Crisis Risk Specialist [Open to all applicants]

Tiered Approach

In line with the commitment to safeguard capacity and support personnel already in the Organization, a majority of UNDP UNCDF/UNV vacancies are advertised using a tiered application process whereby:

• Tier 0: UNDP/UNCDF/UNV IP staff holding permanent (PA) and fixed-term (FTA) appointments, whose posts will be abolished, or contracts will be terminated or not renewed during 2026.
• Tier 1: Other UNDP/UNCDF/UNV staff holding permanent (PA) and fixed-term (FTA) appointments
• Tier 2: UNDP/UNCDF/UNV staff holding temporary appointments (TA), personnel on regular PSA contracts, and Expert and Specialist UN Volunteers
• Tier 3 or no tier indicated: All other contract types from UNDP/UNCDF/UNV and other agencies, and other external candidates

Please make note of the Tier(s) indicated in the vacancy title, if any, and ensure that you satisfy the eligibility to apply.

Background

The Crisis Bureau (CB) is galvanizing UNDP’s efforts to support countries to build resilience by strengthening capacities to anticipate, prevent, respond to, and recover from the impacts of crises and shocks on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These efforts are geared towards reducing countries’ reliance on external humanitarian relief and peace interventions, while risk-informing development planning and decision-making to minimize creation of new risks. UNDP seeks to ensure that development perspectives are introduced as early as possible in prevention, response and recovery cycles, including approaching prevention and recovery as opportunities to reset development practices onto more resilient, green and equitable pathways.

UNDP seeks to consolidate and upgrade UNDP’s crisis mechanisms to break the cycle of protracted crisis and fragility; to get ahead of the crisis curve through anticipating and preventing crises; and to sustain development throughout crisis by investing in hope – from jobs to justice. These efforts seek to mitigate potential shocks and disruptions, protect hard-won development gains, and to provide sustained accompaniment throughout crises, and to pursue pathways out of crisis and build longer-term resilience. The CB supports Regional Bureaux (RBx) and Country Offices (COs) to ensure risk-informed and preventive approaches are integrated into development plans, priorities and programmes.

The overall objective of the Crisis Risk Unit (CRU) is to produce futures-informed decision intelligence to transform warnings about current and emerging risks that could reverse development gains into anticipatory development actions – in particular in the context of multidimensional risks and complex crisis requiring integrated, multidisciplinary responses. Working across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus, the CRU will enable the organization to respond with agility, to adapt, and shift from being reactive to being risk informed and preventive. The CRU resource will first support UNDP (at HQ, Hub and CO levels), with an intent to grow to be offered to the wider UN system, governments and other stakeholders.

The CRU is specifically responsible for:

• Predictive analytics: Building on data analytics and visualization capabilities, developing the forward-looking dimension of the Crisis Risk Dashboard architecture through machine learning applications to an expanded range of datasets, and other sensemaking approaches, to enable predictive analytics and foresight.
• Sensemaking: Bringing together expertise and information flows horizontally (i.e. with insights from Regional Bureaux and across thematic areas, including conflict analysis, disaster risk reduction, political economy analysis, horizon scanning and foresight) and vertically (i.e. systematizing information flows from country offices) will produce comprehensive and actionable insights. This will follow clear and rigorous protocols agreed at corporate level and engage identified focal points across RBx.
• Advise on anticipatory investments: Tailoring decision intelligence products to existing business processes and enriching them with rigorous risk assessments and recommendations for action and policy/programme investments to ensure anticipatory impact.

Position Purpose

The Crisis Risk Specialist provides strategic leadership and substantive expertise to advance UNDP’s crisis risk analytics and anticipatory action agenda, with a particular focus on coordination of the INFORM initiative and leadership of INFORM Warning as a core UNDP capability.

The position is responsible for ensuring that INFORM and INFORM Warning deliver high-quality, policy-relevant anticipatory insights, are sustainably resourced, and are effectively integrated within UNDP’s Crisis Risk Unit analytics offer. This includes translating complex risk analytics into actionable decision intelligence and contributing to the coherence, positioning, and visibility of UNDP’s crisis risk analytics at corporate and inter-agency levels.

Working at the intersection of data, analytics, policy, and partnerships, the incumbent engages with UNDP teams, UN system partners, scientific institutions, and donors to strengthen UNDP’s ability to anticipate risks, inform strategic decision-making, and protect development gains in complex and crisis-prone contexts.

UNDP adopts a portfolio approach to accommodate changing business needs and leverage linkages across interventions to achieve its strategic goals. This is a recognition of interconnected nature of development risks & crises that the world is facing and that call for assembling of multidisciplinary teams for an integrated & systemic response. Therefore, UNDP personnel are expected to work across issues, units, functions, teams and projects in multidisciplinary teams in order to enhance and enable horizontal collaboration.

Duties and Responsibilities

Global coordination and leadership of the INFORM initiative

• Provide strategic leadership and day-to-day stewardship of the INFORM initiative as a global, multi-partner platform for crisis risk and severity analysis.
• Coordinate and convene INFORM partners across UN entities, Member States, donors, civil society, scientific institutions, and technical organizations to ensure coherent delivery of agreed objectives and results.
• Lead governance, planning, and results management processes for INFORM, including development and oversight of joint workplans, results frameworks, and reporting arrangements across partners and donors.
• Oversee the delivery and continuous improvement of flagship INFORM analytical products, including the INFORM Risk Index, INFORM Severity Index, INFORM Climate Change Risk Index, ensuring methodological integrity, relevance, and uptake by decision-makers.
• Lead resource mobilisation and sustainability efforts for INFORM, including engagement with donors and partners to secure funding, strengthen financial and institutional arrangements, and ensure the long-term viability and strategic positioning of the initiative.
• Promote and enable longer-term global, regional and national-level uptake and implementation of INFORM methodologies and products through partnerships with UN and related organisations, governments, UN Country Teams, and regional actors, and others.
• Establish, maintain, and actively mobilise a global network of experts and focal points on crisis risk analytics and early warning across UN entities, donor governments, scientific institutions, and technical organizations, to support analytical quality, methodological coherence, coordination, and uptake of INFORM products.

Strategic and operational leadership of INFORM Warning

• Provide strategic leadership of INFORM Warning as a core UNDP capability for anticipatory risk analysis, including defining vision, priorities, and delivery pathways aligned with UNDP’s crisis prevention and risk anticipation agenda.
• Lead the INFORM Warning programme end-to-end, with accountability for project design, work planning, financial and human resource management, implementation, monitoring, and reporting in accordance with UNDP policies and systems.
• Direct and coordinate scientific and technical contributions to INFORM Warning, ensuring effective translation of published research, forecasts, and modelling approaches into robust, operational methodologies embedded in the INFORM Warning system.
• Ensure the quality, relevance, and usability of anticipatory insights and early warning outputs, translating complex analytics into clear signals that inform decision-making for priority users.
• Build and manage strategic partnerships related to INFORM Warning, including with scientific institutions, UN entities, donors, and technical partners, to strengthen analytical quality, operational relevance, and long-term sustainability.
• Represent UNDP and the Crisis Risk Unit in inter-agency and technical fora on early warning, anticipatory action, and horizon scanning, including Geneva-based processes and IASC mechanisms, contributing INFORM Warning insights to system-wide analysis and dialogue.

Contribution to integration, strategic positioning of UNDP crisis risk analytics and facilitate knowledge sharing

• Contribute to the development and refinement of a coherent Crisis Risk Unit analytics offer, and the production of risk analytics, supporting alignment and integration across INFORM Warning, the Risk Anticipation Data Hub, and Crisis Risk Dashboards.
• Support the integration of INFORM products and methodologies into UNDP corporate, bureau, and regional analytical and decision-making processes, ensuring alignment with UNDP business cycles, planning frameworks, and priority use cases.
• Translate crisis risk analytics and anticipatory insights into clear, practical inputs that can be embedded within UNDP analytical products and decision workflows, with a focus on usability, consistency, and strategic relevance.
• Contribute to strategic efforts to ensure that the Crisis Risk Unit analytics offer is designed and positioned for effective application at country level
• Provide strategic inputs, as required, to the positioning and elevation of UNDP’s crisis risk analytics in global and inter-agency processes, including through alignment with partner initiatives and system-wide analytical frameworks.
• Contribute to coordination, knowledge sharing, and strategic dialogue to strengthen coherence, visibility, and understanding of UNDP’s anticipatory and preventive risk analytics across the organization and with partners.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities: The incumbent is expected to supervise 1xIPSA.

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.

People Management

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

• Cross Functional and Technical Competencies:

Business Direction and Strategy - 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.

Business Development - Knowledge Generation

• Ability to research information and to turn it into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need.
• Ability to apply existing concepts to new situations, and to develop new concepts to generate workable solutions and new approaches.
• Knowledge of relevant concepts, conceptual models, and theories that can be useful in addressing new situations.

Business Management - Portfolio Management:

• Ability to select, prioritise and control the organization's programmes and projects in line with its strategic objectives and capacity.
• Ability to balance the implementation of change initiatives with regular activities for optimal return on investment.
• Knowledge and understanding of key principles of project, programme, and portfolio management.

2030 Agenda: Engagement & Effectiveness - Crisis and Fragility Policy and Engagement: Risk, Early Warning and Anticipation.

2030 Agenda: Engagement & Effectiveness - Crisis and Fragility Policy and Engagement: Crisis Project Management/Programming.

2030 Agenda: Engagement & Effectiveness - Crisis and Fragility Policy and Engagement: Innovation for crisis response and recovery.

Digital - Innovation ecosystem curation:

• Ability to identify key players in an ecosystem, engage with them and mobilise them to build a community and over time a movement around a common mission that can bring about changes at the system level.
• Ability to give sense of purpose and build trust, develop programmes of activities and platforms to build and strengthen relationships.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Climate Science, Risk Management, Data Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or a related analytical or scientific field is required; or
• A first-level university degree (Bachelor’s degree) in the above areas, in combination with an additional two (2) years of qualifying experience, will be given due consideration in lieu of a Master’s degree.
• A doctoral degree (PhD or equivalent) in a relevant scientific or analytical discipline is desired, particularly where it demonstrates advanced training in quantitative analysis, modelling, data interpretation, and the rigorous application of scientific methods.

Experience:

• Minimum of seven (7) years (with Master’s degree) or nine (9) years (with Bachelor’s degree) of progressively responsible experience in crisis risk analysis, early warning, anticipatory action, or crisis risk management, combining advanced analytical or scientific work, research and policy analysis, and senior coordination of complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives, in an international context is required.
• Demonstrated senior experience coordinating and leading a complex, multi-partner and inter-agency initiative or programme related to crisis risk analysis, early warning, or anticipatory action, including responsibility for governance arrangements, strategic direction, workplanning, results frameworks, resource mobilisation, and programme management, including financial and human resource oversight is desired.
• Demonstrated advanced analytical or scientific experience, including the ability to engage credibly with post-doctoral researchers, scientists, and technical experts on quantitative analysis, risk modelling and assessment methodologies, and analytical frameworks, and to coordinate and synthesize their contributions within applied analytical systems is desired.
• Proven experience developing or overseeing the development of composite risk indices or comparable analytical frameworks for crisis risk or vulnerability analysis, including indicator selection, methodological design, validation, and interpretation is desired.
• Demonstrated experience translating scientific and analytical research on crisis risks into operational tools, early warning products, or decision-support systems, and ensuring their practical application within organizational and multilateral decision-making processes, including planning cycles, prioritisation frameworks, and anticipatory investment or response decisions is desired.
• Experience in global policy debates and inter-agency processes related to crisis risk, disaster risk reduction, climate change, and anticipatory action, combined with demonstrated experience establishing, maintaining, and mobilising networks of experts and focal points across UN entities, donor governments, scientific institutions, and technical organizations is desired.
• Experience bridging scientific, analytical, and policy communities and communicating complex analytical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences is desired.

Language:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Fluency in another UN language is desirable.

Equal opportunity

As an equal opportunity employer, UNDP values diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate and, as such, we encourage qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply for roles in the organization. Our employment decisions are based on merit and suitability for the role, without discrimination.

UNDP is also committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, are valued, can thrive, and benefit from career opportunities that are open to all.

Sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of authority

UNDP does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination and abuse of authority. All selected candidates, therefore, undergo relevant checks and are expected to adhere to the respective standards and principles.

Probation

For all new UNDP fixed term appointments (FTA), including for staff members being transferred or seconded to UNDP under the Inter-Organization Agreement concerning Transfer, Secondment or Loan of Staff, on an appointment of more than one year, continuation of the appointment beyond the initial 12 months is contingent upon the successful completion of a probationary period.

Right to select multiple candidates

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.

Use of AI by candidates

Applicants are invited to read UNDP’s guidance for candidates on using AI responsibly in UNDP recruitment and selection

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