Profile Development Officer

Development Officer Profile

Various Locations

Grade: Mid (P3) and Senior (P4) Level Positions

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mandated to lead and coordinate international action to protect and assist refugees and other persons of concern. While UNHCR's primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees, our ultimate goal is to help find durable solutions that will allow them to rebuild their lives in dignity. However, the growing scale of the refugee crises has propelled forced displacement high on the global agenda. Humanitarian support alone is insufficient to lift displaced populations out of poverty, and such aid-focused strategies fail to facilitate long-term solutions or to help populations realize their development potential. It is anticipated that development responses to forced displacement will grow in significance in future years due to the greater importance attached to reducing poverty in fragile and conflict-affected settings and addressing protracted displacement situations in a more sustainable manner.

In December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) affirmed the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). The Compact outlines a set of commitments, endorsed by Member States, for more predictable and equitable responsibility-sharing to ensure that host communities get the support they need and that refugees can lead productive lives; recognizing that a sustainable solution to refugee situations cannot be achieved without international cooperation.

Within the context of the GCR, the role of the Development Officer is to support UNHCR's engagement and cooperation with host Governments¿ and development agencies¿ medium-term programmes. The goal is to assist local communities and UNHCR¿s population of concern by leveraging development partnerships to influence policy dialogue to enact institutional reforms toward improved protection environments, socio-economic inclusion, and self-reliance; taking into account and reducing the vulnerabilities of forcibly displaced persons. As such, the incumbent needs to have practical experience from, and an understanding of, development programs and processes, the interplay of different aspects of economic growth, governance, fragility and conflict. Depending on the operating environment, the incumbent might need to have specific expertise in areas such as social protection, local governance and community development or private sector outreach.

The Development Officer supports relevant UNHCR staff to contribute to the Operation¿s efforts to (i) align policy, operational and programme priorities between humanitarian and development programmes, (ii), develop, contribute to and coordinate multi-year and multi-partner protection and solutions strategies for protracted forced displacement situations (iii) engage in development planning, programming and coordination processes with Government entities and development partners; and (iv) support the operationalization of multi-stakeholder and multi partnership approaches in line with relevant legal frameworks and in close coordination with national institutions.


Typical functions may include:

For country offices:
Supporting inclusive multi-stakeholder-multi- year planning
¿ Advise on long-term political, economic and social trends that will enhance opportunities for solutions, resilience and inclusion for populations of concern to UNHCR as well as more sustainable approaches to refugee protection;
¿ Support the development of comprehensive multi-year multi-partner protection and solutions plans/strategies for Persons of Concern to UNHCR and ¿ where applicable -  facilitate the inclusion of populations of concern into national and local development planning and programming instruments and thus enhance resilience; this planning should take into account host communities and leverages the roles, resources and capacities of hosting Governments and development partners, including International Financial Institutions, Multilateral Development Banks, bilateral development agencies, and others;
Strengthening and Managing Development Partnerships
¿ Support and advise in identifying, strategically articulating and capitalizing development and resilience opportunities, including through Government pledges and or pledges made by bilateral or multilateral development and/or peacebuilding partners;
¿ Provide technical leadership and support for relationship building with development co-operation agencies and peace and state-building agendas through the different stages of policy and programme identification, preparation, implementation and review to assist them in incorporating the concerns of refugees, returnees and others of concern to UNHCR into the design and implementation arrangements of their programmes  in a manner that impacts positively on protection circumstances;
¿ Develop partnerships and networks with development cooperation actors to influence policy dialogue on institutional arrangements and programming with governments related to sectors, locations and programme content of consequence to UNHCR and persons of concern. This would, in particular, focus on supporting the coordination of the in-country relationship with the World Bank Group and other multilateral development banks;
Support for evidence-based planning

In collaboration with the (regional/country office) economist (where relevant):

¿ Ensure that development actors are provided relevant data to inform their planning, programming and advocacy around resilience for and inclusion of UNHCR persons of concern;
¿ Identify, commission and/or contribute to analytical activities that build the conceptual framework and evidence base for comprehensive, development-oriented responses to forced displacement;
¿ Engage with governments, development partners (both multilateral and bilateral), and with the private sector and civil society (as appropriate) to identify opportunities for UNHCR to contribute to the design and implementation of monitoring systems to track progress towards agreed outcomes;
Capacity building and knowledge management
¿ Facilitate coordination and collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and experience sharing between UNHCR and development actors and across UNHCR operations globally by documenting and disseminating practices and active participation in the Division of Resilience and Solutions¿, Development Partnerships Community of Practice; and,
¿ Support training activities aimed at the capacity building of UNHCR and partner agency staff to achieve greater coordination, effectiveness and synergies between humanitarian and development interventions.




For Regional Bureaux:
¿ Provide support, as detailed in the above duties for a country Development Officer for countries without a Development Officer as specified in the operational context for this position; 
¿ Support the Regional Bureau and country operations in analyzing from a development perspective the potential components of longer-term situational solutions strategies, identifying the protection/resilience/solutions challenges, and the means to address these and possible regional opportunities for engagement; 
¿ Support and advise the Regional Bureau and/or operations in identifying, articulating and capitalizing development and resilience opportunities, including through pledges made by regional partners, and regional development initiatives and programmes;
¿ Aggregate, analyse and package available knowledge and data from country operations to feed into regional and HQ policy, programme and advocacy efforts;
¿ Ensure support and coherence, where relevant, across operations in how they engage with development actors (e.g. messaging, policies, etc.);
¿ Interpret long-term political, economic and social trends from a situational or regional perspective that will define the opportunities for inclusion for populations of concern to UNHCR as well as more sustainable approaches to refugee protection management;
¿ Engage with regional bodies, such as IGAD, ECOWAS, etc. to identify and advocate for entry points for inclusion of forced displacement issues in development fora; and,
¿ Identify, commission and/or contribute to analytical activities from a situational or regional perspective that build the conceptual framework and evidence base for comprehensive, development-oriented responses, including preparedness work, to forced displacement.

Minimum Qualifications and Professional Experience Required:

For positions at the P3 level
Years or experience / degree level:
¿ Experience: Undergraduate degree (equivalent of a BA/BS) in Development Economics, Development Studies, Political Science, Socio-Economic Development, International Relations or related field plus minimum 6 years of relevant (international) job experience. Graduate degree (equivalent of a Master¿s), plus minimum 5 years or Doctorate degree (equivalent of a PhD) plus minimum 4 years.
¿ Languages: Proficiency in English is required.

For positions at the P4 level
Years of experience / degree level:
¿ Experience: Undergraduate degree (equivalent of a BA/BS) in Development Economics, Development Studies, Political Science, Socio-Economic Development, International Relations or related field plus minimum 9 years of previous work experience relevant to the function. Graduate degree (equivalent of Master's) plus 8 years or Doctorate degree (equivalent of a PhD) plus 7 years of previous relevant work experience may also be accepted.
¿ Languages: Proficiency in English is required and knowledge of a second UN language (Arabic/ Chinese/French/Russian/Spanish) at B2  is preferred.

The UNHCR workforce consists of many diverse nationalities, cultures, languages and opinions. UNHCR seeks to sustain and strengthen this diversity to ensure equal opportunities as well as an inclusive working environment for its entire workforce. Applications are encouraged from all qualified candidates without distinction on grounds of race, colour, sex, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.