Innovation Coordinator

Details

Mission and objectives

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the United Nations' global development network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. It is on the ground in 177 countries, working on solutions to global and national development challenges. UNDP China assists China in developing its own solutions to the country’s development challenges and works to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by reducing poverty, strengthening the rule of law and democratic governance, and by promoting environmental sustainability and South-South Cooperation.

Context

The UNDP Innovation Lab in Chengdu, under the supervision and guidance of Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone, will serve as a platform to facilitate technology diffusion; the intersection of science-policy-market will be strengthened through an innovation ecosystem. Effective solution exchange mechanisms to facilitate technology diffusion will be identified, assessed and applied within and beyond nations. More importantly, the space can provide a safe environment to analyse, test-run and demonstrate innovative models, processes and ideas, and prepare stake-holders with the capacities needed to respond to constantly changing technology in the future. UNDP Communications, Innovation and Partnership Team promotes greater understanding and visibility of UNDP’s work by utilizing various communications tools. Fully engaging with the media, social media and leveraging on a strong network of Public-Private Partnerships, the team leads the design, management, and implementation of UNDP’s overall communications strategy, including design and roll out high-impact, multimedia campaigns; programme-oriented communications products; media relations and key events; localization of global content for Chinese audiences; and publications on critical development issues. On the innovation front, the team is facilitating and prototyping innovative solutions and experiment with new ways of working to tackle complex development challenges outside the traditional development cycle. Founded on March 12, 1983 with the approval of the State Council directly under the Ministry of Commerce, CICETE has witnessed an extraordinary history of nearly three decades, during which it deems its responsibility to promote economic and technical exchanges between China and the rest of the world and make great contributions to China’s economic and social development in partner-ship with UNDP and other UN agencies. CICETE's main function, delegated by the Ministry, is to coordinate the cooperation between China and UNDP, UNIDO and UNV including executing their assisted programs to China, and to implement projects of general goods supply under the China-Aid programme to other developing countries. Meanwhile, CICETE organizes conferences, exhibitions and overseas trainings, invite international short-term and long-term consultants, and provide project management service for international organizations, government agencies and enterprises. In addition, CICETE has also been co-operating actively with international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and enterprises through our subsidiary bodies-China Association for NGO Cooperation, China Association for Promoting UN Procurement, China Association for Trade in Service, and China-Han Technical Development Co. Ltd.

Task description

In 2019, UNDP developed an SDGs Innovation Pilot Project with Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone to leverage UNDPs regional and global initiatives and capacities to help the Chengdu Hi-tech Zone build up a sustainable investment ecosystem based on its own strengths, e.g., establishing an incubator emphasizing the promotion of sustainable development, involving experts worldwide to provide technical advisory, experience sharing, or strategic partnership building. The purpose of the project is to strengthen the capability of Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone to unleash its future development momentum based on innovation and sustainability, to promote the transformation of its development path from productivity-driven to innovation-driven, and to actively explore international cooperation of high-tech zones with Chengdu Hi-tech Zone as the pilot. The project is also committed to promoting South-South cooperation and ex-changes with other countries leveraging UNDP’s global network resources and sustainable development experience to establish an international cooperation platform of global high-tech zones with Chengdu Hi-tech Zone as its pilot. Under the supervision of Communication and Innovation Officer of the Communications, Innovation and Partnerships team at UNDP, and Director of Programme Management Office (PMO), the National UNV will undertake the following tasks to support the development of UNDP Innovation Lab as well as project implementation and management: Event Coordination • Provide support to Assistant Resident Representative of the Communications, Innovation and Partnerships team at UNDP and the Director of PMO in the implementation of various events carried out by the UNDP SDGs Innovation Pilot Project; • Work closely with UNDP to implement parts of direct support under the “UNDP direct support to NIM” modality, in accordance with the annual work plan under the consensus of all parties; • Leads the overall project-related event planning, organization, and execution of events and/or activities as outlined in the annual work plan of the UNDP SDG Innovation Pilot Pro-ject in Chengdu including but not limited to conferences, training, seminars, workshops, summits, etc.; • Assists with event-related vendor coordination • Other ad hoc coordination tasks assigned by UNDP in coordination with CICETE. Partnership and Operations Support • Coordinates internal and external resources for the development of the UNDP Innovation Lab, such as partnerships with domestic innovation and technology enterprises, innovation institutes and university innovation teams, NGOs, etc. • Assist in implementing the UNDP SDGs Innovation Pilot Project, and provide support to the overall logistics and coordination for the implementation of project activities, including but not limited to meetings and conferences, study tours, trainings, workshops, etc. • Provides effective operations support to the design and implementation of UNDP Innova-tion Lab activities; • Other ad hoc operational tasks assigned by UNDP in coordination with CICETE. Results/Expected Output: The following outputs are expected: 1. Timely supports provided to tasks related to UNDP SDGs Innovation Pilot Project and the UNDP Innovation Lab in Chengdu. 2. Facilitates the smooth implementation of project activities and project-related communications plan; 3. Facilitates innovation thinking and practices in coordination with PMO.