Head of Exploration

Overview
Initiate, design and manage exploration activities.

You have:

Master’s degree in social sciences, data science, statistics, physics, computer science, business intelligence or a related field and at least 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 sciences, data science, statistics, physics, computer science, business intelligence or a related field and at least 4 years of professional experience in development programming or policy, social innovation, partnership building, engagement (public and private sectors) and/or resource mobilization.
Professional experience in development programming or social policy and innovation.
Demonstrated ability in horizon scanning.
Proven ability in data analysis and visualization.
Fluency in written and spoken French.
Knowledge of the Malagasy language.
Fluency in written and spoken English.
Contract
This is a NO-B contract. This kind of contract is known as National Professional Officers . It is normally only for nationals . It’s a staff contract. It usually requires 2 years of experience , depending on education.

Salary
The salary for this job should be more than 1,238 USD .

HISTORY & ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the lead organization for sustainable development within the UN development system and serves as an integrator for collective action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP is the lead UN agency fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. Working with our extensive network of experts and partners in 170 countries, we help nations build integrated, sustainable solutions for people and the planet. The challenge for the period 2022–2025 is to dramatically accelerate and scale up development results to put the goals within reach. To this end, UNDP supports change in three directions:

Structural transformation: including green, inclusive and digital transitions
Leaving no one behind through a rights-based approach focused on empowerment, inclusion, equity, human action and education.
Building resilience: Strengthening countries and institutions to prevent, mitigate and respond to crises, conflicts, natural disasters, climate and the environment.
In this context, UNDP has identified three key accelerators: digitalization, strategic innovation, and financing for development. UNDP recognizes the complexity of development and commits the organization to supporting countries in finding faster and more sustainable solutions to achieve the 2030 Agenda. Key development trends, such as urbanization, climate change, and inequality, pose significant challenges to achieving the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In Madagascar, UNDP has established its country program for the period 2024-2028 as a contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF), agreed between the Government of Madagascar and the United Nations System, and is aligned with the General Policy of the Malagasy State which defines as strategic levers: (i) human capital; (ii) industrialization and economic transformation; and (iii) governance and the rule of law. Thus, the UNDP program in Madagascar is structured around the following three strategic priorities: strengthening good governance, the rule of law, peace and security; improving labor productivity and creating productive jobs for decent incomes and a competitive economy; strengthening sustainable, resilient and inclusive environmental management.

Over the past few years, UNDP has been developing a number of strategic initiatives to ensure it has the capacity to deliver a new generation of solutions to address the challenges facing the world. One of these key strategic initiatives is the UNDP National Accelerator Labs network, which operates as part of UNDP’s sustainable development offering.

Accelerator lab:

We have established the largest and fastest-growing global learning network on development challenges. A total of 90 labs have been established since October 2019 in 115 country offices. Their role is to identify, test, and scale the potential of innovative solutions on the ground to accelerate development. The labs apply experimentation in close collaboration with government partners to make this mode of operation a means of reducing the costs of large-scale public sector reforms.

UNDP is committed to ensuring a work environment that respects social diversity in all its forms. Therefore, UNDP encourages applications from women, as well as from all regions of Madagascar.

For the launch of its acceleration laboratory, UNDP Madagascar is seeking to recruit three talented national experts, including the position of Exploration Officer.

JOB PURPOSE

You are enthusiastic about initiating, designing, and managing activities, engaging directly with local communities, and collaborating within global networks. You are motivated by learning new things, understanding how they work, and translating them into other sectors. You tell stories of emerging solutions and are drawn to solving global development challenges.

You have a natural inclination toward interdisciplinarity, intercultural mindedness, and cross-sector experience, as well as a cosmopolitan attraction to diversity. You have a strong sense of purpose and commitment to making things happen, and an eye for identifying emerging opportunities and cutting-edge trends. You are open to discovery and exploration, able to articulate ideas through visual thinking, open to serendipity and discovery, yet pragmatic and constructive in your work with public sector authorities. You are comfortable with ambiguity, able to zoom out for context and zoom in for content and execution—lively in the pursuit of objectives, quick to adapt and change course when necessary. You have excellent program and portfolio management skills, you are comfortable with decision-making processes and the dynamics of different governance models.

You are curious, a natural strategic thinker, and a talented implementer. You understand systems—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and you can work across government to effect change, leveraging technology to expand, improve, and multiply exploration, discovery, and execution. You are digitally savvy, a tool developer, and eager to be part of a large global organization that embodies the values of the United Nations.

More specifically, within the Acceleration Lab team, the position focuses on:

Exploration : The exploration function focuses on uncovering and detecting emerging trends, their implications for systemic impacts and risks, and their potential to accelerate progress toward the SDGs. Its work feeds into the experimentation portfolio by ensuring its coherence with emerging risks and opportunities and by connecting local dynamics and solutions to the broader national and international ecosystem of potential funders, partners, and allies, thereby increasing the chances of acceleration. While essential to the operation of the Accelerator Lab, the exploration function will also serve the country office, as determined and agreed upon with UNDP management.
MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

1.) Horizon Scanning and Intelligence for the Accelerator Lab Example of Duties: – Identify, visualize and communicate emerging development trends, data, technologies and issues, with a focus on events, opportunities and actors at the margins and “below the radar screen”, and systemically map their impacts on the economy, environment, society and the livelihoods of the poorest. – Identify new sources of data and information, analyze and visualize patterns in unstructured data sources, present new information in an accessible and comprehensive way to enable awareness and analysis. – Proactively explore and identify new methods/approaches and cutting-edge knowledge to address development challenges, collaborate with the Experimentation Lead to transform them into learning options to address specific policy questions in the country. – Provide technical guidance for horizon scanning, foresight and data analysis for colleagues and partners. – Contribute to the formulation of Accelerator Lab service lines for the UNDP country programme based on the results of the horizon scan, systems mapping and local knowledge.

2.) Leverage new data sources Example of Duties: – Partner with private sector companies, including mobile network operators, to access anonymized data sets that can be used for sustainable development. – Demonstrate, through exploratory testing, the usefulness of new data sources for UNDP’s development work. – Build partnerships for real-time and other data analytics to better inform decisions and policies. – Design and deliver workshops, tools, or platforms that harness the collective intelligence of communities and mobilize action. – Proactively manage risks related to the use of data and technology, including those related to ethics and privacy. – Transform unstructured data sets into insights for UNDP and partners.

3.) Shared Work Example of Duties: – Share exploration results on future trends, new methodologies/approaches, potential partnerships and others within UNDP and with partners; – Proactively use blog posts and social media to share ideas, attract partners and help position Accelerator Lab at the forefront of exploring new trends. – Liaise with UNDP’s global network of Accelerator Labs and share lessons and ideas from country-specific experience. – In collaboration with the CO, support Lab partners to develop an emerging pipeline of new initiatives, particularly those with opportunities for job creation and inclusive growth; support other activities related to the design and operation of the Lab.

4.) Organizational Learning and Interface with UNDP Core Business Example of Duties: – Establish tools and partnerships to transform information into actionable and useful intelligence for public services and communities. – Design and deliver trainings on horizon scanning for partners and UNDP, help to integrate horizon scanning and bring attention to “fringe” activities in the Country Office and with partners. – Work with your colleagues and experts in the Accelerator Lab to codify and advance the practice of the Accelerator Lab and exploration in particular. – Organize and implement knowledge sharing and networking events; – Lead other activities related to the design and operation of the Accelerator Lab. – Design and deliver engaging and meaningful ways of reflecting on learning from explorations.

5.) Other Example of Duties: – Design and facilitate workshops, tools or platforms that harness the collective intelligence of communities and mobilize action. – Transform unstructured data sets into information for UNDP and its partners. – Write blogs, articles and knowledge products to disseminate the work of the lab and country office. – Conduct action research studies through innovative and efficient qualitative and quantitative methodologies (e.g. on current or suddenly emerging issues in the context). – Develop partnerships with universities and research centers for better scaling up of development solutions. – The incumbent performs all other tasks relevant to his job profile and which are deemed necessary for the proper functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Supervisory role: N/A

JOB REQUIREMENTS

Education Master’s degree in social sciences, data science, statistics, physics, computer science, business intelligence or a related field and at least 2 years of professional experience in development programming or policy, social innovation, partnership building, engagement (public and private sector) and/or resource mobilization.

Or

Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, data science, statistics, physics, computer science, business intelligence or a related field and at least 4 years of professional experience in development programming or policy, social innovation, partnership building, engagement (public and private sectors) and/or resource mobilization.

Experience, Knowledge and Skills – Professional experience in development programming or policy and social innovation; (required) – Demonstrated ability in horizon scanning; (required) – Proven ability in data analysis and visualization. (required) – Experience in the 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. (desirable) – Professional experience in partnership building and engagement (public and private sectors) (desirable) – Proven ability to use open data, mobile data, geospatial data, drone and satellite data, citizen data to inform policy development, strategic planning or program design. (desirable) – Proven professional knowledge and experience in at least one of the following areas: Futures thinking and foresight, design research and systems mapping; (desirable). – In-depth knowledge of key global and regional trends; (desirable) – Proven access to leading innovator networks. (desirable) – Fluency in written and spoken French; (required) – Knowledge of Malagasy (required) – Fluency in written and spoken English. (desirable)

Accelerator Labs will consist of a core team with specialized skills focused on exploration, experimentation, and basic innovation. During the first 6-8 months of the Lab’s operation, each core team member will take the lead in one of the following functions: 1) Coordination; 2) Training; 3) Communication

The Acceleration Lab core team will have expertise in the following areas:

Experimentation : establishing rapid learning of new challenges through the design and management of a portfolio of experiments consistent with the type of challenges that are part of the UNDP strategic plan;
Mapping solutions : ethnographic methods and immersion in community dynamics, identifying and working with key users, and implications of bottom-up solutions for policy design;
Exploration: The exploration function focuses on uncovering and detecting emerging trends, their implications for systemic impacts and risks, and their potential to accelerate progress toward the SDGs. Its work feeds into the experimentation portfolio by ensuring its coherence with emerging risks and opportunities and by connecting local dynamics and solutions to the broader national and international ecosystem of potential funders, partners, and allies, thereby increasing the chances of acceleration. While essential to the operation of the Accelerator Lab, the exploration function will also serve the country office, as determined and agreed upon with UNDP management.

Demonstration of expected skills
Basic skills

Achieving Results: LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to detail, delivers quality work on time. Thinking Innovatively: LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas and known risks, solves problems pragmatically, makes improvements. Learning Continuously: LEVEL 1: Open-minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback. Adapting Agilely: LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively manages ambiguity and uncertainty, demonstrates flexibility. Acting Determinedly: LEVEL 1: Demonstrates drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in the face of adversity, self-confidence. Engaging and Collaborating: LEVEL 1: Shows compassion and understanding for others, builds positive relationships. Promoting Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 1: Appreciates and respects differences, is aware of unconscious bias, confronts discrimination. Soft and technical skills

Thematic Area Name Definition Strategic Business Direction Systems Thinking Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgment to understand how interdependent elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how changing one element may impact other parts of the system. Business Development Knowledge Generation Ability to search for and transform information into useful knowledge, relevant to the context or in response to an expressed need. Digital and Innovation Storytelling Ability to empathize with people’s perceptions, motivations, emotions, and mental models, and to create narratives to build an emotional case for change accordingly. Ability to present data, information, or analysis in a compelling way to mobilize resources, talent, or action. Digital and Innovation Data Analytics Ability to mine, analyze, and visualize data (including real-time data) to derive meaningful insights and support effective decision-making. Digital and Innovation Collective Intelligence Design Ability to design, lead, or manage processes that enable a collective to become smarter together by bringing together diverse groups of people, data, and technologies. Ability to define and explain why and how collective intelligence can add value to development programs (understanding problems, finding solutions, making decisions and mobilizing action, monitoring progress in real time, learning, and adapting). Ability to integrate different types of data (real-time data, “field” data, and new data) to generate new insights. Understanding guidelines and principles related to data privacy, ethics, and data protection. Increasing the diversity of contributions and going beyond the ‘usual suspects’, ability to navigate and manage a variety of actors, appreciating the diversity of perspectives, opinions, and expertise. Ability to facilitate platforms or sessions where people can contribute by providing their views and ideas independently and freely. Be people-centric: Ensure individuals understand and can determine how their data is used. Return input and ideas to empower people, without simply extracting data. Business managementPortfolio Management Ability to select, prioritize, and control the organization’s programs and projects, aligned with its strategic objectives and capacity; ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives and maintaining current operations, while optimizing return on investment. KEYWORDS

Innovation – Exploration – Research and Development – Systems Thinking

Equal opportunities

As an equal opportunity employer, UNDP values diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures in which we operate, and as such, we encourage qualified candidates from all backgrounds to apply for positions within the organization. Our hiring decisions are based on merit and suitability for the position, without discrimination.

UNDP is also committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all staff are empowered to contribute to our mission, are valued, can thrive, and benefit from career opportunities open to all.

Sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse of authority

UNDP does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination, or abuse of authority. All selected candidates are therefore subject to appropriate screening and must adhere to the respective standards and principles.

Right to select multiple candidates

UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement. We may also retain applications and consider candidates who apply for this position for other similar positions at UNDP, at the same level and with similar job description, experience, and educational requirements.

Scam alert

UNDP does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process. For more information, please visit www.undp.org/scam-alert .
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