Macroeconomist RBAS Regional Hub (Home-Based)

Contract

This is a IPSA-9 contract. This kind of contract is known as International Personnel Services Agreement. It is normally internationally recruited only. It usually requires 2 years of experience, depending on education. More about IPSA-9 contracts.

Background

The Arab States region has been characterized by anemic and volatile growth with stagnating productivity levels and insufficient economic diversification. This macroeconomic context combined with repeated shocks that have hit the region, such as the 2008 food and financing crisis, the Arab revolutions of 2011, the oil price collapse of 2014, COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and the ensuing inflationary push, currency depreciation, and monetary tightening, show a picture of protracted and deepening vulnerabilities especially for the middle-income, low-income, and crisis-affected countries of the region. But new vulnerabilities also affecting some GCC countries might emerge with the green transition.

This complex picture is negatively impacting the most indebted countries in the region, as well as the Arab MICs with current average debt levels over 85 percent of GDP. Indeed, the ramifications of the most recent shocks are affecting the already weakened public finances through different channels. For example, soaring and volatile international energy and food prices have inflated the subsidy bill of countries where governments are still subsidizing energy and food products. Public spending is constrained by pressing trade-offs and should be guided by the need to cushion the vulnerable groups against the rising cost of living and the rising costs of borrowing, which have intensified fiscal pressures among the region's most vulnerable economies.

The region already has the highest unemployment rate in the world (around 12 percent in 2022) projected to fall slightly in 2023 to 11.5 percent compared to a world average of about half of it), driven by the highest unemployment rates in the world for youth and women.

These high rates of unemployment mask two important structural issues in the Arab States' labour markets. First, the region has had very low female and youth participation rates. Second, the region has a very high share of informal employment.

UNDP has turned its support to economic transformation and inclusive growth in the Arab region into a core analytical function informing macroeconomic modelling and policy analysis, redistributive and social protection policies, sustainable finance, private sector development, and overall human development.

To provide this support, UNDP RBAS has created the Inclusive Growth, Economist, and Sustainable Finance (IGEF) Team led by the Regional Chief Economist based in the Amman Regional Hub, which is responsible for undertaking in-depth analytical research on economic, finance and social issues relevant for the Arab region’s development, monitoring development outcomes, publishing relevant knowledge products and policy briefs, and disseminating the results for promoting policy dialogue within UNDP, among UN agencies, donors and partners, and the larger group of regional stakeholders.

The IGEF Team functions as a think tank within UNDP RBAS to provide high-quality analytical policy support and thought leadership, and provide technical support to UNDP’s regional and country-level programmes. Since the IGEF Team has been receiving rapidly increasing demands of technical support from COs and other regional teams, it is supported by a team of specialized international and national consultants.

In this context, and to support the work of the IGEF Team, UNDP RBAS wishes to hire a Macroeconomist to further develop the existing economic policy dialogue and programmatic capacity of RBAS and provide specialized technical advice on the Arab countries’ economic situation, inform the development of policies and contribute to the publication of strategic knowledge products that enhance UNDP’s overall effectiveness to deliver on its mandate in the region.

The Macroeconomist will also help UNDP RBAS capacity to anticipate impact of political and economic shocks and understand how these would impact programmatic efforts to achieve inclusive economic growth and tackle unemployment, reduce poverty and inequalities in the Arab countries. The Macroeconomist will also help strengthen the integrated modeling capacity of the IGEF team linking macroeconomic, social, fiscal, and financing issues to the SDGs. Design and implementation of local (sub-national) economic development policy, programming and modeling is also envisaged to be part of the expected work.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Macroeconomist will help advance economic policy dialogue and modelling initiatives across the region.

The assignment will include collaboration with other members of the IGEF Team and other external experts to engage at regional and country level for comprehensive and evidence-based policy analysis and program design.

Specifically, under the supervision of the Regional Chief Economist and IGEF Team Leader, the scope of work will cover the following functions:

• Advise the Regional Chief Economist on key economic trends, emerging issues, and related strategic aspects
• Strengthen the economic modeling capacity of RBAS that will inform policy and programmatic work at regional and country levels
• Provide quality assurance of economic analysis and policy and programmatic advice carried out by the IGEF Team for ongoing and upcoming regional work
• Provide quality assurance of country-specific economic analysis and policy and programmatic advice carried out by the IGEF Team based upon requests from COs
• Help build socioeconomic datasets such as Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) based on national accounts and micro surveys for comprehensive policy simulations and planning in the Arab States disaggregated by sex
• Help design and conduct training programs on key economic policy and modelling issues and simulations
• Contribute to the preparation of other evidence-based background notes, policy briefs, and presentations on selected topics as requested by the Regional Chief Economist and IGEF Team Leader based on the evolving development situation across the region
• Support the IGEF Team in the dialogue with other agencies, donors and partners, and participate in UNDP meetings and missions, as requested by the Regional Chief Economist.

Competencies

Core

Achieve Results: LEVEL 2: Scale up solutions and simplifies processes, balances speed and accuracy in doing work

Think Innovatively: LEVEL 2: Offer new ideas/open to new approaches, demonstrate systemic/integrated thinking

Learn Continuously: LEVEL 2: Go outside comfort zone, learn from others and support their learning

Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 2: Adapt processes/approaches to new situations, involve others in change process

Engage and Partner: LEVEL 2: Is facilitator/integrator, bring people together, build/maintain coalitions/partnerships

Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 2: Facilitate conversations to bridge differences, considers in decision making

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies

2030 Agenda:

Prosperity: Inclusive Growth: Economic Diversification

2030 Agenda:

Prosperity: Inclusive Growth: Economic Transformation, Policy and Planning

2030 Agenda:

Engagement & Effectiveness: SDG Integration: Economy-wide analysis

2030 Agenda:

Engagement & Effectiveness: Strategic Policy Engagement: Financing for development incl. integrated national financing framework (INFF)

Business Management:

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.
• Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP
• Excellent analytical aptitude, communication, writing and presentation skills.

Business Direction & Strategy:

Business Acumen:

• Ability to understand and deal with a business situation in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome.
• Knowledge and understanding of the operational frameworks in the Organization and ability to make good judgments and quick decisions within such frameworks.
• Ability to conduct required research, analyse and produce proposals and high-quality reports.
• In-depth knowledge on development issues and ability to contextualize to the reality of a conflict and fragile country.
• Ability to advocate and provide high-quality strategic policy advice.

Business Development:

Knowledge Facilitation: Ability to animate individuals and communities of contributors to participate and share, particularly externally.

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Education requirements

• Advanced university degree in Economics, Development Economics, Econometrics, or closely related field or Bachelor degree with 2 additional relevant years of experience.

Min. years of relevant work experience

• Minimum 2 years of progressive experience (with Advanced University Degree) or 4 years (with Bachelor Degree) focusing on economic policy, trend analysis, and forecasting, including hands-on experience developing macroeconomic models for policy simulations.

Required skills

• Excellent organizational skills
• Advanced economic analysis skills using econometric models
• Excellent writing skills required, as demonstrated by previous research/analytical reports/policy notes on relevant development topics.

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section

• Knowledge and experience working in the Arab States region is an additional advantage.

Required Language(s)

• Fluency in written and spoken English is a requirement.
• Fluency in French or Arabic is highly desirable.