Advocacy and Partnerships Specialist, Africa (Open to Tier 1 & 2 Applicants)

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

As the lead United Nations agency on international development, UNDP works in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. We help countries develop policies, leadership skills, partnerships and institutional capabilities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

As outlined in the UNDP Strategic Plan 2026-2029, UNDP’s work is guided by four strategic objectives that together define our contribution to human development: expanding prosperity for all, strengthening effective governance, safeguarding a healthy planet and building crisis resilience. These objectives are enabled by three accelerators that drive transformative impact across our portfolio: digital and AI innovation, gender equality and sustainable finance. Through this integrated approach, UNDP supports countries to deliver tangible improvements in people’s lives and to advance sustainable development at scale.

UNDP, through its Sustainable Finance Hub (https://sdgfinance.undp.org/), supports partners in promoting financing for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As an accelerator of the UNDP Strategic Plan, sustainable finance strengthens countries’ ability to mobilize, align and deploy finance at scale for national priorities. UNDP supports international and country level policy reform as a catalyst for system-wide change, stronger policy environments, better-functioning markets and more coherent financing strategies for sustainable development.

• Advocating for the transition from cash to responsible digital payments in a way that advances financial inclusion and promotes responsible digital finance.
• Catalyzing the development of inclusive digital payments ecosystems in member countries to reduce costs, increase transparency, advance financial inclusion-- particularly for women-- and drive inclusive growth; and
• Conducting action research and sharing the knowledge and experiences of our members to inform strategies for making the transition.

Billions of dollars in cash payments and transfers are made daily in emerging and developing economies, including payment of salaries, social welfare and relief, payments to suppliers, remittances, etc. The problems with these cash payments include a lack of transparency, accountability and security, as well as inefficiency. Individuals who receive cash payments are often part of the 1.7 billion excluded from the formal financial sector. This means they are excluded from access to a range of appropriate and affordable financial services to help them save safely take advantage of economic opportunities and reduce their vulnerability to risk.

Shifting these payments from cash to digital has the potential to improve the lives of low-income people,

particularly women, while giving governments, the development community and the private sector a more transparent, time and cost efficient, and often-safer means of disbursing payments.

The Better Than Cash Alliance Team’s Core Values are the following:

• Achieving together
• Striving for excellence

Service oriented

• Results oriented

Under its 2026-2030 strategy, the Alliance is looking to accelerate usage of digital payments across key economic sectors by supporting its members through proofs of concept and pilots, policy & regulation while strengthening partners capacity to integrate and sustain digital payments into their strategies and initiatives. The Alliance is recruiting an Advocacy & Partnership Specialist-Africa to build and strengthen strategic partnerships and evidence-based advocacy to accelerate responsible digital payments as a catalyst for inclusive economic growth, regional trade and sustainable development.

• Under the supervision of the Head of Africa, deliver Alliance Africa strategy by integrating digitization of payments and other digital public infrastructure into regional and national agenda to accelerate attainment of Agenda 2063, especially a digitalized Continental Free Trade Area;
• Support the design and implementation of responsible digital payment ecosystems within agricultural and regional trade value chains, and other cash-heavy sectors, including wages, supplier payments, merchant payments, and smallholder farmer payments;
• Plan for and ensure the execution of advocacy initiatives with regional partners, including but not limited to the African Union Commission and the AfCFTA Secretariat, Regional economic blocs, the private sector, and civil society organizations;
• Support initiatives aimed at accelerating digital payment usage for underserved rural populations through responsible digital payment ecosystems;
• Support regional trade corridor initiatives to enable cross-border digital payments and practical implementation of the AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol, particularly for MSMEs, women, and youth traders;
• Collaborate with Alliance Africa Team members to embed the implementation of the AfCFTA Protocol on Digital Trade and digital payments obligations, including ratification of the protocol;
• Support evidence generation, impact documentation, and data-driven monitoring of digital payment initiatives, including collection and analysis of gender-disaggregated and usage data;
• Ensure Africa country colleagues align member advisory services to the continental agenda;
• Track and monitor the implementation of the Alliance’s Africa Advocacy Strategy;
• Monitor achievements and ensure they are integrated into Alliance's regular reports to its resource partners and to the UN;

Collaborate with Africa regional colleagues on quantitative and qualitative monitoring, evaluation, and reporting requirements when needed.

Coordinate with Alliance team members to generate and share knowledge from good practices in enabling digital payments relevant to African members and distill lessons for the Global Alliance;

Coordinate with partners to facilitate learning on other digital public infrastructure as needed;

• Promote adoption of the UN Principles for Responsible Digital Payments, including transparency, recourse, user-centric design, pricing fairness, product literacy, and data responsibility across Africa initiatives;
• Liaise regularly with the Alliance communications team to ensure members' achievements are highlighted, and Alliance activities in Africa are regularly communicated.

Coordinate with Africa Alliance team members to position the digitization of payments as essential for governments, companies, and international organizations looking to achieve cost savings, transparency, increase financial inclusion, and accelerate the achievement of the SDGs;

• Identify and engage potential partners in the public and private sectors who can be partners for implementing the Alliance Africa strategy;

Identify and engage potential investors/funders in advancing the availability of digital public infrastructure to all Africans;

• Support ecosystem development approaches that promote active usage of digital payments, including merchant acceptance, agent network strengthening, and value-added financial services.

Collaborate with the Managing Director and the Head of Africa to manage and support continental partners;

• Identify and nurture new opportunities to foster strategic partnerships with other UN partnerships and external partner institutions, including academia, CSOs, and others;
• Facilitate coordination between governments, financial service providers, private sector actors, development partners, and regional bodies to accelerate activation of scalable digital payment ecosystems;

Support the Alliance Africa and global teams to manage members/partners when needed.

• Collaborate with the Managing Director, Head of Africa, and the Communication Team to support champions in their implementation of responsible digital payments;

Identify public and private sectors and civil society champions from across Africa who can drive supportive policies and investments to enable responsible digital payments and other requisite digital public infrastructure at national and regional levels;

Identify advocacy opportunities for the Champions at the national, regional, continental, and global levels and support them in utilizing them to benefit their priorities;

Collaborate with Africa colleagues to identify and support national champions;

Liaise regularly with the communications team to improve media and communication opportunities;

The candidate will work under the supervision and direction of the Head of Africa of the Alliance Secretariat. The candidate would be expected to travel within Africa and other Alliance member countries when needed.

Business Direction & Strategy: Systems 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 Facilitation

Communications: Advocacy strategy and implementation

• Ability to create and implement advocacy strategies which lead to impactful change

Partnership management: Relationship management

Partnership management: Multi-stakeholder engagement and funding

2030 Agenda: Prosperity: Inclusive Growth

• Financial inclusion

2030 Agenda: Peace: Governance

• Digital Public Infrastructure
• An advanced university degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in Information Communications and Technology (ICT) Policy and Regulation, Economics, Finance, Business Administration, Public Policy, International Relations, or Law is required. Or
• A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the above area, with two additional years of relevant work experience, will be given due consideration instead of an advanced university degree.
• Minimum of five (5) years (with a master’s degree) or seven (7) (with a bachelor’s degree) of relevant professional experience in digital payments, digital financial services, and/or digital financial inclusion are required.

Proven track record working with governments across Africa in supporting the execution of national plans/agendas for digital payments and managing government relations for the digital payment agenda;

• Professional experience working with the private sector across Africa, particularly in supporting corporates to develop and execute digitization of payment strategies;

Experience and working knowledge of current developments in payment technologies, including innovative payment methods, as well as of the policy, legal, and regulatory issues related to inclusive payment technologies.

• Experience supporting the digitization of wages, agricultural payments, social transfers, or supplier payments within large ecosystems is desirable;
• Experience working across Anglophone and Francophone African markets and engaging stakeholders in multilingual environments is highly desirable;
• Experience managing national/regional projects or services, corresponding budgets, and monitoring and evaluation plans is desirable;
• Working knowledge of regional organizations is desirable;
• Experience in analysis of gender-disaggregated data and using the analysis for program planning and implementation is desirable;
• Demonstrated advocacy and diplomatic skills, with a proven track record of advancing policy dialogue and building consensus nationally or internationally is desired.

Fluency in spoken and written English and French is required.

Working knowledge of another language used in Africa, e.g., Swahili, Portuguese, will be an advantage.

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.

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.

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.

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