Community of Practice Facilitator Poverty and Inequality

Terms of Reference (TOR)

Community of Practice Facilitator Energy

1. Position Information  

Office/Unit/Project	SDG Integration
Functional Title	Community of Practice Facilitator Poverty and Inequality
Duty station (City and Country)	New York
Expected starting date	July 25, 2022
Expected Duration	Dec 31th, 2022

 

2.      Office/Unit/Project Description 

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a global organization with 18,000 staff working in approximately 170 offices globally. UNDP works in development and crisis settings with the aim to achieve the eradication of poverty, reduction of inequalities and exclusion, and sustained development results. Coming together under the new framework of the Global Policy Network (GPN), the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) and Crisis Bureau (CB) sit at the core of UNDP’s global policy, programming, and knowledge capacities.

The current revitalization of these functions aims to better capture UNDP’s knowledge, innovations, good practices and lessons learned from country, regional and global experience, drawing from a network of internal and external expertise, in order to address complex problems. To this end, UNDP has recently re-established its global Communities of Practice (CoPs), of which UNDP has a rich history, to promote and support knowledge flows within and across the GPN areas of work and enrich UNDP’s global policy and programme functions. The new model of the CoPs has a more inclusive, flexible approach taking advantage of existing networks, both internal and external to UNDP, to build inclusive communities around UNDP’s main thematic areas of work.

One of the key thematic area in the new CoP structure is  focused on the topic of Poverty and Inequality which aims to effectively connect UNDP’s staff across country, regional and global teams working to promoite dignity, opportunity and prosperity for all.

The Facilitator will report to the SDG Engagement Specialist, SDG Integration, and will work closely with colleagues in the Poverty and inequality teams in the GPN.

3.      Scope of Work

The CoP Facilitator plays an important role in fostering strong substantive engagement within and across the CoP, supporting content curation, quality assurance, and providing substantive advice and feedback loops.

This Recognizing that each CoP member has unique needs and comfort levels related to participation, the facilitator will promote and offer a variety of opportunities and approaches for engagement. The main areas of responsibilities are:

Fosters the CoPs alignment to the next Strategic Plan and the proposed Knowledge Management Strategy:

• Aligns the communities learnings needs with UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2022-25 and its Results framework (IRRF).
• Conducts a demand-driven CoP survey in January 2022.
• Develops a 100-day implementation plan for their CoP.
• Tags their engagements against priority areas within related signature solution, as articulated in the Integrated Results and Resources Framework (IRRF).

Curates engagement among CoP members:

• Sources questions from the community and leads the knowledge gathering for the consolidated replies
• Engage with Thematic Advisors who lead on relevant practices under the CoP’s purview and are accountable for their respective CoP;
• Engage in continual “behind the scenes” work of connecting practitioners, flagging experts to come in where necessary, and supporting development of queries and discussion topics for members;
• Support the development and implementation of relevant webinars and in person events;
• Manage a “direct connect” service via email/chat for CoP members who prefer reaching out with questions via social networks; thus, enabling small networks of practitioners and peer assists.
• Facilitate timely, focused, targeted and crosscutting e-discussions and on/offline events as needed;
• Curate content on SparkBlue, frequently update the CoP Sparkblue homepage

Scan the internal and external environment for relevant content for the CoP members:

• Interface with and draw from existing internal and external networks focused on a range of related topics, including energy access, renewable energy, energy efficiency, biodiversity and ecosystem management and nature based solutions, climate change mitigation and adaptation (in the context of raising, and other relevant thematic and cross-cutting areas of UNDP work at the global, national, sub-regional and local scale;
• Scan related media for relevant articles and develop insights pieces for the community
• Stay on top of industry trends and keep the CoP updated on the latest news, thinking and findings on the topic by continuously sharing with the Community on Sparkblue and Yammer.
• Detect and capture any relevant issues from one or more networks that could be elevated as an inter-practice discussion and utilize online platform tools;
• On a monthly basis, reach out to all the CoP members through digestible, targeted email updates (“Community Snapshots”) to bring the most pertinent updates and opportunities for engagement to the attention of the CoP members, including, relevant discussions, queries, cross-cutting consultations, hands on “labs”, webinars, events;

Produce knowledge products related to community engagement and integrate the CoP into corporate processes:

• Prepare relevant knowledge products pulling from the CoP members’ knowledge, experience and engagements including e-discussion summaries, FAQs, lessons learned overviews, guidance documents and case studies, for reference and use by the community members and beyond;
• Connect the CoP and its members to corporate systems and processes, such as capacity mapping exercises, individual and group learning opportunities
• Capture lessons learned from programmes and projects, in order to ensure the CoPs are not stand-alone discussion forums, but are learning from and informing programmes and processes across the organization.

Monitoring and Reporting

• Adhere to internal SOPs in terms of weekly inputs for engagements tracking and monthly inputs for reporting, ensuring all relevant parties have access to information on past as well as upcoming engagement in a timely and efficient manner
• Timely input all internal tracking documents and mechanisms with quantitative and qualitative insights at the end of each calendar month. Update such insights at the end of each quarter, and towards the end of the year (October/November) to facilitate monthly, quarterly, yearly, and ad hoc reporting
• Contribute on an ad hoc basis (at least every 6 months) to special impact-focused corporate internal and external publications (including leaflets, one/two-pagers, animated cards, infographics and more) with useful, clear, concise inputs to help capture how the CoP is supporting UNDP achieve its corporate priorities
• Timely and efficiently respond to ad hoc requests for inputs from management, in terms of quantitative and qualitative insights

4.   Institutional Arrangement

 The IC will report to the SDG Engagement Specialist in the SDG Integration team, and will work closely with colleagues in the Energy, Climate and Natural Capital and Environment teams in the GPN. 

5.  Minimum Qualifications of the Successful IPSA

Min. Academic Education	Master’s Degree in international development, Energy and Environment, Social Sciences, or related area, required. Equivalent relevant experience combined with a bachelor’s degree may also be considered.
Min. years of relevant Work experience	·         A minimum of 5 years of professional working experience in relevant fields related to international development (required); ·         A minimum of 2 years working in Community/networks (required); ·         A minimum of 2 years working in knowledge management within an international organization (required);
Required  skills and competencies	·         Proven experience organizing and managing events and workshops (desirable); ·         Knowledge of the UN system (desirable); ·         Proven ability to work under pressure with tight deadlines, and to deliver in a timely manner within cost and quality standards; ·         Proficiency and proven experience in the use of Microsoft Office suite (e.g. Word, Excel, Power Point) is required. Proven experience in the development infographics, online surveys, presentations, organization of webinars would be an asset; ·         Proven work experience in managing online platforms ·
Desired additional skills and competencies	Country Office experience with international organizations or with UNDP (desirable).
Required Language(s) (at working level)	Proficiency in written and spoken English required. Proficiency in other official UN languages is an asset.
Professional Certificates	N/A

6. Travel:

 Travel is expected to and from current duty station.

7. The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

8. The following documents shall be required from the applicants:

a) 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.
b) A cover letter (maximum length: 1 page) indicating why the candidate considers him-/herself to be suitable for the position.
c) Managers may ask (ad hoc) for any other materials relevant to pre-assessing the relevance of their experience, such as reports, presentations, publications, campaigns or other materials.