Programme Officer

The Programme Officer supports regional activities by planning, managing, monitoring, and implementing programmes and projects to foster digital inclusion and improve connectivity in the Americas Region. The role involves collaboration with ITU officers, regional bodies, and partners to design and implement projects that empower vulnerable groups and promote sustainable telecommunication development.

Responsibilities

• Participates in regional activities mainly organizing digital inclusion workshops to benefit vulnerable groups and advisory missions and designs methodological documents and tools to describe the overall context, identifies similar needs among the countries and proposes regional/sub regional/multi-country projects, studies, actions, and initiatives to assist them in fulfilling their needs.
• Identifies and analyses the needs of developing countries in the Region for ITU’s assistance to improve connectivity and use of ICT services and applications; prepares agreements and project documents and ensures the follow up throughout the negotiation and approval process with external and internal ITU counterparts ensuring a smooth, efficient, and timely process.
• Provides support to field colleagues in designing joint projects and prepares, in collaboration with colleagues and a specialist if required, project documents based on the identified needs and available means of the countries, with UNCT, with UN sister agencies and with other national/regional/international institutions; assesses their feasibility and impact; provides technical advice and prepares recommendations for approval of projects by the ITU Area Representative, Central America and the Regional Director.
• Participates in the mobilization of resources and identification of potential sources of funding for activities related to the telecommunication development in the Region; provides technical support to administrations in formulating project/activities requests for submission to funding sources by national planning and coordination authorities; follows up on administrative processes with national administrations, regulators or operators, the UN or other funding sources to ensure that action is taken for the approval and implementation of projects and activities.
• Liaises with the various regional bodies, institutions, and banks with a view to secure financial and other resources for the development of telecommunications.
• Contributes to the preparation of the draft Operational Plan by analysing requests received and proposing actions to fulfil priorities set by the Regional Initiatives preparing the draft budget for each proposed activity, including activities of digital skills development and capacity building; assists with the coordination and monitoring of its implementation in the Region when approved.
• Coordinates, monitors, and implements administrative activities related to the implementation of regional, sub-regional and national FIT projects under the responsibility of the Area Office or the Regional Office; analyses progress and prepares reports; guides and orients the contributions of consultants, project personnel, donors, institutions, and governments towards the achievement of the project’s objectives.
• Implements the decisions/recommendations of World and Regional Development Conferences; works in close cooperation with BDT clusters, those pertaining to the Region.
• Contributes to the strengthening and follow-up of ITU engagement within the UN system, including UNSCDF and joint projects, particularly through Resident Coordinator Offices (RCOs).
• Plans, monitors, maintains the IT Infrastructure of the Area Office including servers, LANs, leased line connectivity, Wi-Fi connectivity and upkeep of IT devices for Area Office as well as collaborate in keeping up to date the ITU Regional Office webpage in close collaboration with the IT team at ITU HQ.
• Attends meetings, conferences, or events; prepares presentations on topics related to ITU/BDT activities in the Americas Region and drafts speeches.
• Carries out any other tasks in his/her field of competence that may be assigned to him/her.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree in telecommunications engineering, ICTs or economics/management or a related field OR education from a reputed college of advanced education with a diploma of equivalent standard to that of an advanced university degree in one of the fields above.
• For internal candidates, a first university degree in one of the fields above in combination with seven years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree for promotion or rotation purposes.
• At least five years of progressively responsible experience in the field of the post, including at least two at the international level.
• A Doctorate in a related field can be considered as a substitute for two years of working experience.
• Experience within the telecommunication sector in the Americas Region would be an advantage.
• Knowledge of one of the six official languages of the Union (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish) at advanced level and knowledge of a second official language at intermediate level.
• Knowledge of a third official language would be an advantage.
• Under the provisions of Resolution No. 626 of the Council, a relaxation of the language requirements may be authorized in the case of candidates from developing countries: when candidates from such countries possess a thorough knowledge of one of the official languages of the Union, their applications may be taken into consideration.

Skills

• Telecommunications Engineering
• IT Project Management
• Economic Analysis
• Programme Planning
• Project Monitoring
• Digital Inclusion
• Connectivity Improvement
• International Development
• Regional Program Implementation
• Stakeholder Collaboration
• Telecommunication Sector Knowledge
• Bilingual Communication
• Advanced Language Proficiency
• Sustainable Development
• Vulnerable Groups Empowerment

Languages

English, Spanish