Project Associate

Background

The United Nations Development Programme works in about 170 countries and territories, helping Governments achieve their own development solutions to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion.

On October 21, 1974, the United Nations Development Programme and the Government of Barbados entered into an agreement to “support and supplement the national efforts of developing countries at solving the most important problems of their economic development and to promote social progress and better standards of life.”

Subsequently, similar agreements were entered with Governments of the ten countries and territories that the UNDP Multi-Country Office (MCO) for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean serves: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

UNDP has received USD $2.93 Million in funding from the Government of Japan under the Barbados Coastal Fisheries Resilience Project (BCFR) which targets the coastal fisheries sector in Barbados impacted by the devastating effects of Hurricane Beryl in July 2024. The project aims to provide tangible and catalytic early recovery support by focusing on the strategic reinstatement and upgrades of select physical infrastructures and assets including equipment to facilitate business continuity and resilient operations, complemented and enabled by targeted capacity building, and strategic partnerships. The project’s design is guided by the principle that recovery interventions that enable ‘building back better’ by incorporating increased resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness will both alleviate present impacts from Hurricane Beryl as well as reduce the risk of the adverse effects of future natural disasters on the local fishing community in Barbados.

The impacts of Hurricane Beryl reveal significant vulnerabilities, particularly related to a lack of natural sheltered harbour and safe harbour facilities. To comprehensively address the full scope of the challenge outlined above is beyond the scope of this project, or likely any one project. However, this project aims to provide tangible and catalytic early recovery by focusing on strategic reinstatement and resilience upgrades of select physical infrastructure and assets including equipment to facilitate business continuity and resilient operations, complemented and enabled by targeted capacity building, and strategic partnerships. Project design is guided by the principle that early recovery interventions that enable ‘building back better’ by incorporating increased resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness will both alleviate present impacts from Hurricane Beryl as well as reduce the risk of the adverse effects of future natural disasters on the local fishing community in Barbados.

The specific objectives are:
1. Reinstatement and increased resilience of select physical infrastructure and assets.
2. Strategic and catalytic contribution to wider recovery and resilience building for the fisheries sector.
3. Contribution to the resumption and increased resilience of livelihoods for the affected persons
4. Increased capacity in the fishing community for disaster preparedness and resilience.

Duties and Responsibilities
The Project Associate (PA) will be primarily responsible for providing high quality project and administrative, coordination and monitoring support for the implementation of the projects. S/he will work with the Project Analyst to maintain key strategic and monitoring functions with the UNDP (Barbados) and UNEP (Jamaica) offices, government, and communities in line with the objective and outcomes of the projects.

The Project Coordination Unit (PCU) will work to ensure a human-rights based, gender-responsive and interdisciplinary approach to the projects that maximizes sustainable development gains and minimizes negative environmental and social impacts, delivering results in a manner that is cost-effective, efficient, transparent and demonstrates the added value of the work to the country.

Support the project team to ensure effective project planning and implementation.
• Compile and summarize information and data for the formulation of project work plans, draft annual/quarterly budgets, proposals on implementation arrangements, and on other specific project related topics or issues.
• Provide comprehensive support in all aspects of project implementation in accordance with the project documents, annual work plans and other agreements between UNDP and responsible partners. Ensure quality of delivery by consultants, beneficiaries, and contracted companies; and communicate findings to the supervisor.
• Ensure compliance of project business processes with UNDP Project Operational Policies and Procedures (POPP) and UNDP Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). When necessary, provide guidance to project staff on business processes, administrative and other requirements and procedures.
• Support mainstreaming gender equality in the project implementation, including in data collection and compilation. Prepare gender equality background materials for use in discussions, briefings, and correspondence.
• Provide administrative and logistical support to ensure successful project delivery that includes organizing/coordinating project events and selecting appropriate venues, coordinating project procurement procedures, maintaining project records and files, recruiting project team members, and supporting contracting activities.

Support partnerships and resource mobilization.
• Establish and maintain contacts and cooperation with the relevant UN Agencies, government institutions, NGOs, tertiary institutions, partners, and other relevant stakeholders. Provide support in updating the database of the relevant public and development partners, and other stakeholders who are counterparts for the project.
• Ensure regular communication and coordination with partners, project counterparts, stakeholders, and beneficiaries; and develop and maintain effective mechanisms for integrating and responding to their feedback and insight.
• Support creation of high-quality information and visibility of the project activities among the stakeholders; and ensure careful selection of communication tools and tailoring the messages to take into account the overall socio-political and development context in host countries.
• Undertake horizon scanning and explore opportunities for resource mobilization in consultation with direct supervisor.

Provide support to the effective monitoring, evaluation, and reporting on progress of project implementation.
• Support implementation of the project monitoring system in alignment with its Monitoring and Evaluation framework to ensure effective information sharing, provision of feedback, and elaboration of high-quality progress reports.
• Collect, analyze and present information for monitoring and evaluation of project implementation against project targets as well as for audit purposes. Identify gaps in implementation and provide support in bridging those gaps in consultation with supervisor and partners.
• Assist in the organization of field and study visits, missions, workshops, roundtables, and conferences within the project.
• Assist in implementation of effective risk management for the project with a well-documented risk mitigation plan in place. Support monitoring of previously identified and emerging risks.
• Regularly monitor expenditures and commitments against the project budget and relevant plans and provide finance-related information to support project implementation. When necessary, recommend corrective actions and draft various correspondence concerning finance, operations, and budgetary issues.
• Prepare and consolidate required project reports on a timely basis and in line with monitoring and reporting guidelines and donor requirements.

Support knowledge building, knowledge sharing and capacity building relevant to the assigned project.
• Participate in training and organize briefings on internal procedures for the project staff. Provide support to other capacity building activities, including the design and delivery of tools, materials for workshops, or platforms that tap into the collective intelligence of communities and mobilize action.
• Provide support in the dissemination and sharing of relevant data and lessons learned within the CO and regionally. Keep pulse on emerging best practices nationally, regionally, and internationally that relate to the work of the assigned project.
• Make sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice. Support compiling and systematizing project knowledge, products and tools as well as their wide distribution to partners.

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

Competencies

Core: Full list of UNDP Core Competencies can be found here.
Achieve Results: LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline
Think Innovatively: LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements
Learn Continuously: LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback
Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible 
Act with Determination: LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident
Engage and Partner: LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships
Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies 

Business Management - Operations Management
• Ability to effectively plan, organize, and oversee the organization’s business processes in order to convert its assets into the best results in the most efficient manner. Knowledge of relevant concepts and mechanisms
Business Management - Customer Satisfaction/ Client Management
• Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfil and understand the real customers' needs. Provide inputs to the development of customer service strategy Look for ways to add value beyond clients' immediate requests. Ability to anticipate client's upcoming needs and concerns.
Finance - Financial Planning and Budgeting; Financial Reporting and Analysis
• Ability to support budgetary aspects of work planning process, drawing and management of team budgets
• Ability to create and manage processes to achieve UNDP’s long and short-term financial goals, including through planning, budgeting, forecasting, analysing and reporting
• Ability to extract, evaluate financial data, derive relevant findings and present them in a meaningful and coherent manner
Administration and Operations - Documents and records management; Inventory management
• Overall document (hard or electronic) management; registry and retention policy including storing and archiving
• Each office to ensure sufficient inventory items are available for use as well as reporting for items which are beyond the corporate threshold of $5K and above.

Minimum Qualifications of the Successful NPSA

Education:
• High School Certificate of completion is required
• A bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Management, Accounting or related field will be given due consideration but is not a requirement

Experience, Knowledge and Skills
• A minimum of 6 years (with High School completion) or 3 years (with bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience in Administrative, operational or Financial support to office/team.
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software applications (MS Work, Excel, PowerPoint, outlook etc.)
• Excellent communication and organizational skills
• Experience with planning workshops, conferences, or events
• Experience in providing programme support, operational, administrative and/or financial support to projects or business teams.
• Experience in filing, record keeping and/or data/record management.
• Experience in report writing and/or budget management
• Experience in UNDP, international organization or NGO is an asset

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. 

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.

Scam alert

UNDP does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process. For further information, please see www.undp.org/scam-alert.