UNDP Arab States Regional Programme’s Youth Project is lead by the Regional Youth Team which supports the youth work in UNDP’s bureau for Arab States and manages the three funded projects and growing and provides direct support to UNDP country offices in the Arab region.

More than 60 percent of the region’s population is under the age of 30, and the current youth generation is historically the largest youth cohort this region has witnessed over the past 50 years, making up 30% of its population of 370 million. Youth are demanding responsive political systems and social justice as much as they seek equitable economic opportunities. Meeting these demands in a region with some of the most complex and long-standing conflicts and highest youth unemployment rate in the world requires multifaceted approaches both at the regional and country levels.

Youth in the Arab region are keen on supporting the improvement of their communities and countries. Space to engage youth more is needed, an enabling environment to foster creativity, innovation, and leadership is needed. Youth are interested in building themselves and being the change, they are asking for. In response, UNDP has developed a shared agenda, a Regional Youth Project, Shababeek to promote young people’s empowerment by building their capabilities and creating access to opportunities for engagement. Bringing together governments, private sector partners, civil society and young people, not only to provide education and training relevant to social and market conditions, but also to support national and local actors to create spaces where millions of young people can flourish and contribute meaningfully to the development of the societies in which they live. It will address inequities in reaching development targets through intentionally and strategically bringing the voices of the most marginalized into the process of visioning, strategizing and action. Guided by the principles of co-creation, the project will deploy a participatory approach to address the framework conditions that keep broken systems in place.

In this regard, the project contributes to strengthening the enabling environment for job-rich, green growth and transformation in the Arab region and or reinforcing capacities for their effective implementation; developing leadership, management and entrepreneurship skills of young people; and helping to connect them to productive youth employment opportunities; and enabling the adoption of a deliberative process of policy articulation between governments and youth as policy shapers. In helping to create opportunities for youth in the Arab region to unleash their creativity and leadership in civic, economic and political spheres, the project aims to fundamentally shift societies’ perception of youth as problems to assets for regional transformation and social cohesion. In short, it will aims to co-generate a conducive environment for young people to become job creators, future-proof job seekers, community builders and policy shapers.

The Shababeek Project has two main pillars (outcome areas) of work with one being Youth Economic Empowerment. This programmatic area has grown in the last year and now includes two projects, the Green Growth and Jobs Accelerator project and the Transformative Support to Entrepreneurs Project. In response to the high demand of both projects, the Regional Youth Team is looking for additional technical capacity to manage relevant projects accordingly, both integrating within the existing team, and working as team-of-teams with the Inclusive Growth Team at the RBAS Hub to effectively manage and provide technical supervision for successful implementation of both projects.

The candidate holder shall perform tasks under the direct supervision of UNDP/RBAS Regional Youth project manager and the technical supervision of the Regional Lead Economist and Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Finance Team Leader.

Travel:

UNDP will cover the cost of travel of the individual to the duty station, as well as their return to their home upon completion of their services. Travel costs are covered only in the event that the function will be undertaken physically in the duty station and excludes working from home arrangements.

Under the direct supervision of UNDP/RBAS Regional Youth project manager and the technical supervision of the Regional Lead Economist and Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Finance Team Leader, the Youth Economic Empowernment Specialist will manage the Green Growth and Jobs Accelerator Project. He/she will contribute to the formulation of new proposals, and provide technical and operational oversight over new project and intiatives within the Youth Economic Empowerment Pillar. He/she will also contribute to or lead on partnerships and resource mobilization efforts in order to grow the portfolio. These responsibilities will be executed in coordination with and contributions to sub-working streams led by members of the Regional Youth Team, the Inclusive Growth Team, as well as other relevant colleagues within the bureau and other UNDP offices. The Youth Economic Empowernement Specialist should carry out the following tasks:

• Manage and ensure effective project delivery and coordination 
  • Day to day management and implementation support of the projects under the Economic Empowerment Outcome Area;
  • Ensure the delivery of project results with the required standard of quality and within the specified timeframe and budget;
  • Provide guidance and support to the regional youth team members managing different components of the relevant projects to ensure coherence and sound response to projects’ needs;
  • Provide technical support, quality assurance, and oversight to the UNDP country teams on the implementation of the Green Growth and Jobs Accelerator and the Transformative Entrepreneurship Projects. This will include trouble shooting, adapting where needed to remain on track, ensure synergies and connections with other relevant programmatic areas, within Shababeek or the Regional Programme/Amman Regional Hub, to ensure holistic and multi-dimensional support to the projects ;
  • Lead and coordinate work plans and budgets with the UNDP Country Offices with guidance and support from the operations and finance analyst on the regional youth team.
  • Facilitate with the youth team knowledge sharing and management;
  • Ensure strong team work, co-creation and collaboration across teams working on the projects;
  • Responsible for monitoring, evaluating and reporting of project implementation and results.
• Provide  technical support 
  • Provide technical assistance to Country Offices in response to their requests related to Youth Economic Empowerment.
  • Collaborate across Regional Hub teams to respond to multi-disciplinary requests from Country offices to ensure that regional  and global UNDP assets, knoweldge and capabilities are leveraged
• Lead Policy reseach, knowledgment management, and strategy development of regional youth economic empowerment activities
  • Pro-actively capture economic needs from the region into new initiatives and directly engage in design of relevant economic development concepts/activities
  • Produce periodic updates and briefs on regional/country development situations to be used by stakeholders, COs and HQ, and development partners
  • Identify potential new research areas for commissioning on youth empowerment focusing on demands and gaps at the country level.
• Establish and strengthen strategic partnerships with stakeholders, regional/international actors and development partners 
  • Collaborate across the UN system and develop synergies through UN-interagency fora to further regional agendas with regard to youth skilling, training, employability and entrepreneurship
  • Prospect partnership with IFIs, investment funds, regional accelerators to secure access to finance for green startups and SMEs
  • Support resource mobilization efforts of the Regional Project Manager pertaining to the Economic Empowerment area of work. Contribute to development of proposals, prospects and presentation materials for the related initiatives.
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization