Job Description

Violent extremism (VE) and violent conflict in the East Africa/Horn of Africa have been pressing challenges for the region. Complex interplay of factors has fuelled the violent conflict and VE including economic deprivation, social marginalization, political instability, and communal conflicts. Majority of the population, particularly youth and women, face severe poverty, lack of access to education and employment opportunities, and disproportionate effects of violence and conflict. Therefore, addressing VE and conflict in the Horn of Africa requires multifaceted strategies, including whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, community engagement and localized and community-based solutions. These should be grounded on the deep understanding of the dynamics of VEGs and the manifestation of VE within the conflict ecosystem. 

KOICA and UNDP have cooperated in development and humanitarian projects since 2006 with a special focus in the governance and peacebuilding sector. Building on this previous partnership, the two organizations have decided to expand their collaboration around “peacebuilding and prevention of violent extremism (PVE)”. Both organizations will jointly decide on the details of a three-year partnership that will serve as the basis for a possible longer-term partnership for HDP Nexus, that will also serve as a platform for engaging Korean public and private partners. KOICA committed to provide financial support in the amount of 18,000,000 USD (eighteen million) over three years to the East Africa region with a focus on Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan. UNDP is the ideal partner for this endeavor, since it brings a wide field presence at the regional, national, and local levels with access to national and local governments, non-state actors and communities, as well as its experience and expertise in peacebuilding and conflict prevention – in particular in PVE. UNDP is considered as a thought leader through its evidence-based studies on VE in Africa.  The partnership will strengthen the peacebuilding infrastructures; PVE as well as strengthen social integration through promoting communities’ empowerment and cohesion and strengthening economic resilience. In the East Africa region, UNDP has supported IGAD in Eastern Africa in developing the East African PCVE Strategy and conducted locally-evidence based research including the Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) systems. IGAD along with other Regional Economic Communities (RECs) also participated in the development of the EWER toolkit for PVE as well as in the development of the renewed regional UNDP PVE response/approach “Preventing and Responding to Violent Extremism in Africa and Arab States 2022-2025”. 

The Programme aims to build community resilience in Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan by providing socio-economic support to at-risk youth and women. It will collaborate with religious institutions and faith-based organizations (FBOs) to deepen interfaith dialogue and address common concerns. The Programme will also work with non-state actors like civil society organizations (CSOs) to promote successful PVE strategies and encourage the adoption of the whole-of-society approach.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

• Quality policy and technical advice to support inclusive programming processes on tolerance and dialogue; 
• Support management and implementation of project activities; 
• Monitoring and evaluation of the project’s activities.

Functions / Key Results Expected

Quality policy and technical advice to support inclusive programming processes on tolerance and dialogue by focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Continuously monitors developments to peacebuilding in Somalia, drafting regular analyses and briefs on conflict dynamics and security situation; 
• Provides strategic advice on peacebuilding, conflict transformation and dialogue in Somalia; 
• Promotes identification and synthesis of best practices and lessons learned from the project for organizational sharing and learning;
• Supports project manager to identify new areas of intervention, innovative approaches as well as to identify potential risk factors and mitigating measures;
• Liaises closely with federal and state government, civil society and community counterparts to capture priorities and ensure local ownership.

Management and implementation of tolerance and dialogue activities by focusing on the achievement of the following:

• Supports the technical lead on project management, including project design and implementation. 
• Manages documentation related to the project’s activities. 
• Engages with federal and state-level government, civil society and community counterparts on peacebuilding and dialogue activities; 
• Facilitates and organizes workshops, trainings and public events on peacebuilding and dialogue in Somalia, engaging with local communities and government officials; 
• Supports management of short-term experts providing technical expertise on specific project areas; 
• Facilitates day-to-day management of activities, in line with the annual work plans under the guidance of the Tolerance and Dialogue Programme Team Leader; 
• Prepares and updates annual work plans and drafts letters of agreements for implementing partners;
• Prepares tracking sheets for the project activities; 
• Prepares regular written analyses based on project progress reflecting upon agreements with implementing partners;
• Prepares on a monthly basis a fund disbursement tracking sheet;
• Works with government officials, NGOs and UNDP area-offices and serve as a liaison between them and the Project Management;
• Promotes gender equality and women’s and participation in the dialogues and peacebuilding work;
• Engages with relevant and selected CSO’s and NGOs, for the implementation of activities and to develop strategies to create public awareness on peacebuilding; 
• Supports coordination meetings between government stakeholders, UNDP management, and donors.
• Supports the organization of the Project Board Meetings.

Monitoring and evaluation of the project’s activities, through the achievement of the following results:

• Supports monitoring and evaluation of the project by attending all activities including travel to FMS, collecting and synthesizing data from the project’s activities, supports the analysis of data and advises on course corrections where necessary;
• Prepares and submits regular update reports with quantitative and qualitative data;
• Coordinates the collection and use of monitoring data, as well as evaluation and reporting;
• Performs field visits for data collection and to ensure the quality and accuracy of collected or reported data; 
• Assists on project management of the project, including implementation of the project’s activities as well as reporting to donors and internally on indicators; 
• Ensures M&E framework is gender-responsive and includes youth, disadvantaged and marginalized communities, including by preparing disaggregated data for indicator reporting and ensures that the framework takes into account gendered conflict dynamics; 
• Ensures that the proposed activities are conflict sensitive and grounded in a strict “do no harm” and Leave-No-one-Behind approach; 
• Facilitates capacity building training of key national stakeholders on effective programme management and M&E.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

Under the supervision of the PCVE Project Manager, the project officer will assist the project manager in the day-day implementation of the project activities and outputs as well as providing policy and technical advice to support inclusive programming processes on tolerance and dialogue.

Experiences and Qualifications

Competencies

Core Competencies:

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 2: Scale up solutions and simplifies processes, balances speed and accuracy in doing work
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 2: Offer new ideas/open to new approaches, demonstrate systemic/integrated thinking
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 2: Go outside comfort zone, learn from others and support their learning
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 2: Adapt processes/approaches to new situations, involve others in change process
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 2: Able to persevere and deal with multiple sources of pressure simultaneously
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 2: Is facilitator/integrator, bring people together, build/maintain coalitions/partnerships
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 2: Facilitate conversations to bridge differences, considers in decision making 
• UNDP People Management Competencies can be found in the dedicated site. 

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies 

Business Direction & Strategy        

• Strategic Thinking
  • Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDP’s objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, potential risks and opportunities; linking the vision to reality on the ground, and creating tangible solutions;
  • Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP.
• System Thinking
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system

Business Development        

• Knowledge Facilitation
• Ability to animate individuals and communities of contributors to participate and share, particularly externally

Business Management         

• Project Management 
  • Ability to plan, organize, prioritize, and control resources, procedures, and protocols to achieve specific goals
• Communication
  • Ability to communicate in a clear, concise, and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience 
  • Ability to manage communications internally and externally through media, social media, and other appropriate channels

Partnership management   

• Relationship Management 
  • Ability to engage with a wide range of public and private partners, build, sustain and/or strengthen working relations, trust and mutual understanding

Required Skills and Experience

Minimum Education requirements  

• Advanced university degree (Master’s Degree or equivalent in in one of the following disciplines: international relations, political science, history, social sciences, peace and conflict studies, public or business administration,or relevant related field is required or
• A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Minimum years of relevant work experience             •             

• Minimum 2 years (with master’s degree) or 4  years (with bachelor’s degree) of experience working on PCVE, conflict transformation, peacebuilding and dialogue programmes in Somalia

Required skills 

• Proven knowledge in conflict analysis, peacebuilding, and mediation required; Demonstrated experience in project management; 
• Experience in the use of computers, office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.) and web-based management systems, and advanced knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages. 

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section

• A proven track record of overseeing financial management of projects, including financial reporting skills/experience; 
• Strong experience in monitoring and evaluation of activities, as well as continuous risk management of projects; 
• Demonstrated ability to take initiative and ownership of work; 
• Experience with donor reporting and working with donors; 
• Ability to liaise and engage with high-level and local government officials as well as local communities, including those most margainalized and disadvantaged; 
• Strong communications skills with the proven ability to conduce presentations and to submit clear, well-written documents; 
• Experience providing trainings to a variety of stakeholders; 
• Demonstrated ability and willingness to work with people of different cultural, ethnic, gender, and religious background and diverse political views. 

Required Language(s) 

• Fluency in oral and written English and Somali is required.

Skills Required

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