Head of Experimentation
Lilongwe
- Organization: UNDP - United Nations Development Programme
- Location: Lilongwe
- Grade: Junior level - NO-B, National Professional Officer - Locally recruited position
-
Occupational Groups:
- Engineering
- Poverty Reduction
- Scientist and Researcher
- Project and Programme Management
- Innovations for Sustainable Development
- Managerial positions
- Design (digital, product, graphics or visual design)
- Closing Date: Closed
Background
Duties and Responsibilities
- Works with UNDP and partners in mapping the context and nature of development challenges, with a particular focus on understanding systemic issues beyond traditional silos and classifications and identifying drivers of change, and levers for intervention;
- Mapping systems and assets, identifying levers and logic for intervention, building hypotheses of change that are a fit to the system level challenges identified;
- Identify logic against which to asses fit and coherence of the individual portfolios with the frontier challenges on which they are meant to generate learning.
- Collaborate with UNDP colleagues and stakeholders on the design of experiments across to validate the hypotheses and test the effectiveness of identified prototypes, including (but not limit to) defining variables, formulating hypotheses, and coordinating experimental protocols;
- Develop a framework to capture the learning from the experiments in such a way that it favours critical reflection and rapid adaptation over static reporting;
- Provide technical guidance for experiment design, roll-out and validation based on the experiment conditions, resources available, and requirements;
- Proactively manage risks within experiments including those related to ethics and privacy;
- Examine the results from the testing of prototypes and translate them into proposals informing programmatic decisions on next steps and implications for improvement, spin offs and scaling-up, where warrented.
- Proactively use blog and social media to ahare findings from the portfolio implementation;
- Help UNDP and partners disseminate insights from Accelerator lab experiments via social media platforms as a way to regularly reflect and engage with external audiences;
- Liaise with UNDP’s global Accelerator Lab network and share learnings and insights from the country-specific experience ;
- Jointly with the CO, support lab partners to develop an emerging pipeline of new initiatives, support other activities related to the design and operation of the Lab;
- Design and deliver engaging and meaningful methods for reflection on learning from experiments ;
- 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;
- Lead other activities related to the design and operations of the Accelerator Lab;
- Help embed a portfolio logic in clients’ work including the existing UNDP Country Programme (as determined and agreed with the senior management)
- Working with clients to encourage reflection and capturing of insights from individual experiments, as they related to the overall portfolio logic;
- Provide technical consultation and training for national partners and the CO through various phases including asset mapping, developing a strategic portfolio logic, experiment design, prototype testing, and evaluation.
Competencies
- Ability to make new and useful ideas work : Level 4: Adapt with complex concepts and challenges convention purposefully.
- Ability to persuade others to followLevel 4: Generates commitment, excitement and excellence in others
- Ability to improve performance and satisfaction: Level 4: Models independent thinking and action.
- Ability to listen, adapt, persuade and transform; Level 4: Synthesizes information to communicate independent analysis.
- Ability to get things done while exercising good judgement : Level 4: Meets goals and quality criteria for delivery of products or services.
- Ability to manage organizational resources and deployment in pursuit of innovation approaches and initiatives: Level 5: Originate, Catalyzes new ideas, methods, and applications to pave a path for innovation and continuous improvement in professional area of expertise.
Required Skills and Experience
- Master’s degree in Social Science, International Development, Science, Engineering, Design (e.g. industrial or architecture), Psychology or a related area and minimum of 2 years of professional experience in development programming or policy; social innovation; partnership building; engagement (public and private sector) and/or resource mobilization.
- Bachelor’s degree in Social Science, International Development, Science, Engineering, Design (e.g. industrial or architecture), Psychology or related area and minimum of 4 years of professional experience in development programming or policy; social innovation; partnership building; engagement (public and private sector) and/or resource mobilization.
- Demonstrate ability to design experiments, validate hypotheses and test prototypes;
- Professional experience in development programming or policy and social innovation.
- Proven professional knowledge and experience in social innovation approaches such as Design Thinking, behavioral insights, Qualitative and Quantitative User Research, Experiment Design & Validation, data empowerment, and collective intelligence;
- Demonstrated ability to work with clients to help surface unarticulated needs;
- Demonstrated ability to apply a portfolio logic to experiments;
- Demonstrated ability in running co-design sessions and capacity-building in experimental design, lean iteration and impact evaluation.
Disclaimer
Important applicant information
All posts in the GS 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.
Scam warning
The United Nations does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.
However, we have found similar vacancies for you: