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.

UNFPA Young Innovators Fellowship Programme 2022

Enabling young people to realize 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 realize 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 UNFPA Young Innovator Fellow will contribute to UNFPA’s innovation priorities in a number of ways, including: strengthening the innovation architecture; supporting the scale-up of innovations; forming partnerships; strengthening financing for innovation; and expanding the communities and culture for innovation. UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) is leading the mainstreaming of innovation across the 23 countries in the region. The aim is to accelerate our efforts to achieve the Transformative Results (TR) in the region. UNFPA ESARO is driving innovation in the region via 5 key principles feeding from the new SP and the RPAP including deploying digital and emerging technologies, exploring non-digital technology development, fostering strategic innovation partnerships, building staff and internal capacity, prioritising megatrends to ensure No One Left Behind (LNOB). Innovation has been mainstreamed in all 6 outcomes of the new RPAP which requires significant support to implement. Key innovation activities for 2022 include building capacity of staff in the Regional Office (RO) and Country Office (COs) on innovation mainstreaming, supporting COs to develop country innovation teams and country innovation frameworks, telling the innovation story from the region, identifying ‘game-changing’ scalable innovation solutions to accelerate efforts towards achieving the TR and providing viable digital tools for knowledge management in the RO and CO
Under the direct supervision of the regional innovation and knowledge management specialist the Fellow will join the team of innovators in the regional office (Innovation and Knowledge Management team) to provide TA to country offices, liaise with UNFPA HQ to align programmes, facilitate the development of country innovation strategies and coordinate country innovation focal points. The specific tasks will include:

-Support the re-design, development and deployment of the regional innovation focal point virtual innovation hub

-Support the development and implementation of innovative digital communication strategies to support country offices to tell their innovation story

-Contribute to operationalisation of the regional knowledge management roadmap

-Innovation liaison to the operations team to launch the flagship innovation project

-Participate in team and regional office meetings

-Any other task as assigned by her/his supervisor and/or management.

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

☒ Accountability ☒ Adaptability and Flexibility ☒ Building Trust ☒ Commitment and Motivation ☒ Communication ☒ Ethics and Values ☒ Integrity ☒ Knowledge Sharing ☒ Professionalism ☒ Respect for Diversity ☒ Working in Teams

-0-2 years of demonstrated interest and dedication to development issues in areas of UNFPA’s mandate through either volunteer experience, work experience, or youth network affiliations. Preferably, up to 3 years of experiences are welcomed.

-Demonstrated, or clear idea of, delivery of UNFPA’s mandate in an innovative way

-Ability to identify and propose innovative solutions to problems

-Prior experience engaging with different stakeholders or entities, such as with the private sector, social enterprises, academia, the media, a plus

-Open to candidates aged between 18 years to 26 years old

-Special consideration will be given to indigenous people, persons with disabilities and LGBTQI candidates

South Africa is a middle income country with accessibility to the infrastructure and social support systems. The OECD better living index reports South Africa to have broadened access to education, housing, water, electricity and other services. As a result, well-being has increased substantially. In South Africa, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is lower than the OECD average of USD 33,604 a year. A key factor behind the high income inequality is the low employment rate, especially of black South Africans. Nearly 44% of people aged 15 to 64 in South Africa have a paid job, below the OECD employment average of 68%. Some 49% of men are in paid work, compared with 38% of women. In South Africa, 73% of adults aged 25-64 have completed upper secondary education, lower than the OECD average of 78%. This is slightly truer of women than men, as 73% of men have successfully completed high-school compared with 74% of women. On average in South Africa, girls and boys performed similarly, below the average OECD gap of 2 points. In terms of health, life expectancy at birth in South Africa is 58 years, 22 years lower than the OECD average of 80 years. Life expectancy for women is 60 years, compared with 56 for men. 67% of people say they are satisfied with the quality of their water, below the OECD average of 81%. UNDSS reports South Africa security level 2 below the standard level 3 required for this post. Petty crime is relatively high. Additional information is available via the UNDSS portal. Concerning the public sphere, there is a strong sense of community, where 88% of people believe that they know someone they could rely on in time of need, broadly in line with the OECD average of 89%.