Officer - Private Sector Partnerships [Open to internal and external applic at UNDP

, , India -

Full Time

Start Date

Immediate

Expiry Date

22 Jul, 26

Salary

0.0

Posted On

23 Apr, 26

Experience

2 year(s) or above

Remote Job

Yes

Telecommute

Yes

Sponsor Visa

Skills

Private sector engagement, Market linkages, Inclusive business development, Value chain partnerships, Stakeholder management, Strategic advisory, Relationship management, Market research, Project coordination, Gender-inclusive business models, Partnership negotiation, Capacity building, Knowledge management, Technical reporting, Agri-business, FMCG

Industry

International Affairs

Description

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 UNDP has been working in India since 1951 in almost all areas of human development. Together with the Government of India and development partners, we have worked towards eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, strengthening local governance, enhancing community resilience, protecting the environment, supporting policy initiatives and institutional reforms, and accelerating sustainable development for all. With projects and programmes in every state and union territory in India, UNDP works with national and subnational government, and diverse development actors to deliver people-centric results, particularly for the most vulnerable and marginalized communities. As the integrator for collective action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the UN system, we are committed to supporting the Government of India’s national development vision and priorities and accelerating the achievement of the SDGs for the people and the planet. UNDP India’s new Country Programme (2023-2027) builds on our prior work and aims to provide an integrated approach to development solutions in three strategic portfolios: * Strong, accountable and evidence-led institutions for accelerated achievement of the SDGs. * Enhanced economic opportunities and social protection to reduce inequality, with a focus on the marginalized. * Climate-smart solutions, sustainable ecosystems and resilient development for reduced vulnerability. South-South cooperation, gender equality and social inclusion are promoted across the pillars. The programme is supported by a framework of renewed partnerships and blended finance solutions, strategic innovation and accelerator labs, and data and digital architecture. You are invited to join a team of future-smart development professionals to support India in achieving the national and globally agreed goals. As part of the UNDP team, your focus will be to work with diverse stakeholders to find country-specific solutions that lead to sustainable development and reach those furthest behind first. Project Description UNDP’s Country Programme Document (2023-2027) intended outcome 2 states that “By 2027, people will benefit from and contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth through higher productivity, competitiveness and diversification in economic activities that create decent work, livelihoods, and income particularly for youth and women”. The Sustainable and Inclusive Growth portfolio is aligned to outcome 2 of the UNDP country plan. The focus of the portfolio is enhanced economic opportunities and social protection to reduce inequality, with a focus on the marginalized communities across the country. Under the portfolio, there are several projects being implemented across different thematic areas such as Skills, Jobs and Sustainable Livelihoods, Women Entrepreneurship and Youth Innovation, Accessible and Inclusive Social and Risks protection Mechanism, Care Economy with focus on: * Socio-economic empowerment and resilience building of marginalized and vulnerable populations through bridging the information gap, building managerial, financial, and digital capacities and improving access to opportunities. * Support unlocking the full impact of public supports schemes– Agri Insurance & Credit, Social protection, Forest Rights and Entitlements, Skill India, NULM with improved Institutional Capacity, Service Delivery and Enhanced Coverage * Confront the significant barriers and stigma faced by women and girls, enhance agency and promote inclusive workplace. * Promote responsible business behavior as well as greater industry participation specifically SMEs in the skilling ecosystem. Over the past decade, UNDP India’s value-chain programming has prioritized women’s agency alongside income generation, recognizing that increased commercialization can alter intra-household and enterprise-level control over assets and decision-making. Accordingly, interventions have sought to address not only market access and productivity, but also women’s roles, voice, and bargaining power across the value chain, with particular attention to ownership, leadership, and decision-making at household, collective, and enterprise levels. Programmes such as DISHA built gender-transformative roles like Women Sourcing Managers (WSMs) and Women Business Managers (WBMs) that place rural women at the heart of procurement, quality, pricing, logistics and enterprise management across FPOs and producer groups. Building on its past work, UNDP is implementing a new project i.e. “Market Led Inclusive Value Chain Development” to significantly strengthen women's economic empowerment, improving outcomes such as incomes, asset ownership, productivity, and savings. Overall goal of the planned project is “resilient, equitable and inclusive value chain, which ensures sustainable livelihood and increased income for rural households, particularly women SHG/ collective members”. The approach is to facilitate integration of gender-responsive strategies throughout all stages of the value chain, not just isolated initiatives. The project is anchored with the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) under the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), with a Technical Support Unit (TSU) being established within MoRD to support strategic coordination, technical assistance, and implementation oversight. NRLM has already laid strong foundations by linking primary producers to markets and building producer organisations at scale. Buildingon these models, UNDP, in partnership with relevant stakeholders, will work across select value chains and states to further enhance women’s agency – particularly in post-harvest operations, processing, branding, and market engagement. Duties and Responsibilities Coordination and Relationship Management * Serve as the primary technical focal point within the TSU for private sector engagement and partnerships. * Identify, map, and engage private sector actors across priority value chains, including buyers, processors, aggregators, retailers, Agri-tech firms, and service providers. * Facilitate coordination between private sector partners, NRLM/SRLMs, women’s collectives, FPOs, and other ecosystem actors. * Support establishment and management of partnership platforms, working groups, and sector-specific collaboration forums. Market Research and Strategy Support * Undertake market scans and value chain-specific private sector mapping to identify demand trends, sourcing requirements, and partnership opportunities. * Support development of value chain–specific private sector participation strategies and action plans for NRLM/SRLM. * Provide inputs to gender-inclusive business models, sourcing frameworks, and aggregation strategies for both private sector and NRLM/SRLM. * Support integration of climate-resilient practices and DRE-based solutions within private sector-linked interventions. * Contribute to design and operationalization of innovation challenges linking startups and technology providers with women’s collectives. Partnership Development and Facilitation * Support structuring, negotiation, and facilitation of partnerships between private sector actors and women’s collectives/FPOs. * Provide technical inputs to development of partnership frameworks, MoUs, and collaboration guidelines with private sector in coordination with MoRD and UNDP. * Support convergence with financial institutions, impact investors, and blended finance mechanisms where relevant. * Ensure partnerships are aligned with programme objectives, gender principles, and NRLM operational systems. Strategic Advisory Support * Provide strategic advisory support to MoRD, NRLM, and SRLMs on strengthening private sector engagement within value chain development approaches. * Support capacity building of government counterparts and ecosystem actors on inclusive sourcing, gender-responsive procurement, and partnership management. * Contribute technical inputs to policy discussions, guidelines, and toolkits related to private sector collaboration. * Advise on risk mitigation, incentive alignment, and sustainability of private sector partnerships. Reporting, Communication, Outreach, and Knowledge Management * Prepare periodic technical progress reports on private sector engagement and partnership development for review by Head – TSU, MoRD, and UNDP. * Support documentation of partnership models, case studies, and best practices emerging from programme implementation. * Contribute to development of guidance notes, toolkits, and knowledge products on private sector engagement with women’s collectives. * Plan, organize, and facilitate stakeholder consultations, technical workshops, and market linkage events at national and state levels. * Support organization of private sector–collective dialogues, buyer–seller meets, and sector-specific engagement forums. * Coordinate with the Communication Specialist to ensure visibility and learning from private sector partnerships. * Support inputs to digital dashboards and MEL systems to track partnership performance and outcomes. Contribute to Programme Learning and Scaling, and facilitate knowledge management * Support monitoring of private sector partnership outcomes and contribute to adaptive learning processes. * Identify scalable partnership models and contribute to recommendations for replication across states and value chains. * Support cross-state and cross-value chain knowledge exchange on inclusive market engagement. * Ensure provision of top-quality advisory services and facilitation of knowledge building and management. The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization. Competencies * 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 Direction & Strategy * Negotiation and Influence: Reach a common understanding/agreement, persuade others, resolve points of difference through a dialogue, negotiate mutually acceptable solutions and create ‘win-win’ situations. 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 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 Direction & Strategy * Business Acumen: Ability to understand and deal with a business situation in a manner that is likely to lead to a good outcome. Ability to make good judgments and quick decisions within such frameworks * Knowledge and understanding of the operational frameworks in the organization. Partnership management * Private sector engagement: Ability to identify, conduct outreach, and manage relationships with the private sector Partnership management * Strategic engagement: Ability to capture and sustain attention, interest and agreement of high-level, influential policy and decision makers and secure their buy-in of high-level vision and objectives. Digital * Co-creation: Ability to design and facilitate a process that enables a diverse group of stakeholders to solve a common problem, develop practice, or create knowledge together. * Ability to embrace diversity, work with a diverse group of stakeholders, understand their interests, perspectives and views and tap into to them as a source for creativity. * Ability to facilitate processes and create conditions that are open for diverse inputs, stimulate collaboration and sharing. Required Skills and Experience Education: * Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Business Administration, Rural Management, Economics, Agribusiness, Development Studies, Public Policy, or a related field is required, or * A first-level university degree (bachelor’s degree) in the areas mentioned above in combination with an additional 2 years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration in lieu of the advanced university degree. Experience: * Minimum of 2 years (with master’s degree) or 4 years (with bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience in private sector engagement, market linkages, inclusive business development, or value chain partnerships. Required Skills: * Demonstrated experience of working with agri & food business, FMCG & Retail, Warehousing & commodity procurement companies at national or global scale. * Experience in engaging and negotiating with private sector actors. * Experience coordinating, facilitating, and managing stakeholders. Desired Skills: * Experience of working with government-led programmes and multilateral development organizations. * Experience with inclusive sourcing, blended finance, or impact investment models. * Experience supporting innovation challenges or Agri-tech partnerships. * Demonstrated experience working with producer organizations, cooperatives, FPOs, or SHG-based institutions. Required Language * Fluency in English and Hindi is required. 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. Use of AI by candidates Applicants are invited to read UNDP’s guidance for candidates on using AI responsibly in UNDP recruitment and selection [https://www.undp.org/careers/using-ai-responsibly-undp-recruitment-and-selection] 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.

Responsibilities

The officer will serve as the primary technical focal point for private sector engagement and partnerships within the Technical Support Unit. They will facilitate coordination between private sector actors, government bodies, and women's collectives to strengthen inclusive value chain development.