Head of Exploration in Mongolia (Nationals Only)

BACKGROUND

The UNDP Strategic Plan embraces the complexity of development and commits the organization to helping countries find faster, more durable solutions to achieve Agenda 2030. Important development trends like urbanization, climate change, and rising inequalities pose significant challenges on our path to achieve the 2030 agenda of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNDP has begun incubating a number of strategic initiatives aimed at ensuring UNDP is ‘fit for purpose’ to deliver a new generation of solutions in line with the challenges the world faces.  One such key strategic initiatives is the UNDP Accelerator Lab Network which operates as part of UNDP’s sustainable development offering

We are building the largest and fastest learning global network on development challenges. We have already set up 60 labs in 78 countries) embedded within UNDP’s global architecture and country platforms. We are now recruiting for a second cohort of 30 labs to be based in UNDP around the world. We use the power of the crowd, machine learning and distributed decision making to support partners to understand problems, develop new solutions, promote more inclusive decision making, and provide better oversight of what is done. We identify grassroots solutions and stretch their potential to accelerate development.  We apply experimentation closely with government partners to grow this as a mode of operating to reduce costs of large-scale public sector reforms. Experimentation helps us learn whether particular assumptions are accurate before deploying solutions at scale, especially in the rapidly evolving contexts that often dominate development progress.

Position Purpose

The Accelerator Lab will be comprised of a core team with niche capabilities that focus on exploration, experimentation and grassroots innovation. Each member of the core team will take the lead on one of the following functions: (1) Coordination, (2) Training and (3) Communications

The Core team of the Accelerator lab will have capabilities in:

• Exploration: The exploration function focuses on discovery and sensemaking of emerging trends, implications for systemic impacts and risks, and their potential for accelerating progress toward SDGs.  Its work feeds into the portfolio of experiments ensuring its coherence with the emerging risks and opportunities and connects local dynamics and solutions into the broader national and international ecosystem of potential funders, partners, and allies thereby increasing the chances for acceleration.  While critical for the functioning of the Accelerator Lab, the exploration function will also service the Country Office as determined and agreed with the UNDP senior management.
• Experimentation: Instituting rapid learning about emerging challenges through design and running of a portfolio of experiments that is coherent with the type of challenges that are part of UNDP’s strategic plan, and

Solutions Mapping: Ethnographic methods and immersion in community dynamics, identification of and work with lead users, and implications of bottom up solutions for the policy design

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Horizon scanning and intelligence for the Accelerator Lab

• Identify, visualize and communicate emerging development trends, data, technologies and issues with a particular focus on the edges and “below the radar screen” events, opportunities and players, and systemically map their impacts on economy, environment, society, and livelihoods of the poorest.
• Identify new sources of evidence and insights, analyze and visualize patterns in unstructured sources of data, present new insights in accessible and comprehensive ways to enable sensemaking and analysis
• Proactively explore and identify the new methods/approaches and frontier knowledge to tackle development challenges, collaborate with the Experimentation lead to turn these into learning options for addressing specific policy issues in the country
• Provide technical guidance for horizon scanning, foresight and data analysis for colleagues and partners.
• Contribute to the formulation of the Accelerator Lab service lines to the UNDP Country Programme based on findings from horizon scanning, systems’ mapping, and local knowledge

Tapping into new data sources 

• Set up partnerships with private sector companies including mobile network operators among others to gain access to anonymized data sets that can be used for sustainable development.
• Demonstrate through exploratory tests the utility of new data sources for UNDP’s development work
• Create partnerships for analyses of real time and other data to better inform decisions and policies
• Design and deliver workshops, tools, or platforms that tap into the collective intelligence of communities and mobilize action.
• Proactively manage risks with using data and technology, including those related to ethics and privacy
• Transform unstructured data sets into insights for UNDP and partners.

Working out loud

• Share findings from the exploration on future trends, new methodologies/approaches, potential partnership, and others within UNDP and with partners;
• 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. 
• 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

Organizational learning and interface with the core business of UNDP

• Set up tools and partnerships to transform information into actionable intelligence
• Design and deliver horizon scanning trainings for partners and UNDP, help embed horizon scanning and attention to the ‘edge’ activities in the CO and with the partners

• Work together with your Accelerator Lab colleagues and experts to codify and advance the Accelerator Lab practice and exploration in particular.
• Organize and implement knowledge sharing and network events;
• Lead other activities related to the design and operations of the Accelerator Lab
• Design and deliver engaging and meaningful methods for reflection on learning from explorations

COMPETENCIES

Core Competencies:

• Achieve Results - LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline
• Think Innovatively - LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements
• Learn Continuously - LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback
• Adapt with Agility - LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible
• Act with Determination - LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident
• Engage and Partner - LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion - LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Functional & Technical competencies:

• 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
• Business development- Knowledge Generation: Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need
• Business development - Knowledge Facilitation : Ability to animate individuals and communities of contributors to participate and share, particularly externally
• Business development – 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 development – Resource Management : Ability to allocate and use resources in a strategic or tactical way in line with principles of accountability and integrity
• Business development – Communication: Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience
• Business management - Working with Evidence and Data: Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making.

Education:

• Master’s degree in Social sciences, Data science, Statistics, Physics, Computer Science, Business Intelligence, or related field is required.
• Bachelor’s degree can be considered with additional relevant years of work experience.

Experience:

• Minimum 2 years (with MA degree) of 4 years (with BA degree) of professional experience in development programming or policy, social innovation, partnership building, engagement (public and private sector) and/or resource mobilization is required.
• Demonstrated capacity in horizon scanning is required.
• Demonstrated capacity in innovation design and testing methodologies is desirable.
• Experience with international development organizations is desirable

Experience in following areas is desirable but not necessary:

• Proven professional knowledge and experience in social innovation approaches such as Systems Thinking, Ethnography, Crowdsourcing, Collective Intelligence Design, Citizen Science, Positive Deviance, Social Network Analysis, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning
• Demonstrated capacity to use open data, mobile data, geospatial data, drone & satellite data, citizen data for informing policy making, strategic planning, or programme design.
• Proven professional knowledge and experience in at least one of the following: Future thinking and Foresight, Design Research, and Systems Mapping
• Key awareness of key global and regional trends
• Demonstrated access to networks of edge innovators.

Language requirements:

• Excellent knowledge in English and Mongolian, both spoken and written is required.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Candidates selected pursuant to this vacancy may be subject to UNDP’s policy on Probation upon assignment.