Digital Economies Analyst

The Digital Economies Analyst supports the implementation and coordination of blockchain-based digital payment solutions and broader digital economy initiatives within the UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub. The role involves operational support to country offices, coordination of pilot projects, applied research, and contribution to the SDG Blockchain Accelerator programme.

Responsibilities

• Provide operational support to at least 5 UNDP Country Offices across the Europe and CIS region, and 8 UNDP country offices globally on digital payment pilots from proof‑of‑concept to institutional deployment.
• Coordinate with at least 15 solution makers, at least 10 country office teams, and at least 3 government actors to resolve implementation barriers and sustain deployment momentum.
• Track at least 5 pilot projects progress against milestones, identifying risks and escalating issues requiring strategic or managerial intervention.
• Identify a minimum of 10 additional UNDP Country Offices globally facing similar payment challenges and assess suitability for replication of validated models.
• Develop 3 replication packages and enable knowledge exchange by documenting technical designs, operational procedures, lessons learned, and connecting implementing and potential replication countries.
• Facilitate access to government counterparts, local institutions, and civil society to ensure research alignment with national development frameworks and host country priorities.
• Oversee research ethics, including informed consent developed with local communities and compliance with UNDP data governance standards.
• Provide datasets from completed SDG Blockchain Accelerator pilots as the starting point for the research.
• Lead the impact assessment, measuring outputs against SDG targets.
• Identify at least 5 UN programmes or country initiatives that can pilot blockchain solutions.
• Contribute to the co-creation of the curriculum for Cohort 3 of the SDG Blockchain Accelerator.
• Support the participant selection process by reviewing applications and identifying high-potential country offices.
• Support matchmaking between country offices and blockchain solution makers, ensuring alignment between development challenges, technical expertise, and programme objectives.
• Serve as the main focal point for matched teams, providing ongoing guidance, troubleshooting support, and coordination throughout the accelerator journey.
• Support in collecting lessons learned, best practices, and recommendations to strengthen future cohorts and improve programme design and delivery.
• Identify and promote different systems and applications for optimal content management, knowledge management and sharing, and information provision.
• Organize training for ICT issues.
• Synthesize lessons learned and best practices directly linked to ICT management.
• Provide sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice.
• 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 Business Administration, Public Administration, Economics, Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Health Science or related field is required, or a first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the areas mentioned above in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• Applicants with a Master’s degree (or equivalent) in a relevant field of study are not required to have professional work experience.
• Applicants with a Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) are required to have a minimum of two (2) years of relevant professional experience in Financial technologies.
• Experience working with financial technologies.
• Experience with digital transformation on a national level.
• Experience in working with UNDP or UN organizations.
• Experience in partnership or stakeholder engagement with multiple blockchain ecosystems and familiarity with their applications (e.g., digital payment, supply chain, financial inclusion).
• Experience implementing hackathons or capacity building in collaboration with diverse actors across the innovation ecosystem, addressing development issues.
• Fluency in English is required.

Skills

• Financial Technologies
• Digital Transformation
• Blockchain Ecosystems
• Digital Payment Technologies
• Supply Chain Applications
• Financial Inclusion Knowledge
• Partnership Engagement
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Capacity Building
• Hackathon Implementation
• Applied Research
• Project Coordination
• SDG Blockchain Accelerator
• Operational Support
• Innovation Ecosystem Collaboration

Languages

English