Strategy and Innovation Analyst – P2

Background

The world is undergoing profound and interconnected changes across social, economic, environmental, and political spheres, necessitating a shift toward innovative, future-oriented approaches to development. Countries globally are grappling with increasingly complex and multifaceted challenges, such as the climate crisis, erosion of trust in institutions, and widening inequality. These challenges require adaptive solutions that can anticipate and address evolving risks and opportunities.

As policy-makers seek new methods of governance to navigate this complexity, there is a growing emphasis on future-oriented planning, scenario-building, and long-term strategies. Governments are increasingly adopting innovative approaches to policy-making, incorporating foresight and systems thinking to better prepare for and shape the future.

UNDP is the knowledge leader for sustainable development within the UN system and serves as a key integrator of collective action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through its work at headquarters, regional, and country office levels, UNDP bridges local knowledge with cutting-edge global expertise and advocacy. This integrated approach ensures that solutions are tailored to the unique challenges faced by each country, while drawing on broader global perspectives. Within this framework, UNDP invests in a global network of technical and operational expertise, spanning diverse knowledge domains to support the signature solutions and organizational capabilities outlined in the Strategic Plan.

UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2022-25 aims to build a more agile and anticipatory organization that embraces complexity, actively manages risk, adapts continually, and learns alongside delivering results. It underscores the importance of adopting systems and portfolio approaches to enhance the development sector’s capacity to address interconnected challenges. By fostering innovative solutions and transforming underlying development systems, UNDP seeks to empower countries to build sustainable, inclusive, and resilient futures.

The Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean (RBLAC) oversees UNDP’s regional programmes and supports 26 country offices across 42 countries and territories. In the region, UNDP collaborates primarily with governments, alongside civil society organizations and the private sector, to boost human development, improve lives, empower citizens and build more resilient nations.

Position Purpose:

To accelerate progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals and support countries to build resilient human development, the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean is advancing corporate and regional initiatives that integrate innovation, systems and portfolio approaches, and foresight into development planning and decision-making.

The Strategy and Innovation Analyst will support the implementation of the Regional Bureau’s innovation strategy by applying anticipatory and systemic approaches to regional and country initiatives. This includes designing and implementing strategic projects that enhance public innovation capabilities, foster policy experimentation, and help governments navigate emerging trends and disruptions.

A key focus of the role is advancing RBLAC’s strategic innovation agenda by embedding forward-looking approaches into policy and programmatic work, strengthening regional capacities to manage risks and seize opportunities from digital and green transitions, and enhancing the resilience and adaptability of governance systems. Additionally, the Strategy and Innovation Analyst will support the execution of strategic projects from the Directorate.

The Strategy and Innovation Analyst will report to the Chief Economist, in close coordination with the Special Assistant to the Regional Director.

UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across units, functions, teams, and projects in multidisciplinary teams in order to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Support the coordination of regional innovation initiatives

• Coordinate regional innovation initiatives, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities and fostering collaboration across teams.
• Lead and facilitate regional foresight exercises to generate insights on future trends and scenarios and their implications for policy and programming.
• Enhance internal communication to keep regional staff informed and engaged with ongoing innovation efforts and best practices.
• Support partners in designing and implementing public sector innovation initiatives, strengthening their capacity to experiment, adapt, and scale solutions.
• Organize and lead knowledge-sharing initiatives, actively engaging with global and regional innovation networks and communities of practice to exchange insights and drive collective learning
• Support the consolidation and systematization of UNDP’s digital efforts in the region, increasing the visibility and impact of ongoing projects and promoting new initiatives in this area.
• Support the engagement, collaboration, and development of a community with the Digital Advocates across country offices in the region

Provide strategic innovation advisory services

• Provide advisory support on the design and implementation of innovative and anticipatory strategies to manage risks and leverage opportunities arising from the digital and green transitions to maximize programmatic impact.
• Conduct foresight research and analysis, gathering data on emerging trends and future scenarios to inform policy development and regional priorities.
• Provide support to country offices in the roll-out of the portfolio policy and design of portfolios of interventions that align with regional priorities.
• Identify opportunities for innovation in the public sector, promoting the integration of foresight-driven approaches to improve design and decision-making processes
• Support the ongoing delivery of digital surveys, or assessments, and other new programming tools in the region or at country offices.

Develop knowledge products and support capacity building

• Develop of knowledge products and reports that identify and synthetize best practices on green innovations, digital governance and anticipatory policy making, providing actionable insights to inform decision making.
• Support the development of knowledge products and reports that identify and synthetize best practices on digital transitions.
• Generate engaging visual content (e.g., diagrams, system maps, data visualizations, animations) to help senior management better understand and interpret emerging trends and their implications for RBLAC’s work.
• Support capacity building for regional staff and partners in systems thinking, portfolio approaches, and foresight for policymaking, enhancing their ability to design and implement innovative solutions.
• Support the development of other information management products, as needed.
• Support the design and optimization of institutional innovation processes, fostering adaptive and forward-looking approaches for co-creation and decision making.
• Coordinate with relevant units in RBLAC NY and the Regional Hub, facilitating effective communication and collaboration to ensure smooth implementation of the regional strategic programming.

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

Competencies:

Core CoreBehaviouralCompetencies.pdf (undp.org)

Achieve Results:

• Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline

Think Innovatively:

• Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements

Learn Continuously

• Open-minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback

Adapt with Agility

• Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible

Act with Determination

• Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident

Engage and Partner

• Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships

Enable Diversity and Inclusion

• Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical Competencies

Business Direction & Strategy: Futures & Foresight

• Ability to look at information from the past and present, identify patterns and trends and use them to inform decision making with a long-term view.
• Being sensitive and able to scan horizons and pick up weak signals of change, explore their potential implications and assess their impact and urgency.
• Using creativity and imagination to communicate insights in compelling and engaging ways to challenge current mental models; ability to develop scenarios, speculative designs to present future visions or by making it experiential.
• Being able to facilitate debate and discussion about possible futures; help people to feel comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty.

Digital: Innovation Capacity Building

• Ability to define and create the conditions for trying out new ways of working or introducing new problem solving approaches to an organisation.
• Ability to develop, manage and evaluate a learning curriculum that raises awareness, builds confidence, strengthens innovation capabilities around a certain method, tool or technique; or helps develop an innovation mindset.
• Ability to create the authorising environment (mandate, incentives) to embed and spread new ways of working.
• In-depth knowledge of one or more innovation methods, broad knowledge of innovation processes and innovation management.
• Ability to align a learning and development strategy with broader innovation strategy.

Digital: Innovation Management

• Being able to create strategies, conditions, structures and systems to enable innovation at an organizational level.
• Ability to navigate uncertainty and ambiguity, is able manage projects based principles of adaptation and emergence.
• Ability to shape demand for innovation services, navigate political constraints and make the case for allocation of resources to innovation, connect the appropriate innovation approaches based on business needs and make the case for innovation to be integrated at the planning level within their context. Having in-depth theoretical and experiential knowledge of innovation processes, methods, capabilities.

Digital: Storytelling

• Ability to empathize with people’s perceptions, motivations, feelings and mental models and craft narratives to build an emotive argument for change accordingly.
• Ability to present data, insights or information in compelling ways to mobilise resources, talent or action.
• Ability to choose media and channels that are fit for purpose to reach specific target audiences.

Business Direction and Strategy: 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 Generation

• Ability to research information and to turn it into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need. Ability to apply existing concepts to new situations, and to develop new concepts to generate workable solutions and new approaches. Knowledge of relevant concepts, conceptual models, and theories that can be useful in addressing new situations.

Business Development: Portfolio Management

• Ability to select, prioritise and control the organization’s programmes and projects in line with its strategic objectives and capacity
• Ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives with regular activities for optimal return on investment. Knowledge and understanding of key principles of project, programme, and portfolio management.

Required Skills and Experience:

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Public Administration, International Development, Political Science, or a 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.

Experience:

• Minimum 2 years (with master´s degree) or 4 years (bachelor´s degree) of experience working in the public sector, non-governmental organizations or international organizations in project management.
• Experience in supporting coordination, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects is required;
• UN experience is an asset;
• Experience supporting regional teams is desired.
• Proven experience and substantive knowledge of the applications of strategic innovation in the development sector (including foresight methodologies, systems thinking, portfolio approach, collective intelligence, or strategic planning) is desired.
• Demonstrable experience in delivering training using foresight methodologies to international audiences is desired.
• Experience in developing knowledge products and reports is an advantage.
• Experience in designing and optimizing institutional innovation processes is desired.

Language:

• Fluency in English and Spanish is required.
• Working knowledge of another UN language is desirable.

Equal opportunity

As an equal opportunity employer, UNDP values diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate and, as such, we encourage qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply for roles in the organization. Our employment decisions are based on merit and suitability for the role, without discrimination.

UNDP is also committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, are valued, can thrive, and benefit from career opportunities that are open to all.

Sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of authority

UNDP does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination and abuse of authority. All selected candidates, therefore, undergo relevant checks and are expected to adhere to the respective standards and principles.

Right to select multiple candidates

UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement. We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.

Scam alert

UNDP does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process. For further information, please see www.undp.org/scam-alert.

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