Director – Peace Support Office (PSO)

• Country: Ethiopia
• Organization: UNDP
• Deadline: 2023-11-16
• No of Vacancies: N/A

Under the direct supervision of the Resident Representative (RR) and working closely with UNDP Country Office senior managers and programme/operations staff, the Director of the Peace Support Office (PSO) is responsible for the following functions:

• Policy advisory support and management performance.
• Programme management, monitoring, oversight, and learning.
• Partnership development and management

Policy advisory support and management performance

• Provides high quality and strategic policy and programmatic advice to the UNDP Country Office (CO), government and partners, informed by global experience and good practice.
• Offers technical leadership in the development of a relevant, high impact and well- integrated stabilization/peace support programme portfolio, including formulation of high quality and results-based projects appropriate to the Ethiopian context.
• Prepares policy documents, briefs and other strategic papers/materials under the direction of the CO for use in the development and presentation of a coherent perspective to help define strategies and implementation actions.
• Oversees the Peace Support Office (PSO), ensuring that it operates in a cohesive, efficient, effective and transparent manner, upholding UN values and maintaining the highest standards of integrity.
• Takes responsibility for ensuring that the PSO meets all relevant benchmarks of programmatic and operational benchmarks set corporately by UNDP as well as by the CO.
• Plays a key role in developing and maintaining a skilled, professional, motivated and high performing team in the PSO, including overseeing the proper discharge of core human resources functions.
• Develops and oversees the operating and programmatic budget of the PSO, ensuring adherence with all relevant UNDP financial and programme budgetary rules and regulations as well as procedures.
• Maintains full adherence with UNDP procurement rules and regulations, including effective management of the procurement planning process.
• Represents the programme in appropriate fora as authorized by the RR or her/his delegate.

Programme management, monitoring, oversight and learning

• Develops and oversees integrated programme planning, management, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems that comply with UNDP standards, as adapted to Ethiopia by the CO.
• Establishes and oversees a robust, state-of-the-art, monitoring and verification system to ensure proper and accountable use of resources entrusted to UNDP by donors and government, maintaining detailed and accessible digital records that demonstrate proper targeting of beneficiaries and use of resources in full compliance with approved Annual Work Plans (AWPs).
• Manages UNDP’s stabilisation/peace support efforts as a portfolio, applying necessary tools of portfolio management and ensuring measurable integration of cross-portfolio issues such as gender equality and empowerment, doing no harm, peace building, human rights and resilience.
• Plans and executes a timely, inclusive and transparent annual work planning process for the PSP/F, manner, acting in close consultation and collaboration with the CO, and involving Afar, Amhara and Tigray regions as well as federal entities including UNDP’s coordinating body, the Ministry of Finance.
• Leads on timely and adequate reporting against plans, including on-time, substantive and well-documented progress reports, and ensures regular assessments of programmes/projects to identify and synthesise good practices and lessons learned, update risks and risk mitigation, to inform future plans, CO and corporate learning and strategic communications.
• Ensures that approaches to gender equality are integrated into all aspects of planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, subject to rigorous assessment of effectiveness.
• Ensures that the PSO meets all relevant project quality and management as well as M&E and audit benchmarks and requirements, including timely and full implementation of annual and multi-year M&E plans, project audit plans (NIM and DIM, as appropriate), HACT assessments and spot checks, reporting on the gender marker, project quality assurance (PQA) and ESG standards, and substantive contributions to the CO’s annual Results-Oriented Annual Report (ROAR).
• Brings key policy, programmatic and operational issues to the attention of the CO and troubleshoots collaboratively with the RR and other CO staff to resolve implementation bottlenecks to enable speedy, flexible and timely action.
• Identifies risks and challenges to the ongoing operations of the projects and applies timely mitigation measures aligned to the CO risk management strategy and corporate Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) system, documenting lessons learnt while providing advice to the RR and other senior managers on mitigation strategies.

• Develops and implements a partnership strategy for the PSP/F, in close coordination with the CO, to develop a wide base of partners that enables collaboration across a broad range of issues: advocacy and communication on shared concerns, joint research and analysis, operational partnerships, and resource mobilization.
• Builds close, trusted, and productive working relationships with senior and mid-level government counterparts at federal and regional levels, UN colleagues in Addis and in the field, donors, civil society organizations, the private sector, and academia.
• Bring key partnership issues to the attention of the CO and troubleshoot collaboratively with the RR and other CO staff to secure smooth and timely resolution of any issues.
• Develops and implements a state-of-the-art communications strategy that effectively conveys the performance of the PSP/F to stakeholders, builds broad and deep interest in the work of UNDP, engages partners, delivers high-quality products (both physical and electronic), and builds a strong social media identity and presence for the PSP/F, consistent with the broader positioning of the CO and in full conformity with UNDP’s social media guidelines.
• Develops and maintains a ‘pipeline’ of high-quality funding proposals and meets annual resource mobilization targets (as agreed with the RR).

Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities: YES

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