Job Identification : 13964

Locations : Dhaka, Bangladesh

Posting Date : 10/04/2023, 03:59 AM

Apply Before : 10/17/2023, 05:59 PM

Job Schedule : Full time

Agency : UNDP

Grade : NB4

Vacancy Type : National Personnel Service Agreement

Practice Area : Governance

Bureau : Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific

Contract Duration : 1 Year

Education & Work Experience : Master’s Degree

Other Criteria : Bachelor’s degree with 2 years of experience

Required Languages : English and Bangla

Vacancy Timeline

2 Weeks

Mobility required/no mobility

no mobility required

Job Description

Background

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are core principles at UNDP: we value diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, we foster inclusion as a way of ensuring all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, and we ensure equity and fairness in all our actions. Taking a ‘leave no one behind’ approach to our diversity efforts means increasing representation of underserved populations. People who identify as belonging to marginalized or excluded populations are strongly encouraged to apply. Learn more about working at UNDP including our values and inspiring stories.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

The Aspire to Innovate (a2i) Programme builds on the Government of Bangladesh’s efforts to introduce a citizen-centric culture of innovation in civil service to improve service delivery and make services more inclusive, affordable, reliable and easier to access. This project will provide support to establish institutional mechanisms and improve accountability to accelerate SDG achievements in Bangladesh.

This project will have three components:

•  Institutionalizing Public Service Innovation and Improving Accountability
•  Catalyzing Digital Financial Services and Fintech Innovations
•  Incubating Private Sector-enabled Public Service Innovation

The project is funded by the Government of Bangladesh, UNDP and other development partners, and is implemented by ICT Division and Cabinet Division.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of the Digital Financial Service Specialist, the incumbent will perform above-mentioned activities and the Digital Financial Service Specialist will be responsible for service evaluation of the Gender Analyst. The Gender Analyst who will work with Digital Financial Service Team and lead the women financial inclusion related activities. The main objectives of DFS activities is to play a catalytic role to develop an innovative and effective digital financial service eco-system which will foster the innovation of a range of pro-poor financial products/services, facilitate competitive & innovative regulatory environment, uptake the usages of DFS product and minimize the existing gender gap in financial inclusion in Bangladesh.

The incumbent will perform below mentioned duties and responsibilities, but not limited to the following specific duties and responsibilities

Improve the interaction of women with financial services and digital financial ecosystem across Bangladesh

•  Design a comprehensive roadmap on women’s financial inclusion with the assistance of regulators, financial services providers, academician, development partner
•  Connect marginalized women entrepreneur with FSPs to integrate new services into their service basket
•  Prepare women’s financial inclusion intervention plan through identifying the areas, such as- financial and digital literacy, entrepreneurship development, etc.
•  Provide strategic direction in consultation with DFS Specialist to different types of financial service providers for identifying innovative service delivery channels for women

Activity planning & strategy development for women’s inclusion in financial service

•  Develop and manage the implementation plan to accelerate women’s inclusion in financial services
•  Coordinate to develop a women’s financial inclusion strategy
•  Promote women in FinTech programme to ensure more access and usages of underserved and rural women
•  Support DFS team to implement the activities under long-term intervention strategy of a2i

Monitoring and reporting of the women financial inclusion activities

•  Develop monitoring framework and reporting mechanism for the women financial inclusion activities
•  Ensure regular monitoring and provide necessary feedback to the field level activities to achieve the targeted goal
•  Analyse gender inclusion issue of different digital service and digital payment (G2P, bill payment, P2G) initiatives of a2i

Policy advocacy and Communication

•  Reach out to various stakeholders for advocating relevant policy through national level platform
•  Ensure proper communication with the member of women agent network for promoting maginalised women involvement in the financial services
•  Ensure to publication of newsletter and to prepare promotional mail on women’s financial inclusion for the targeted groups
•  Organize workshop, symposium, webinar and seminar on gender inclusive finance for identifying the intervention scope, and possible actions items

Monitor the Gender Action Plan of a2i programme

•  Review of the current programme activities and recommend adjustments to better integrate gender aspect in planned results, activities and indicators
•  Support to develop a new gender-related portfolio and to integrate gender aspect in the existing programmes/projects
•  Provide inputs to UNDP Country Office’s documents related to gender and development
•  Serve as the gender focal point of a2i programme for all internal and external partners

Competencies

Core competencies:

•  Achieve Results: LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline
•  Think Innovatively: LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements
•  Learn Continuously: LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback
•  Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible
•  Act with Determination: LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident
•  Engage and Partner: LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships
•  Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies: Digital & Innovation

•  Design thinking: Solving problems by putting people at the centre, visualising ideas and making them tangible in order to improve them through and iterative process of developing and testing; Strong empathy skills, being able to put yourself “in someone else’s shoes”, understand needs, abilities, preferences, motivations, (everyday) experiences from different perspectives as well as their cultural, social, economical and political contexts; Ability to identify and challenge assumptions, (cognitive and social) biases and dominant mental models by generating new perspectives and frames that help redefine the problem, solution and opportunity space; Being able to work with incomplete information, ambiguity and opposing views, needs and constraints and synthesise them into solutions that are viable, technically feasible and useful.
•  Behavioural insights: Knowing when it is appropriate to use behavioural insights, having theoretical knowledge and basic understanding of principles of human behaviour; being aware of both the benefits and limitations of Behavioural Insights and adhere to ethical standards and guides when using them; Being able to define specific behavioural goals (what to change), explore and understand barriers and contextual factors to desired behaviours, use principles from behavioural science to generate ideas for nudges and interventions, use experimental methods to improve ideas (prototyping) or evaluate impact (trials). Use these results to develop a scaling strategy for interventions that work or inform policy design.

Ethics

•  Ethics Advice & Guidance: Ability to quickly analyse complex fact patterns and provide comprehensive, sensitive, and confidential ethics advice and guidance
•  Legal Analysis and Report Writing: Ability to apply legal analysis to a diverse range of complex issues, and express themselves clearly; ability to communicate well, to all levels of staff and contractors/consultants, governments et.al.

Partnership Management

•  Strategic engagement: Ability to capture and sustain attention, interest and agreement of high-level, influential policy and decision makers and secure their buy-in of high-level vision and objectives

Business Direction & Strategy

•  Effective Decision Making: Ability to take decisions in a timely and efficient manner in line with one’s authority, area of expertise and resources

Business Development

•  Human-centered Design: Ability to develop solutions to problems by involving the human perspective in all steps of the problem-solving process

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

•  Advanced university degree (Master’s Degree or equivalent) in Public Administration / Social Science/ Gender Studies/ Development Studies / Business Administration or equivalent discipline is required.
•  A first-level university degree (Bachelor’s Degree) in the areas mentioned above in combination with additional 2 years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of Master’s degree.

Experience:

•  Up to 2 years (with Master’s degree) or minimum 2 years (with Bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience in gender-focused initiatives.
•  Direct experience working with Bangladesh Bank & FSPs is an asset.
•  Experience in working with marginalized women for promoting financial inclusion is an asset.
•  Hands on experience in developing Gender focused project implementation is required.
•  Experience in research, policy advocacy and strategy development is an asset.
•  Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section
•  Working experience with UNDP/Government will be an added advantage
•  Experience in writing research reports/policy briefs/proposals etc. will be an added advantage

Required Languages:

•  Fluency in English and Bangla is required.

Disclaimer

Important information for US Permanent Residents (‘Green Card’ holders)

Under US immigration law, acceptance of a staff position with UNDP, an international organization, may have significant implications for US Permanent Residents. UNDP advises applicants for all professional level posts that they must relinquish their US Permanent Resident status and accept a G-4 visa, or have submitted a valid application for US citizenship prior to commencement of employment.

UNDP is not in a position to provide advice or assistance on applying for US citizenship and therefore applicants are advised to seek the advice of competent immigration lawyers regarding any applications.

Applicant information about UNDP rosters

Note: 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.

Non-discrimination

UNDP has a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual exploitation and misconduct, sexual harassment, and abuse of authority. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

UNDP is an equal opportunity and inclusive employer that does not discriminate based on race, sex, gender identity, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, age, language, social origin or other status.

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