Policy Coordinator – Crisis and Resilience

The Policy Coordinator – Crisis and Resilience will lead and be responsible for the ongoing and planned activities through Crisis and Resilience including overall management and coordination of thematic areas’ workplan and activities. The role involves designing and implementing knowledge management activities, promoting partnerships, and supporting capacity building in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and implementation of the Crisis and Resilience portfolio workplan, ensuring alignment with UNDP corporate standards and country/regional programme objectives.
• Facilitate the design of programme strategies and policies to develop scalable models for crisis response and resilience, across sectors and in line with national and UNDP objectives.
• Provide technical oversight to all research and programme activities, advising on methodological approaches, ensuring quality, and adhering to UNDP and ICPSD programme standards.
• Coordinate preparation of high-quality policy and programme guidance materials for thematic areas such as market systems analysis, value chains, trade facilitation, financial sector and private sector development.
• Supervise all stages of programme implementation, providing regular updates to senior management on progress, risks and delays.
• Provide oversight for high-quality publishable research reports across the full research cycle, from project design and data collection through analysis, report writing and dissemination.
• Design research activities with clear methodological frameworks, mixed-method approaches, work plans and objectives, including identification of research gaps and formulation of research questions.
• Oversee the development of digital data collection systems and data quality assurance plans, ensuring sound research design and data integrity across all programme activities.
• Engage with academic and research institutions to strengthen the evidence base for crisis and resilience programming.
• Provide training to team members in mixed-method research design, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and data collection systems, with a focus on building capacity for fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
• Establish, maintain and strengthen active working relationships with key stakeholders including government bodies, UN agencies, international and local NGOs, private sector partners, donors and academic institutions.
• Coordinate with project teams, partners, and stakeholders to facilitate operations and achieve project milestones.
• Participate in relevant coordination forums, working groups and inter-agency mechanisms, ensuring that the Crisis and Resilience portfolio is well understood by key stakeholders and that partnership opportunities are identified and pursued.
• Support stakeholder engagement and resource mobilization activities, including drafting concept notes, technical sections of project proposals and reports in close coordination with ICPSD senior management.
• Foster an environment of innovation within the portfolio, encouraging the exploration of new approaches and technologies to enhance crisis response and resilience programming.
• Design and oversee the development of knowledge management tools and systems, including AI-assisted research and analysis platforms, to support evidence-based programming across UNDP Country Offices and regional teams.
• Identify and synthesize lessons learnt and best practices in the area of work and ensure timely production and dissemination of knowledge products (research reports, policy briefs, toolkits) to key stakeholders, donors and partners.
• Actively promote a knowledge sharing and learning culture across ICPSD units and with UNDP Country Offices and Regional Bureaus.
• Support the application of monitoring and evaluation frameworks for each programme activity, in line with UNDP standards.
• Directly supervise staff working in ICPSD's Crisis and Resilience portfolio, ensuring team members have clear roles, responsibilities and work plans, and that performance is regularly reviewed.
• Support the capacity building and technical growth of team members through mentoring, training and structured feedback.
• Contribute to timely recruitment of staff and proactively adapt team structure to programmatic needs and funding availability.
• Promote team cohesion, productivity and staff welfare, fostering a positive working environment conducive to learning and performance.
• Perform other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in International Relations, Public Policy, Economics, Data Science or a related area is required.
• Or a first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the above-mentioned field of study, in combination with an additional two years if qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• Minimum of 2 (two) years (with master’s degree) or 4 (four) years (with Bachelor’s degree) of progressively responsible working experience in programme / research coordination, analysis or closely related area is required.
• Experience of programme design and technical support in fragile and conflict affected countries.
• Experience in managing multi-stakeholder research activities, including research design, data collection, analysis and reporting.
• Proven experience writing analytical reports and policy briefs on private sector, macroeconomic, or socioeconomic topics.
• Proven experience with projects within the Afghanistan and /or Horn of Africa context is desirable.
• Experience developing AI-assisted tools or data analysis pipelines (e.g. using Python, R or similar) for research or knowledge management is an asset.
• Experience in designing digital data collection systems and implementing data quality assurance plans in complex operational environments is desired.
• Proven experience working with value chain analyses and market systems development in fragile and conflict-affected countries is an advantage.
• Fluency in English language and excellent writing skills are required.
• Working knowledge of another UN language is an asset

Skills

• Programme Design
• Research Coordination
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• Analytical Report Production
• Policy Brief Writing
• Stakeholder Management
• AI-assisted Tool Development
• Python
• Digital Data Collection
• Data Quality Assurance
• Value Chain Analysis
• Market Systems Development
• Knowledge Management
• Capacity Building
• Project Management
• English Reading Skills

Languages

English