Strategic Policy Specialist

The Strategic Policy Specialist provides strategic, substantive and coordination support across priorities under the Chief of Staff’s purview in the Office of the Executive Director. The role involves coordinating senior-level engagements, analyzing policies, preparing briefing materials, and supporting strategic and policy discussions to advance UNFPA's mandate.

Responsibilities

• Support and provide strategic coordination to the current and emerging senior-level engagements and collaborations with Member States, UN entities and other partners with a view to ensuring efforts are harmonized, mutually reinforcing and achieve greatest impact.
• Analyze policies/frameworks and monitor actions/decisions that require follow up from senior management discussions and meetings.
• Anticipate and forecast upcoming tasks, deadlines and/or deliverables and monitor timelines reflecting on implications to the Fund’s mandate.
• Contribute to the preparation for high-level external and internal meetings as needed, and follow up on decisions and actions to be taken.
• Build awareness, collaboration and information-exchange within and external to the OED.
• Contribute to the development of OED deliverables including briefing materials and correspondence.
• Contribute to the development of the OED annual work plan, SIS and other office management reports.
• Flag institutional bottlenecks and lessons learned to ensure successful implementation of work plans.
• Prepare briefing notes and other background and communications materials needed to support senior management in their partnership engagement.
• Support Chief of Staff in high-level policy discussions.
• Support internal and external consultations to advance strategic and policy discussions around internal and external matters.
• Proactively seek opportunities to connect the OED with business units across the organization.
• Propose solutions where necessary.
• Bring visibility to organizational development and reform initiatives and highlight results and impact of these engagements.
• Undertake any other duties, including day-to-day support, as may be assigned by the Executive Director and/or the Chief of Staff.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree (minimum Master’s degree or equivalent) in international relations, international development, public Administration, business, management or other related field.
• Minimum 7 years of progressively responsible relevant experience, particularly in strategic coordination, strategic partnership, advocacy and communication, of which at least 5 years at the international level.
• Experience in supporting senior-level engagements and coordinating with Member States, UN entities and other partners is an asset.
• Comfortable working with ambiguity; can decide and act without having the total picture; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty.
• Excellent organizational, analytical, written and communications skills.
• Demonstrated success in developing and or building effective partnerships for development.
• Demonstrated ability to anticipate impact of change, and to direct self and others.
• Self-directed, able to maintain productivity when implementing new, altered or incomplete procedures.
• Fluency in English is required;
• Working knowledge of a second UN language is highly desirable.

Skills

• Strategic Coordination
• Strategic Partnership Development
• Advocacy
• Communication
• Senior-Level Engagement Support
• Policy Analysis
• Briefing Material Preparation
• International Relations
• International Development
• Public Administration
• Organizational Skills
• Analytical Skills
• Written Communication
• Partnership Building
• Change Management
• Risk Management
• Self-Directed Work

Languages

English