Innovation and Enterprise Support Officer

As the United Nations lead agency on international development, UNDP works in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. We help countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities, and to build resilience to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our work is concentrated in three focus areas; sustainable development, democratic governance and peace building, and climate and disaster resilience. UNDP’s mandate is to end poverty, build democratic governance, rule of law, and inclusive institutions. We advocate for change, and connect countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life.

The assignment is situated within UNDP South Africa’s support to the national implementation of the Timbuktoo initiative, a pan-African movement to foster youth-led innovation and entrepreneurship. The UN Volunteer will support two flagship interventions: the Creatives Hub in Cape Town, which focuses on accelerating startups in the cultural and creative industries (CCIs), and the UniPod at the University of Johannesburg, a makerspace bridging academic innovation and early-stage enterprise development. The UN Volunteer will be embedded within the Accelerator Lab Unit and will contribute to the coordination, documentation, and communication of these projects. The primary focus will be on supporting national-level reporting, stakeholder knowledge capture, and communications that demonstrate the outcomes, lessons learned, and impact of the Timbuktoo interventions. This role will provide critical support to strengthen programme accountability, facilitate adaptive management, and enhance UNDP South Africa’s thought leadership in inclusive innovation ecosystems.

Under the direct supervision of Heads of Accelerator Lab Unit, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:
Under the direct supervision of the Accelerator Lab Unit, the UN Volunteer will:
• Develop, coordinate and manage an integrated reporting framework for both the Timbuktoo Creatives Hub and UniPod, aligning with UNDP's corporate results-based management tools;
• Prepare timely and evidence-based reports, presentations, donor updates, knowledge briefs and other analytical products highlighting progress, achievements and lessons learned;
• Design and maintain a reporting calendar aligned to hub milestones (e.g. boot camps, grant disbursements, innovation challenges, etc.) and track all deliverables accordingly;
• Consolidate and synthesise data and insights from diverse stakeholders (private sector, academia, implementing partners, and youth-led startups);
• Support the development of internal dashboards or visual tools to track progress and promote learning;
• Provide technical inputs to support monitoring frameworks for activities under the Creatives Hub and UniPod, ensuring quality assurance in results reporting;
• Liaise with technical and communications colleagues to ensure alignment of messages and outputs;
• Contribute to the drafting of strategic communication products that position the Timbuktoo initiatives in South Africa as high-value, impact-driven platforms.