Technical Specialist

Under the supervision of the Chief Policy Dialogue and Country Engagement, the Technical Specialist (Partnerships) will facilitate the CAFI Executive Board and Secretariat with the engagement of national partners on a shared vision for the partnership, and in the planning, implementation and monitoring of LOI. He/she will advise the related governance bodies via stakeholder engagements, support in policy development and dialogue. He/ she will facilitate the monitoring of the implementation of the partnership in collaboration with the programming team, anticipating and mitigating policy related risks to the partnership (such as breaches of the LOI) and organize the regular reviews with Cameroon partners. He/she will provide intellectual and practical solutions in partnership, policy development, advocacy to properly position the Trust Fund within the Country and with the designated partners.

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

Contributes to the development, manages, and implements CAFI`s country engagement process in Cameroon, including liaison and coordination with relevant officials internal and external to CAFI and in both strategic and tactical levels. 

• Support the leadership in the political and technical engagements to develop and monitor the implementation of the LoI, multilateral and bilateral agreements with the relevant stakeholders.
• Coordinate all stakeholder engagement efforts in Cameroon under with the supervision of the Chief Policy Dialogue and Country Engagement, to determine and document opportunities for initiating a strategic dialogue.
• Facilitate dialogue and advocacy mechanisms, forums, south-south cooperation, political and technical exchanges.
• Design and deliver strategic investments and engagement opportunities with donors and Cameroon government partners to optimize programme efficiency.
• Develop, update and implement the CAFI strategy on stakeholder engagement/participation (Cameroon chapter).
• Prepare and coordinate stakeholder meetings such as preparing briefing notes/presentations, agendas and annotated agendas, compiling meeting documentation, preparing and coordinating correspondence, quality control of reproduction and distribution of documents, minutes and reports.
• Identify innovative opportunities to strengthen existing country and regionally led initiatives, platforms and mechanisms that support CAFI`s mandate and be forward leaning supporting complementarity of efforts.
• Identify and anticipate Cameroon policy related risks and proposes solutions to the Head of Secretariat and the Executive Board.
• Contribute to the Cameroon chapter of the CAFI`s programme risk management plan, including its mitigation actions.
• Establish indicators of monitoring and evaluation and information tools such as the stakeholder database and the stakeholder meetings preparations guidelines, in cooperation with the M&E Specialist.
• Coordinate country engagement with relevant multilateral initiatives (International Financial Institutions, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, the Central African Forest Commission, etc).
• Coordinate the preparation of generic and country-specific background material, as well as other inputs that are supportive of conducting the strategic dialogue.
• Maintain a system to track progress in strategic dialogues in Cameroon and document their outcomes for proper reporting.

Facilitate the implementation of CAFI`s engagement process in Cameroon and oversee the policy dialogue of the LOI

• Identify key engagement areas, develop engagement plans (mapping of actors for different topics, identify how to engage them in the process) to maximize CAFI`s programme strategies and interventions.
• Collaborate within the technical and political outreach efforts with all stakeholders (line ministries, prime minister’s office, president’s office, Resident Coordinator’s office, implementing organizations and non-state actors).
• Research and analysis of information to donors, preparation of substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation.
• Produce papers, policy briefs, and notes with strategic analysis and policy recommendations. Generates survey initiatives; designs data collection tools; reviews, analyses, interprets responses, identifies problems/issues and prepares conclusions.
• Supervise the work of the staff and consultants in charge of country specific policy dialogue in Cameroon.
• Develop texts of the agreements and identification of solutions to outstanding negotiating position between CAFI and Cameroon.
• Participate the development and operationalization of country level policy dialogue mechanism for inter-ministerial coordination and for dialogue with development partners and participate therein on behalf of CAFI
• Participate and represent CAFI in the different development partner coordination mechanisms (general and sectoral) in Cameroon to identify relevant points, issues and topics for CAFI’s consideration/action or for the consideration/action of the partner coordination group.
• Oversee the development of milestone monitoring matrices further to the existing LOI.
• Oversee the organization of the annual partnership reviews in-country and other ad hoc coordination meetings as required by national circumstances.

Advise the executive management of the CAFI Secretariat and ensure liaison with other sub-teams within the CAFI Secretariat such as Operations, M&E, Programming, Communications

• Mobilize partnership engagement for strategic interventions such as Expressions of Interests, specific projects, Fast-Tracks, etc.
• Advise the CAFI communications team on defensive and proactive policy dialogue related communications.
• Oversee the development and presentation of policy dialogue related topics to the Executive Board during its meetings.
• Provide input and identify resource mobilization strategies and opportunities led by the Head of Secretariat and the Chief Policy Dialogue and Country Engagement.
• Advise programming team on policy support programs and vice versa obtains input from programmes for policy dialogue.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Public Administration, International Relations, Economics, Social Sciences, Environment or any related field or a first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the above field of study, in combination with an additional two years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree

Experience:

• Minimum of 7 years (with master’s degree) or 9 years (with bachelor’s degree) of extensive work experience mobilizing policy dialogue and/or partnerships for development policy planning in complex settings, as experience on environmental programmes is required.
• Solid experience and technical knowledge in climate and forest area, with a knowledge of Central Africa as an advantage.
• Strong theoretical and practical experience with the political dynamics of Central African countries is highly desired.
• Experience of development aid coordination is an asset.
• Demonstrated experience in resource mobilization is an advantage.
• Field experience in stakeholder engagement in one of the CAFI countries required.
• Experience with political engagement with government counterparts, in at least one CAFI country required.
• Experience in working with development partners is desired.
• Experience with leading staff in international settings required.

Language Requirement

• Fluency in English and French required.

Source: https://estm.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/requisitions/job/18133