Project Officer, Peacebuilding

UNDP in Kyrgyzstan applies a comprehensive approach through its programme portfolio aimed at strengthening social cohesion in the country. By combining strategies for economic empowerment, green economy, climate change adaptation, inclusive governance, and prevention, UNDP Kyrgyzstan constructs a robust framework to enhance community resilience and sustain peace.

The Project Officer will play a key role in supporting UNDP Kyrgyzstan's implementation of its peacebuilding program portfolio. This entails providing strategic leadership, technical expertise, and operational support to UNDP initiatives aimed at fostering peace, stability, and sustainable development in the country.

Project Management and Coordination:

• Coordinating and overseeing the number of UNDP projects aiming at strengthening social cohesion and peacebuilding including:
  • Ferghana Valley Social and Economic Recovery Project in the Kyrgyz Republic
  • Promoting Resilient Communities to Prevent Violent Extremism in Central Asia
  • Economic empowerment of youth and developing sustainable solutions for youth’s entrepreneurship at the local level for fostering greater social cohesion and resilience.
• Develop relevant annual work plans and budget sand ensure that the proposed activities are aligned with overall project objectives, country programme and strategic plan.
• Coordinate execution of the workplans to achieve the targets, including guiding the teams to achieve the targets.
• Monitor the implementation of the activities by partners and provide guidance to them as required.
• Coordinate preparation of progress reports for the donors and other partners if required.
• Develop terms of reference of required consultants, participate in the recruitment/tender processes.
• Coordinate with different teams to develop Letters of Agreement, Memorandums of Understanding, Low Value Grants etc.
• Overseeing relevant team members and consultants to ensure quality control their outputs and performance.
• Contribute to the preparation of Board meetings and ensure that recommendations made by the Project Board are addressed. 
• Coordinate the project evaluation, audit, and spot-check as needed.

Managing relationships, partnerships, policy, and advocacy efforts: 

• Provide policy and strategic advice relating to peacebuilding and social cohesion to senior management and teams to strengthen and scale up the partnership with the key counterparts, and foster/enhance collaboration with other relevant partners by building synergies and complementarities.
• Contribute to seek and identify additional partnership and funding opportunities, and support development of concept notes, funding proposals, donor briefings and presentations in support of resource mobilization.
• Mobilize, foster and strengthen strategic partnerships with ley counterparts including government, civil society, academia, UN and development partners to advance and support relevant objectives. 
• Establish strong ties with national programmes, and relevant sectoral strategies, priorities and plans.
• Lead the analytical and policy development work of the team. 

Coordinating monitoring and evaluation activities of the projects/initiatives under his/her portfolio: 

• Ensure close financial and procurement oversight and monitoring of all activities of the projects/initiatives. 
• Set direction for monitoring and evaluation priorities in accordance with UNDP rules and regulations.
• Guide development of overall monitoring and evaluation systems for the projects/initiatives and put mechanisms in place for proper and timely reporting.
• Lead regular project reviews by monitoring the progress of project implementation, assessing results and identifying areas of weaknesses to ensure the projects achieve the planned results in accordance with relevant plans.
• Monitor and manage any strategic risks/issues facing the project; submit new risks/issues to the Board for consideration and decision on possible actions if required; update the status of these risks/issues by maintaining the Project Risks/Issues Log.
• Evaluate all key project deliverables, as well as final product to ensure traceability of requirements, high quality and client acceptance.

Facilitating knowledge management and sharing: 

• Ensure regular assessment of strategic, implementation, action plans identifying areas of emphasis to guide project improvements and future plans.
• Use sound judgment in all project communication and ensure that project communication meets needs of different audiences.
• Participate in communication activities to inform stakeholders of progress and issues.
• Establish and maintain a friendly internal communication system to ensure smooth communication among and between the project partners.
• Lead the process of knowledge creation and dissemination related to national, regional and global know-how in the areas of project focus.
• Help build the knowledge base, data, and support analytics.
• Contribute to the development and maintenance of the programme knowledge networks and practices and development of knowledge products.

• Achieve Results: LEVEL 2: Scale up solutions and simplifies processes, balances speed and accuracy in doing work.
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 2: Offer new ideas/open to new approaches, demonstrate systemic/integrated thinking.
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 2: Go outside comfort zone, learn from others and support their learning.
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 2: Adapt processes/approaches to new situations, involve others in change process.
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 2: Able to persevere and deal with multiple sources of pressure simultaneously.
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 2: Is facilitator/integrator, bring people together, build/maintain coalitions/partnerships.
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 2: Facilitate conversations to bridge differences, considers in decision making.

UNDP People Management Competencies can be found in the dedicated site.

Cross-Functional and Technical Competencies:

• Effective Decision Making:
  • Ability to take decisions in a timely and efficient manner in line with one’s authority, area of expertise and resources.
• 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.
• Results-based Management:
  • Ability to manage programmes and projects with a focus at improved performance and demonstrable results.
• Project Management:
  • Ability to plan, organize, prioritize and control resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals.
• Partnerships Management:
  • Ability to build and maintain partnerships with wide networks of stakeholders, Governments, civil society and private sector partners, experts and others in line with UNDP strategy and policies.
• Communication:
  • Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience.
  • Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media and other appropriate channels.
• Relationship management:
  • Ability to engage with a wide range of public and private partners, build, sustain and/or strengthen working relations, trust and mutual understanding.

• Experience in the use of computers, office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.), and in handling web-based management systems such as ERP.

• Solid experience in project management (design, implementation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of development projects), in coordination with multi-stakeholders and in establishing relationships among partners.
• Experience in joint UN programme/project management, implementation and/or oversight and reporting is highly desirable.
• Solid experience in conflict prevention/peacebuilding is an asset.

Institutional Arrangement:

The Project Officer will work under the direct supervision of the Team Leader of UNDP Governance/Social Cohesion Cluster and in close collaboration with Senior Adviser on Social Cohesion.

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