Young Innovator Fellow

Contract

This is a UNV National Youth contract. This kind of contract is known as National UN Volunteer. It is normally only for nationals. More about UNV National Youth contracts.

Enabling young people to realise their full social, economic and human potential is a key aspect of UNFPA’s mandate. Our Fellows are innovative young people from around the world who have demonstrated commitment to development issues within their communities.

The Young Innovators Fellowship programme brings young people into UNFPA with a dedicated focus on both providing a youth perspective and driving innovation. This exciting opportunity sees fellows undergo leadership training and support innovation efforts in UNFPA Regional or Country Offices in a capacity relevant to their experience.

Our goal is to provide fellows with the tools, skill sets, international experience and exposure to innovation to empower them to realise their career goals, thus building national capacity. Fellows in turn provide innovative insights and ideas that will enable us to be better aligned with development issues in their community.

The Arab States Regional office (ASRO) is based in Cairo Egypt and oversees the work of the Syria CO. The Young Innovator Fellow will be based in the ASRO while remotely supporting the Syria CO with their ongoing successful innovations, strategy, and annual work plan.

Both Young Innovator Fellows will work under the direct supervision of the ASRO Deputy Regional Director, and will undertake the following tasks:

• Participate, substantively contribute and proactively engage in the discovery phase of implementing Ecosystem Stakeholder Engagement, which seeks value to innovate development and creation allowing its stakeholders and Implementing Partners, particularly from the public sector and the corporate community, to leverage the innovations of Entrepreneurs via partnership or acquisition.
• Establish coordination and mutual information exchange mechanisms allowing to stay abreast of HQ and other regional offices ongoing initiatives. Evaluate the already ongoing and/or completed initiatives across pertinent stakeholders to provide recommendations and possible ways forward in adopting and implementing these in ASRO.
• Coordinate with the KM efforts and establish mechanisms for regular communication with innovation focal points in country offices on latest innovation related issues and requests.
• Develop a database of the notable regional players in the field of innovation, highlights of innovation areas and suggested collaboration with ASRO.
• Provide support to country offices to scale up potential ideas and solutions.

The Fellow will support the ongoing regional efforts to engage with potential partners, working to define ASRO’s space in the evolving innovation ecosystem. The Young Innovator Fellow will be required to make substantial contributions to the discovery phase of building ASRO’s innovation ecosystems recognizing the dramatic impact in achieving the three transformational zeros. Facilitating Region wide learning is another focus as a way to establish a clear understanding of how this approach can serve as a valuable starting point to launch new innovation initiatives, ensuring the use of resources as efficiently as possible and interacting in a complementary manner with other actors.

This approach is also expected to accelerate and serve as a “compass” in diversifying ASRO approach to IP selection and partnership. In that regard, the Arab States Regional Office is searching to transform itself from a resource-based agency/stakeholder/partner into one based on innovation and knowledge which may include:

1.Entrepreneurs/Youth Innovation Fellows 2.Investors/donors 3.Startup Organizations/CSO 4.Universities 5.Corporate community 6.Government

The assignment will include mission travel to New York, once for a capstone to conclude the fellowship.

Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to: - Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day); - Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country; - Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities; - Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.; - Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers; - Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering, or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.

• Accountability;
• Adaptability and Flexibility;
• Building Trust
• Ethics and Values
• Integrity
• Professionalism
• Respect for Diversity Working in Teams

social sciences, business, social innovation or a related field. It is desirable for the fellow to have a university degree in a related field. Up to 3 years of experiences are welcomed. - Demonstrated interest and dedication to development issues in areas of UNFPA’s mandate through either volunteer experience, work experience, or youth network affiliations. - Experience with the private sector, preferably of national or regional magnitude. Exposure to multinational corporations and 5C consulting companies is a plus. - Demonstrated interest and ability to deliver knowledge management activities, including mapping and documenting innovation models, key stakeholders, and lessons learned. - Strong writing and oral communications skills. - Capacity for networking.

Egypt’s total land size is 1.01 million km2, with a population of 102 million (mid 2021) that is concentrated in 6.8% of the land. As per 2020/21 CCA, a remarkable resilience emerged from the strong foundation of socio-economic reforms and timely response measures. Egypt is grappling with balancing economic growth with population growth.

Egypt in general has a high standard of medical care with several major hospitals around the country providing emergency services. Doctors of all specialties are also readily available equivalent to any developed country. Ambulance services are available on all the major highways. As per security situation, Cairo is relatively stable, safe and contained. Incidents of crime are rare and related to pickpocketing and bag snatching. Protests and demonstrations are infrequent. However, cases of sexual harassment against females are common, thus a low profile and dressing modestly is recommended. UN staff are not directly targeted. There aren’t any major security incidents affecting the UN.