Senior Programme Officer

Application period 03-Jun-2024 to 19-Jun-2024

Functional Responsibilities:

Purpose and Scope of ignment

To achieve its goals, the UN Futures Lab is recruiting a Programme Management Senior Officer (Foresight Officer). The role contributes to catalyzing transformation in the UN. It will do so by strengthening anticipatory capacities, supporting the understanding of emerging issues as well as their impacts on the UN’s mandates and priorities, collaborating closely with a diversity of internal and external partners. The inbent will identify and apply foresight odologies, tools, and processes to tackle challenges across the UN Family, connecting human rights, peace and security and development.

The inbent will be supporting the developing the new foresight workstream including, but not limited to, the provision of substantive and technical expertise by identifying and implementing concepts, services, and processes. The inbent will actively contribute to building a standing strategic foresight capacity and developing an experiment pipeline. S(he) will also ensure continuous alignment with the strategic priorities of the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General (EOSG), including on development of the foresight elements of the UN Global Risk Report. The position will also play a key role in supporting implementation of a pilot project to integrate foresight tools into planning processes at the country level through the UN Resident Coordinator Offices.

The role will collaborate with people within and outside of the UN Family. It will elicit research questions from a diversity of stakeholders and will plan and execute sensing and scanning activities. Using diverse data sets and working with a wide range of people and organizations, the role will identify trends and patterns within which it will be able to develop insights and products supporting decision-making.

The inbent will need to drive cross-disciplinary approaches with, inter alia, data and behavioural scientists, and service design and policy experts. It will bridge forecasting and foresight, and quantitative and qualitative ods in a complementary manner, and provide guidelines and policy inputs that promote and incorporate ethical and safe practices.

The position is home based and may require international travel and field missions, as conditions allow.

The inbent will work under the supervision of the Programme Management Advisor (Deputy Head) of the Global Hub and will be responsible for the following duties:

• Team Coordination and Strategic Alignment

• Strategic Development and Research
• Knowledge Creation, Capacity Building and Reporting
• Communication and Partnerships
• Team Coordination and Strategic Alignment
• Coordinate and support the internal team and external contributors, including consultants, ensuring effective collaboration and adherence to project timelines and objectives.
• Facilitate the strategic development and alignment of the foresight workstream with the overall vision and objectives of the UN Futures Lab Network & EOSG.
• Strategic Development and Research
• ist in the development and management of a strategic foresight experiments portfolio, collaborating with internal and external partners to identify emerging needs and projects.
• Provide technical expertise in data scanning, ysis, and sensemaking, contributing to the visualization of insights.
• Support the integration of foresight into programmatic objectives and processes to facilitate organizational transformation.
• ist in the adaptation of tools and processes to specific contexts, ensuring inclusive, safe, and ethical approaches.