Sustainable Finance Capacities and Philanthropy Specialist

Senior

Overview

Lead capacity development and philanthropy initiatives for SDG finance.

You have:

• Master's degree in economics, international development, public policy, social sciences, or related discipline required
• Minimum of 7 years’ experience in sustainable development financing, policy analysis, public finance, private sector development, strategic planning and budgeting, capacity building and advisory services required
• Minimum 5 years of experience leading and supporting philanthropy partnerships in the area of development finance required
• Minimum 5 years of experience in leading and supporting capacity building programmes in close collaboration with partners required
• Excellent analytical and writing skills as demonstrated by previous research/analytical reports/policy notes on relevant topics required
• Excellent coordination, negotiating and communication skills required
• Fluency in English is required

Contract

This is a IPSA-11 contract. This kind of contract is known as International Personnel Services Agreement. It is normally internationally recruited only. It usually requires 7 years of experience, depending on education. More about IPSA-11 contracts.

Background

Present in 166 countries and territories, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supports governments in developing strong policies, institutions, and partnerships to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s Sustainable Finance Hub was established to aggregate UNDP’s work and expertise on SDG financing and to offer a comprehensive package of tools and support that enables governments, the private sector, philanthropy and international financial institutions to accelerate financing for the SDGs. To achieve these goals, by 2025 UNDP aims to ensure that all Country Offices will have established SDG finance engagements and promoted $1 trillion of SDG aligned investment, including 100 billion from philanthropy.

Public and private stakeholders around the world are collaborating with UNDP to help them address the challenges of sustainable development financing, and develop robust, holistic approaches to financing recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. UNDPs Sustainable Finance Hub (SFH) offerings help governments to deepen the integration between national planning and financing policies, mobilize new resources and promote greater sustainable development impact from a range of public and private financing, including with philanthropy.

In order to achieve this target of promoting the investment of over $1 trillion of public expenditure and private capital in the SDGs, UNDP is building its expertise and capacities of Country Offices so that they can offer and tailor SFH products and services to clients. SFH will work across the Global Policy Network, bringing the Regional and Central Bureau combined assets together, taking into account signature solutions and development contexts, and delivering an integrated capacity development initiative for RRs, DRRs and their teams, supported by an internal community of practice and an external group of experts.

Further, as part of its role as SDG Integrator, UNDP is committed to promoting multi-stakeholder collaboration with philanthropy. UNDP recognizes the tremendous knowledge that foundations offer in a variety of areas ranging from governance, environment to health and financial inclusion and works with them to utilize their expertise and knowledge capacities. UNDP’s partnerships with philanthropy build on a range of assets and comparative advantages to find solutions to common development challenges. Both global and local foundations are providing strong backing for UNDP's development activities. All levels of the organization, including UNDP country offices, regional centres and the HQ, are involved in partnerships and relationships with philanthropy.

To contribute to the unlocking of catalytic finance for the SDGs, UNDP is accelerating its efforts to both grow and systematize its engagement with foundations to support initiatives, and partnerships as well the mobilization and leveraging of resources for the SDGs at scale, including through the SFH capacity development initiative.

The Sustainable Finance Capacities and Philanthropy Specialist will play the role of co-lead for the SFH’s work on the capacity development initiative, and the technical lead for philanthropy, both, which will support national, regional and global level activities. In turn, the role will support the design and operationalization of the capacity development initiative and the philanthropy work stream in partnership with Regional Bureaus and Country Offices; train colleagues in SFH tools and approaches; facilitate the development of expertise and sharing of experiences across countries; and provide thought leadership and build deeper collaboration with a variety of partners.

The role of the Sustainable Finance Capacities and Philanthropy Specialist will be divided between the capacity development initiative, and the philanthropy workstream. It is anticipated that 50% of time will be spent on capacity development and 50% on philanthropy.

Duties and Responsibilities

1) Designing SFH training programme to roll out SFH services

• Co-lead the SFH capacity development initiative to advance a systemic approach to UNDP’s Country Office knowledge of the Sustainable Finance Hub and its tools and offerings
• Develop technical competencies across different levels of proficiency according to the roles and responsibilities of different staff including RRs/DRRs/SDG Finance Focal Points/internal and external SDG Finance Experts/SFH Team Leads
• Work with TDU to ensure that the training initiative aligns with and reinforces UNDP’s overall talent development
• Work with SFH Team Leads and the Learning Expert to coordinate the design and updating of targeted training modules tailored to region and country contexts in consultation with UNDP COs, SFH, BPPS, BERA, BMS and the Crisis Bureau
• Train SFH regional and HQ colleagues and 100 Country Offices
• According to context, identify opportunities to include key partners in training exercises including philanthropy, IFIs, private sector actors and member states to strengthen common understanding and partnerships on SDG finance
• Develop a philanthropy learning module for the broader capacity development infinitive

2) Leading development and management of SFH communities of practice and expert rosters

• Develop an infrastructure of support including a roster of experts and internal communities of practice to sustain support for UNDP COs as they scale up their SDG finance engagements
• Train 200 internal SDG Finance Experts and launch and train the internal SDG Finance Community of Practice
• Train 200 external SDG Finance Experts to ensure a deep technical understanding of particular services and understand how they relate to UNDP’s approach to SDG Finance including in respect to leverage and alignment
• Advise to SFH colleagues as they manage their own internal expert CoP and their external technical expertise roster, link up initiatives and provide support on occasion to country and regional offices as needed.

3) Developing and rolling out philanthropy service offer as part of SFH services

• Lead the philanthropy work program to unlock catalytic philanthropic capital
• Influence and promote enabling policies to ensure philanthropy can operate and successfully contribute to national development outcomes
• Identify countries and policies in which the policy environment has become less friendly to philanthropy and civil society, and lead and promote discussions and exchanges to find concrete pathways to foster collaboration between philanthropic actors and government
• Integrate philanthropy into, and create tools for different SFH offerings such as INFFS, insurance, SDG Impact Standards and Investor Maps etc.
• Promote a pipeline of philanthropic investment ready community driven development solutions through SDG Impact, Accelerator Labs and the like

4) Engaging with the philanthropic sector to develop critical partnerships at global regional and country levels

• Co-lead, in partnership with WINGS, the SDG Philanthropy Platform
• Develop an approach for a multistakeholder Energy Coalition that draws on different SFH offerings and WINGS Climate Pledge to mobilise around and leverage the Sustainable Energy Hub
• Engage in ongoing partnering with philanthropies to undertake multistakeholder collaboration, strengthen the ecosystem and promote catalytic SDG finance

Insttutional Arrangements:

The Sustainable Finance Capacities and Philanthropy Specialist will work under the supervision of the Chief of Programme in the Sustainable Finance Hub at UNDP HQ in New York.

Competencies

Core

Achieve Results:

LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact

Think Innovatively:

LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems

Learn Continuously:

LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences

Adapt with Agility:

LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands

Act with Determination:

LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results

Engage and Partner:

LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration

Enable Diversity and Inclusion:

LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies:

Thematic Area

Name

Definition

Business Direction & Strategy

Strategic Thinking

Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP

Business Development

Knowledge Facilitation

Ability to animate individuals and communities of contributors to participate and share, particularly externally

2030 Agenda: Partnerships

SDG Finance

Knowledge and understanding of global partnership for effective development cooperation, inclusive markets/businesses and value chain development, Innovative Finance, philanthropy, public private partnerships

Communications

Advocacy strategy and implementation

Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP

Partnership management

Relationship management

Ability to engage with a wide range of public and private partners, build, sustain and/or strengthen working relations, trust and mutual understanding

Required Skills and Experience

Min. Academic Education

Master’s degree in economics, international development, public policy, social sciences, or related discipline, required

Min. years of relevant Work experience

Minimum of 7 years’ experience in sustainable development financing, policy analysis, public finance, private sector development, strategic planning and budgeting, capacity building and advisory services is required; including:

• Minimum 5 years of experience leading and supporting philanthropy partnerships in the area of development finance is required.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in leading and supporting capacity building programmes in close collaboration with partners is required.

Required skills and competencies

• Excellent analytical and writing skills required, as demonstrated by previous research/analytical reports/policy notes on relevant topics.
• Excellent coordination, negotiating and communication skills are required.

Desired additional skills and competencies

• Experience in working with a United Nations Agency/Programme/Fund to advance partnerships with philanthropic organizations including foundations is desirable.

• Demonstrated experience in mobilizing support from a wide range of partners (public, private, academic, civil society, business community leaders) is an asset.

Required Language(s) (at working level)

Fluency in English is required.

The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past positions held and their main underlying functions, their durations (month/year), the qualifications, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate, and at least three (3) the most recent professional references of previous supervisors. References may also include peers.

• A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.

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Potential interview questions

Added 4 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org