that meticulous records are kept of meetings and decisions – either by themselves or in overseeing someone else in undertaking this important function.
  3. Communication & presentation skills: A Coordinator will need excellent communication skills especially in: social interaction; active listening; empathy; concise speaking; ability to tailor written communications to different audiences and conducting meaningful conversations. He/she will have to present the objectives of the platform or details about the partnership itself to different audiences, including potential funders. This requires good story-telling and presentation skills.
  4. Coaching & capacity building skills: As a partnership progresses, the Coordinator will have a new focus – transferring responsibilities to partners. This involves stepping back from a front-line role and working in the background to support and coach individual partners or staff in building their own partnering and brokering skills.
  5. Institution capacity building skills: An IBEI Coordinator may have a crucial role in increasing the engagement of partner organisations as well as helping each organisation become more ‘fit for purpose’ in their partnering approach. He/she will also need to help partners build governance and accountability procedures as the partnership itself becomes more ‘institutionalised’.
  6. Reviewing & revising skills: Partnerships benefit from regular reviews to ensure that they remain animated and do not lose momentum. As someone with close knowledge of the partnership, the IBEI Coordinator is uniquely placed to facilitate reviews him/herself or, if he/she is too close to the partnership to do this objectively enough, to brief someone else to facilitate the review on behalf of the partners. The Coordinator may also have a critical role in revising the partnership based on experience and needs to prepare clear summaries. 

Required Skills and Experience

Education

At least Master’s Degree in international development, economics, business administration, tourism management or related field

Experience

At least 5 years of relevant experience in private sector, inclusive market development or coordination of multi-stakeholder processes;

Good familiarity with tourism sector in Uganda, including knowledge of relevant stakeholders;

Credibility and strong network with the participating stakeholders and ability to play a neutral role and resolve conflicts;

Strong communication and writing skills;

Experiences of working in different political and cultural contexts and the commitment to adapt the processes to the current context;

Excellent collaborative work style and understanding of multi-sectoral environments, including public and private sector needs;

Experience with UN or other international organizations is an advantage.

Disclaimer

Important applicant information

All posts in the SC categories are subject to local recruitment.

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.

Workforce diversity

UNDP is committed to achieving diversity within its workforce, and encourages all qualified applicants, irrespective of gender, nationality, disabilities, sexual orientation, culture, religious and ethnic backgrounds to apply. All applications will be treated in the strictest confidence.

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This vacancy is now closed.
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