DEADLINE FOR THIS VACANCY IS EXTENDED TO 15 April 2022 (5:00 PM NEW YORK TIME)
The Position:
The Risk and Opportunities Management Officer post is located in the Innovation Unit within the Office of the Executive Director, New York Headquarters, with administrative reporting to the Head of the Innovation Unit and functional matrix reporting both to the Head of Innovation Unit and to the Coordinator for Enterprise Risk Management for their respective outputs/tasks, as outlined below.
The overall leadership to this position is provided by the UNFPA Chief of Staff in his/her capacity as the Chief Risk Officer.
Innovation is essential for UNFPA to deliver at the scale and pace needed to realize the ICPD Programme of Action and achieve the three Transformative Results by 2030. To enable UNFPA to be fit-for-challenge to achieve the outputs in complex development, humanitarian and to sustain peace contexts, UNFPA and commits to harness innovation to meet tomorrow’s challenges and boost its impact, especially for those furthest behind, and leverage opportunities, social capital, funding and technology.
The Innovation Unit will lead the implementation of the UNFPA’s innovation strategy and the vision, as outlined in the SP 2021-2022. The Innovation Unit will act as a creative, interactive, and agile team that will be placed at a cross-divisional intersection, working closely with all respective Business Units across the organization, connecting the dots across the organization to enable, accelerate and catalyze innovation at UNFPA.
As an enabler, the Innovation Unit, in collaboration with respective Business Units, will ensure a nurturing environment for innovation, coordinating capacity building and augmented capacity, technical assistance, guidance on best practices, tools, methods for innovation, as well as fostering the operation support for innovation. As an enabler, the Innovation Unit will also maintain, promote and support a community of innovators, exchange of best practices and lessons learned, knowledge sharing, as well as fostering connection with partners.
As a catalyst, the Innovation Unit will ensure the scanning of emerging and trending opportunities, potential impact and opportunities for UNFPA. Based on the scanning and analysis, the Innovation Unit will advise the leadership on new opportunities, needs and adjustments needed, informing work directions. The Innovation Unit will also work closely with the Change Management Team to champion internal changes to support innovation. As a catalyst, the Innovation Unit will also promote the synergies and opportunities for collaboration across Business Units, and with the external actors, leveraging partnerships supporting core business values across the public, private and academic sectors, think tanks, social entrepreneurs, among others.
As an accelerator, the Innovation Unit will support connection with the opportunities offered by innovative financing. The support will include investments in potentially impactful solutions, as well as supporting proven solutions that can be implemented at national scale in multiple countries. The Innovation Unit will also assist in resource mobilization for the innovation and manage the Innovation Funds/dedicated capital budget to support innovation at UNFPA, subject to its availability.
How you can make a difference:
UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person's potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the ICPD and SDGs in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.
In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.
UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.
Job Purpose:
Innovation is essential for UNFPA to deliver at the scale and pace needed to realize the ICPD Programme of Action and achieve the three Transformative Results by 2030. UNFPA commits to harnessing innovation to meet tomorrow's challenges and boost its impact, especially for those furthest behinds, and leverage opportunities, social capital, funding, and technology.
Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) in UNFPA is the integrated process to manage the risks UNFPA is exposed to and is an integrated organization-wide discipline and a process linking planning to results. The Enterprise Risk Management Secretariat (ERMS), in the Office of the Executive Director, under the overall leadership of the Chief of Staff, in her/his functions of Chief Risk Officer (CRO), designs, coordinates, and monitors the effectiveness of risk management and related processes in UNFPA.
Innovation and Opportunities Management
Under the direct supervision of the Head of the Innovation Unit, s/he is responsible for anticipating, analyzing, planning for, adapting, and managing future scenarios, opportunities with the innovation portfolio, and the mainstreaming of innovation at UNFPA. The officer will engage closely with business owners to consider all relevant inputs to support the design and implementation of innovative solutions and provide ongoing operational support to innovators.
The Innovation Unit is a newly established structure at UNFPA, and thus its scope and objectives, as well the support the Unit will need, will continue to evolve over the short and medium term.
Risk Management
UNFPA ERM Policy is the umbrella framework for risk management in the organization. It brings together several policies, guidelines, and procedures to manage risk across different areas and leverages the second-line controls in an integrated and holistic manner. Under the direct functional supervision of the ERM Coordinator (and as a member of ERMS), s/he is responsible for supporting the implementation of the new ERM policy that involves management and oversight of the end-to-end ERM process across the organization, including the coordination and facilitation of risk identification, assessment, response, validation, escalation, aggregation, and reporting.
Requirements:
Qualifications and Experience
Education:
Advanced University Degree in Business Administration, professional accounting, auditing, risk management, Development Studies, International Development, or other relevant field is required.
Knowledge and Experience:
● A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in risk management is required, including areas such as innovation, foresight/ futures planning/ scenario planning.
● Experience in developing policies and procedures and a cross-cutting knowledge of the UN's business processes focussed on risk management and internal controls.
● Experience in implementing risk management following COSO or similar ERM standards in large, diverse, geographical spread organizations. Knowledge of risk management/internal control frameworks and processes. Designing, developing, and implementing strategies for responding and monitoring risks. Establishing risk culture and developing risk management strategy, principles, and practices involving assessment and analyzing risk exposure.
● Experience in the United Nations system or a comparable international organization is desirable.
● Experience at the headquarters of a development cooperation organization is desirable.
● Experience with inter-agency or inter-organizational collaboration is desirable.
Languages:
Proficiency in both spoken and written English is required. Working knowledge of other UN languages is an asset.
We are no longer accepting applications for this position.
