Youth Programme Specialist at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

BACKGROUND

Over the past few years, Africa has been experiencing rapid and substantial changes in the size of its population, particularly the youthful component. While the growing youth population presents important opportunities, especially in the form of the demographic dividend, there are many challenges attendant to such rapid rates of growth.

Due to the complexity and diversity of the African youth context, UNDP has recognized the need for collaborative, adaptive and innovative approaches, particularly in mutually reinforcing ways, at the continental, regional and country levels and with the support of a host of different partners committed to the development of young people.

Regional Service Centre for Africa

UNDP's Regional Service Centre for Africa is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. With additional offices in Dakar, Pretoria and Nairobi, it serves 46 Country Offices in sub-Saharan Africa, develops high-quality knowledge and policy, and is the organization’s main interface with regional and continental bodies such as the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities.

The work builds on UNDP’s expertise in development thinking and practice and decades of experience working at the country and global level. 

Governance and Peacebuilding

UNDP’s governance and peacebuilding work focus on developing knowledge, providing policy advice and country office programme support in the following areas: conflict prevention and peacebuilding; inclusive political processes and elections; enhancing voice and participation; responsive institutions and anti-corruption; and the rule of law, justice and security. 

The Regional Youth Team

The Regional Youth Team, which lies within the Peacebuilding pillar, provides technical expertise towards responding to regional and country youth development needs. Within the framework of UNDP’s Renewed Strategic Offer for Africa, the Regional Youth Team approach towards youth empowerment is to ensure youth inclusion as active change agents rather than passive recipients of development assistance, and prioritizes the following:

• Shifting focus from expert-led to youth and women-led employment and empowerment approaches. This approach, through the use of “enabling policy” platforms promoting stronger citizens voices, will involve government and all relevant stakeholders and take a broader approach to address the underlying economic, social, cultural and political factors that serve as barriers for youth and women’s empowerment and employment.
• Mainstreaming youth and women empowerment into UNDP country support, while consolidating regional flagship initiatives and creating alignment, synergies and synchronization, particularly among them.
• Adopting a comprehensive approach to supporting the role of youth and women in rural development, fragile and conflict settings, and other contexts, and in becoming empowered as change agents.
• Leveraging the digital revolution through platforms that enable more youth and women to have more proactive roles as citizens, help them gain access to services and resources that promote employment and entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership (especially in the context of the informal economy.

UNDP further implements a number of dedicated regional youth and women empowerment initiatives, that seeks to harness the abundant entrepreneurial, creative, and innovative spirit and ensure their participation in leadership and decision-making processes.

Youth as a cross-cutting area in UNDP’s regional work calls for effective coordination with other thematic areas, and among partners and stakeholders at regional and national levels.

Reporting Structure

The Youth Programme Specialist will be working within the regional youth team led by the Youth Empowerment Specialist, reporting to the Regional Peacebuilding Advisor who is responsible for the implementation of UNDP`s regional youth programme, and under the overall leadership of the Governance and Peacebuilding Coordinator.

The Youth Programme Specialist`s primary focus will be to work closely and provide support to UNDP sub-regional hubs and country offices in Africa towards implementation of effective youth programmes, policies and partnership; articulate a clear youth service offer from the Regional Service Centre; establish linkages among partners and stakeholders working on youth development in Africa.

The Youth Programme Specialist will be reporting to the Regional Peacebuilding Advisor, with a secondary reporting line to the Youth Empowerment Specialist based in the UNDP RSCA, IN Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Under the direct supervision of the Regional Peacebuilding Advisor and Youth Empowerment Specialist, the incumbent will be responsible for the following duties and responsibilities:

• Provide technical expertise to UNDP country offices in all Regional Bureau for Africa countries towards development and implementation of responsive youth policies and programmes, as well as foster linkages and knowledge exchange between initiatives. This would further entail the mapping and needs assessment processes towards informing UNDP’s regional response.
• Support formulation of transformative national development plans and programmes that integrate deliberate job creation and active youth engagement.
• Coordinate support for youth-led initiatives towards peacebuilding, climate action, and socio-economic development.
• Provide substantive support to consultative processes as well as the implementation of a robust and responsive regional governance and peacebuilding framework on youth.
• Support the formulation and operationalization of robust youth programmes and foster collaboration on youth development with the African Union, Regional Economic Communities, and other regional stakeholders
• Coordinate and support UNDP’s knowledge development on youth in Africa.
• Support formulation of multi-stakeholder communities of practice on youth in coordination with UNDP country and regional youth focal points.
• Coordinate programmatic activities with other thematic teams, such as Gender and AfCFTA, as it relates to youth empowerment.
• Support development of African youth capacity to actively engage in business, management and entrepreneurship through training, mentoring and apprenticeship programmes.
• Facilitate youth and SMEs access to innovative finance by partnering with financial institutions, the private sector, bilateral, NGOs and foundations.

Establish and maintain a strategic partnership and implement the resources mobilization strategy:

• Support partnership development and resource mobilization for the regional and country-level youth programmes, and coordinate existing youth initiatives with key stakeholders.
• Establish and maintain communication with UNDP country offices, UN agencies ministries of youth, CSOs, the Private sector, and other key partners towards collaboration on youth initiatives.
• Support development and implementation of strong resource mobilization strategy for the regional youth programme, including mapping and analysis of potential donors, bilateral, and regional partners.

Ensure efficient financial management, advocacy, programming, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and representation:

• Facilitate collection of knowledge from national and regional youth interventions to feed into the overall regional results framework, and ensure efficient monitoring, evaluation, and reporting in close coordination with regional and national youth focal points.
• Ensure proper monitoring of progress against annual work plan and prepare quarterly, annual reports, and other documents for the management and reporting of regional youth programme activities.
• Manage accurate and timely reporting on the progress of the youth programme with a specific focus on the activities and funds utilized.
• Support effective implementation of the youth programme in accordance with the budget.
• Ensure overall accountability and effective use of youth programme funds as well as strict and consistent application of UNDP rules and regulations in the related operations.

Ensure Knowledge Building and management: 

• Support development of effective knowledge management repository in coordination with UNDP regional and country office youth focal points.
• Participate in Task Forces and other ad-hoc internal working groups on cross-cutting themes as requested supervisor.
• Support effective external communication of ongoing regional and national youth activities.

COMPETENCIES

Core Competencies

Innovation

• Ability to make new and useful ideas work

Leadership

• Ability to persuade others to follow

People Management

• Ability to improve performance and satisfaction

Communication

• Ability to listen, adapt, persuade, and transform

Delivery

• Ability to get things done while exercising good judgement

Technical / Functional Competencies

Collaboration and Partnerships

• Ability to develop, maintain, and strengthen partnerships with others inside or outside the organization who can provide information, assistance, and support. Sets overall direction for the formation and management of strategic relationships contributing to the overall positioning of UNDP

Resource Mobilization

• Ability to identify and organize programmes and projects to implement solutions and generate resources

Project Management

• Ability to plan, organize, and control resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals

Relationship Management

• Ability to engage and foster strategic partnerships with other parties, InterAgency Coordination and forge productive working relationships

Facilitation and Knowledge Exchange

• Ability to harvest country voices for global policy dialogues on policy and financing frameworks

RECRUITMENT QUALIFICATIONS

Education

• Master's degree in international relations, management, economics, social sciences, business and entrepreneurship studies, or related area.

Experience

• A minimum of 5 years relevant experience.
• Prior experience working on youth-related projects is required.
• Experience working in areas related to youth empowerment at policy and/or programmatic levels.  
• Experience engaging with multi-stakeholders in youth development initiatives is desirable.
• Experience in engagement with the African Union (AU)/Regional Economic Communities (RECs) is desirable.
• Experience with UNDP/United Nations and/or the AUC /REC is desirable.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint is required. 

Language Requirements

• Fluency in English is required.
• French is desirable

IMPORTANT NOTE:

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