Infrastructure and Project Management Senior Analyst - Strategic Initiatives (Sustainability, Resilience and Inclusion)

UNOPS is an operational arm of the United Nations, supporting the successful implementation of its partners’ peacebuilding, humanitarian and development projects around the world. Our mission is to help people build better lives and countries achieve sustainable development.

UNOPS areas of expertise cover infrastructure, procurement, project management, financial management and human resources.

Working with us

UNOPS offers short- and long-term work opportunities in diverse and challenging environments across the globe. We are looking for creative, results-focused professionals with skills in a range of disciplines.

Diversity

With over 4,000 UNOPS personnel and approximately 7,000 personnel recruited on behalf of UNOPS partners spread across 80 countries, our workforce represents a wide range of nationalities and cultures. We promote a balanced, diverse workforce — a strength that helps us better understand and address our partners’ needs, and continually strive to improve our gender balance through initiatives and policies that encourage recruitment of qualified female candidates.

Work life harmonization

UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands.

Within UNOPS, Implementation Practices and Standards (IPS) is responsible for the UNOPS delivery practices. IPS provides thought leadership, standards and oversight as support to the successful delivery of programmes and projects within UNOPS service lines (infrastructure, procurement, project management, human resources and financial management services). IPS is comprised of the Infrastructure and Project Management Group and the Procurement Group which aims to reduce organizational risks, improve project performance, and promote excellence across UNOPS projects through the Standards Management Framework; and provides organisational oversight on the application of standards. These Groups also support the positioning of UNOPS in the UN system and development sector in Infrastructure, Project Management and Procurement. IPSO also includes the Office of IPS (IPSO), that includes work streams on organizational excellence, knowledge management and the review of bid protests. As well as the Portfolio support unit, that aims at supporting the organisational readiness of UNOPS and provides support services to the Implementation Practices and Standards function.

UNOPS strategic focus places increased emphasis on national capacity development and sustainable approaches to project management, procurement and infrastructure services.  A key objective is to be recognized as an organization that delivers world-class infrastructure and project management, which is both economically and socially sustainable, even in the most challenging environments. To achieve this goal, UNOPS has established the Infrastructure and Project Management Group (IPMG). 

Within UNOPS, it is IPMG’s objective to serve the organization’s personnel and partners by broadening their infrastructure and project management capabilities, while disseminating best practices in both of these areas. Through this work, the group helps facilitate the successful delivery of programs and projects around the world.

To achieve its objectives, IPMG has established three interrelated and interdependent work streams, namely, Strategic Initiatives, Standards, and Engagement Assurance. IPMG is managed overall by the Deputy Director of IPMG.

The Strategic Initiatives (SI) team works to develop methodologies and tools to improve development outcomes as well as assist in the positioning of UNOPS at the highest levels in related fields, including various global agenda focus areas, such as resilience, sustainability and inclusion.

Purpose and Scope of Assignment

Working within the Strategic Initiatives team and under the overall guidance and supervision of the Senior Infrastructure Sustainability, Resilience and Inclusion Specialist (IPMG), the successful incumbent will be expected to be responsible for providing technical support to Strategic Initiatives activities, as well as contributing to the overall administration of the team.

The Senior Analyst will be based in Copenhagen; however, the incumbent may be required to travel to support Strategic Initiatives activities in the field.

The Senior Analyst’s responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

Strategic Support

• Support the research, development and piloting of frameworks, tools and methodologies which focus primarily on improving the sustainability, resilience and inclusion of infrastructure;

• Support the research and development of initiatives for increasing knowledge and developing an applied understanding of sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructure both internally and externally;

• Support the research and drafting of key positioning pieces or reports which highlight the role of infrastructure in global development, including relations to the global agendas;

• Support the research and development of awareness materials, including case studies, that promote UNOPS infrastructure activities internally and externally across UN agencies and the private sector;

• Support the mainstreaming of sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructure within UNOPS policies, processes and standards.

Operations Support

• Support the building of sustainable, resilient, and inclusive infrastructure knowledge, skills and competencies at HQ, regional and country levels;

• Support the planning and delivery of missions to regions to support Strategic Initiatives work;

• Support the design and implementation of activities and initiatives around sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructure and its application within the development contexts;

• Support various tasks, work packages and projects as outlined and assigned in the annual work plan;

• Provide research and data collection on topics upon request by supervisors;

Reporting & Tools

• Identify areas for improvement and provide ongoing maintenance and updates to the Strategic Initiatives workspace; 

• Support the drafting of external articles, presentations, e-mails and other communication;

• Support the team with stakeholder management (internal and external) and establish a communication strategy for effective outreach;

• Support the preparation of reports and other communication materials including blogs, newsletters, and bulletins to promote Strategic Initiatives’ achievements;

• Support organisational reporting - i.e. quarterly progress reports, management reports, and end of year report.

Monitoring and Progress Controls

• Setting standards, personal and development objectives in Performance Evaluation Review;

• Responsible for monitoring and reporting on set goals, targets and performance requirements against the Performance Evaluation Review and work plan;

• Support the updating of the Intranet Page for the Strategic Initiatives team;

• Successfully meeting deadlines based on workplan;

Education 

• Candidates must hold a Master’s Degree or higher: Engineering, Architecture, Construction Management, other built environment related subject;

• However, candidates with degrees in international relations, economics, sustainability, resilience or inclusion AND have experience in infrastructure or the built environment may apply;

Work Experience 

• 2 years of experience working in the built environment is required;

• Experience researching and supporting the development of thought leadership publications or positioning papers is required;

• Experience with infrastructure planning, delivery and management in a developing country context is considered an asset; 

• Experience working with a variety of institutions; including UN, government/public institutions, private sector, and or research/academia in the field of the built, natural and enabling environment is considered an asset;

• Experience working with the global policy frameworks around sustainable, resilient and inclusive infrastructure is considered an asset;

• Experience developing analytical frameworks is considered an asset;

• Experience developing software based tools is considered an asset;

• Experience in data analysis is considered an asset.

Languages

• Fluency in English is required; 

• Fluency in French and/or Spanish is highly desirable.

• Please note that the closing date is midnight Copenhagen time
• Applications received after the closing date will not be considered.
• Only those candidates that are short-listed for interviews will be notified.
• Qualified female candidates and candidates from the Global South are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNOPS seeks to reasonably accommodate candidates with special needs, upon request.
• Work life harmonization - UNOPS values its people and recognizes the importance of balancing professional and personal demands. We have a progressive policy on work-life harmonization and offer several flexible working options. This policy applies to UNOPS personnel on all contract types
• For staff positions only, UNOPS reserves the right to appoint a candidate at a lower level than the advertised level of the post
• For retainer contracts, you must complete a few Mandatory Courses (around 4 hours) in your own time, before providing services to UNOPS.
• The incumbent is responsible to abide by security policies, administrative instructions, plans and procedures of the UN Security Management System and that of UNOPS.  

It is the policy of UNOPS to conduct background checks on all potential recruits/interns. Recruitment/internship in UNOPS is contingent on the results of such checks.

Work environment