Project Specialist - COP-D

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.

Organizational Context: 

UNDP has been working in India since 1951 in almost all areas of human development. Together with the Government of India and development partners, we have worked towards eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, strengthening local governance, enhancing community resilience, protecting the environment, supporting policy initiatives and institutional reforms, and accelerating sustainable development for all. 

With projects and programmes in every state and union territory in India, UNDP works with national and subnational government, and diverse development actors to deliver people-centric results, particularly for the most vulnerable and marginalized communities. As the integrator for collective action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the UN system, we are committed to supporting the Government of India’s national development vision and priorities and accelerating the achievement of the SDGs for the people and the planet. 

UNDP India’s new Country Programme (2023-2027) builds on our prior work and aims to provide an integrated approach to development solutions in three strategic portfolios:  

• Strong, accountable and evidence-led institutions for accelerated achievement of the SDGs.
• Enhanced economic opportunities and social protection to reduce inequality, with a focus on the marginalized.
• Climate-smart solutions, sustainable ecosystems and resilient development for reduced vulnerability.

South-South cooperation, gender equality and social inclusion are promoted across the pillars. The programme is supported by a framework of renewed partnerships and blended finance solutions, strategic innovation and accelerator labs, and data and digital architecture.

You are invited to join a team of future-smart development professionals to support India in achieving the national and globally agreed goals. As part of the UNDP team, your focus will be to work with diverse stakeholders to find country-specific solutions that lead to sustainable development and reach those furthest behind first.

Health System Strengthening (HSS) Unit:

In India, health system strengthening is a key aspect of the UNDP India’s Country Program Document (CPD) 2023-2027 with a strong focus on (i) leaving no one behind, (ii) ensuring equitable access to basic healthcare, and (iii) institutional and systems strengthening. UNDP is a long-standing partner of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and its institutions at the State and District level. Guided by the government, the UNDP India programmatic engagement is fully carried out in close coordination with partner UN agencies and is focusing on better health services provided to population of India. 

The overarching goal of UNDP’s work on health system strengthening in India is to facilitate equitable access to basic services by strengthening capacities of communities to demand and access services, and of institutions to deliver quality, timely and stigma free services and LNOB (Leaving no one behind). 

The Gavi Alliance co-funded Health System Strengthening (HSS) programme is one of the efforts of the MoHFW to improve the quality and level of immunization coverage in India. UNDP has been a trusted partner of MoHFW and GAVI for many years. UNDP has proven the quality and efficiency of its work by the development of an integrated and innovative solution that provides real time information of vaccine stocks and temperature at the various levels of storage and geographical coverage. 

The initially developed solutions (eVIN and CoWIN) have proven themselves well and now UNDP is given a unique opportunity to develop and integrate a new solution U-Win. The UNDP Health System Strengthening programme supports work in every State and Union Territory of India and has established a network of well skilled and devoted personnel. While large part of this programme is related to digital solutions development, capacity building and implementation, it also includes technical support to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for prevention and management of non-communicable diseases, Neglected Tropical diseases and for leveraging technologies to track high risk pregnancies and thereby reduce maternal and child mortalities rates. Working closely with other development partners, the HSS programme also supports the National AIDS Control Organization’s efforts in prevention and control of HIV and AIDS. 

Under GAVI Health System Strengthening III framework, UNDP will establish Centre of Excellence for demand generation to be termed as COP-D (Community of Practice- Demand).  The interventions planned aim at intensified demand generation in the potential zero-dose communities. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare mandated UNDP to establish a structure to guide and oversee the local level engagement with Civil Society Organization (CSOs) and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) for enabling the community and the community-based organizations to understand the importance of vaccination and demand vaccination services. The Community of Practice- Demand (CoP-D) is planned to be set up to focus on vaccine demand and community mobilization through evidence generation and leveraging the behavioural science in a comprehensive manner. The plan is to undertake studies for behavioural insights and social drivers of vaccinations, understand the gaps, design human centric interventions and engage with the community through the local CSO and community-based organizations.  The Project Specialist - COP-D will work under the overall guidance of the Team Leader, HSS Unit and the direct supervision of the HSS Project Manager. S/he will be responsible for planning, implementation and oversight of COP-D

Duties and Responsibilities:    

1.Planning, management, and implementation of COP-D:

• Manage the planning and implementation of the COP-D including, coordination with agency identified to setup COP-D, UNICEF, CSOs and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• Establish proper review mechanism for yearly defined activities and facilitating follow-up through Ministry of Health and Family welfare and Project steering committee on regular basis. 
• Preparation of deliverables and quality assurance for COP-D including payment milestones and providing feedback and comments to ensure timely submissions and maintenance of delivery tracking sheets.
• Support the Project Manager in coordination of implementation of HSS project and provide quality  documentation of the proceedings and ensure regular delivery of key information. 

2. Partnerships :

• Lead and manage effective partnerships and engagement of key partners, to map key partnerships, deliver outputs to ensure quality outputs to achieve the zero dose objective.
• Oversee designing and testing of behavioural interventions of the COP. 
• Maintain and disseminate key learnings from the best practices from across the globe.

3. Knowledge Management and policy advice:

• Oversee BESD Surveys and produce quality literature to feed into various strategies and programmes.
• Lead the knowledge practice with up-gradation of new and emerging changes in the domain.

4. Gender-sensitive demand generation and specific focus on vulnerable groups and people living in hard to reach areas. 

• Provide inputs and ensuring gender inclusion in coordination with Project Gender Expert and COs Gender Analyst  for important documents such as AWPs, Prodoc, ROAR, CPMB, etc.
• Ensure gender-sensitive and specific knowledge products developed by COP-D for demand generation to ensure equitable access to vaccination services. 
• Initiate and lead research and studies on gender-related barriers faced by caregivers, health workers and adolescents to ensure equitable access to vaccines and primary health services. 
• Facilitate pilots on the importance of gender inclusive caregiving to ensure equitable access to vaccines and primary health services for newborn.
• Ensuring interventions to improve vaccination services for vulnerable groups and people living in hard-to-reach areas. 
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization

Expected Demonstration of Competencies

Core Competencies

Achieve Results:  LEVEL 3: Set and align challenging, achievable objectives for multiple projects, have lasting impact 

Think Innovatively:  LEVEL 3: Proactively mitigate potential risks, develop new ideas to solve complex problems 

Learn Continuously:  LEVEL 3: Create and act on opportunities to expand horizons, diversify experiences

Adapt with Agility:  LEVEL 3: Proactively initiate and champion change, manage multiple competing demands 

Act with Determination: LEVEL 3: Think beyond immediate task/barriers and take action to achieve greater results

Engage and Partner:  LEVEL 3: Political savvy, navigate complex landscape, champion inter-agency collaboration

Enable Diversity and Inclusion  LEVEL 3: Appreciate benefits of diverse workforce and champion inclusivity

Cross-Functional & Technical Competencies

Strategic Thinking: Ability to develop effective strategies and prioritized plans in line with UNDP’s objectives, based on the systemic analysis of challenges, potential risks and opportunities, linking the vision to reality on the ground, and creating tangible solutions.Ability to leverage learning from a variety of sources to anticipate and respond to future trends; to demonstrate foresight in order to model what future developments and possible ways forward look like for UNDP.

Evaluation: Ability to make an independent judgement based on set criteria and benchmarks. Ability to anticipate client’s upcoming needs and concerns.

Working with Evidence and Data: Ability to inspect, cleanse, transform and model data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making

Monitoring: Ability to provide managers and key stakeholders with regular feedback on the consistency or discrepancy between planned and actual activities and programme performance and results

Data analysis: Ability to extract, analyze and visualize data (including Real-Time Data) to form meaningful insights and aid effective decision making

Digital strategy: Ability to plan the use of resources through digital channels to reach and engage target audiences effectively and to achieve particular objectives

System Thinking: Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.

Required Skills and Experience

Minimum Education requirements 

• Advanced university degree (Master´s degree or equivalent) in Communications/ Public Health/Hospital Management/ Community Medicine/ Health Administration/ Science or other related field from a reputed University / Institution is required, or   
• A first-level university degree (Bachelor´s degree) in a relevant field  in combination with additional 2 years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of Master´s degree.

Experience, Knowledge, and Skills

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of experience (with Master´s degree) or 7 years (with Bachelor´s degree) of experience in public health at National level; 
• Experience of working with Government and UN Agencies is desirable.

Required Skills:

• Ability to coordinate with multiple stakeholders including Central Government, State Government, CSOs, International organizations etc; 
• Public Health management;
• Ability and proven experience in programme management; 
• Proven experiences in gender-sensitive programming and working with vulnerable and marginalized communities. 

Desired additional skills and competencies:

• Good analytical skills and understanding of Public Health data; 
• Good knowledge on the use of MS office for various programme purposes;
• Good coordination skills.

Languages:

        Fluency in English and Hindi is required.

Disclaimer

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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