Title:  Junior Private Sector Specialist (SME)

​Requisition ID: 5261 
Grade: NOA (SB-4) 
Country: Madagascar 
Duty Station: Antananarivo 
Category: National Consultant 
Type of Job Posting: Internal and External
Employment Type: NonStaff-Regular
Contract Duration: 12 months
Application deadline: 08-April-2025, 11:59 PM (Vienna, Austria time)

Vacancy Announcement
TEMPORARY APPOINTMENT OF PROJECT PERSONNEL
Only nationals or permanent residents of the country of the duty station are considered eligible. 
Female candidates are encouraged to apply.
 

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is the specialized agency of the United Nations that promotes industrial development for poverty reduction, inclusive globalization and environmental sustainability. The mission of UNIDO, as described in the Lima Declaration adopted at the fifteenth session of the UNIDO General Conference in 2013 as well as the Abu Dhabi Declaration adopted at the eighteenth session of UNIDO General Conference in 2019, is to promote and accelerate inclusive and sustainable industrial development (ISID) in Member States. The relevance of ISID as an integrated approach to all three pillars of sustainable development is recognized by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will frame United Nations and country efforts towards sustainable development. UNIDO’s mandate is fully recognized in SDG-9, which calls to “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”. The relevance of ISID, however, applies in greater or lesser extent to all SDGs. Accordingly, the Organization’s programmatic focus is structured in four strategic priorities: Creating shared prosperity; Advancing economic competitiveness; Safeguarding the environment; and Strengthening knowledge and institutions.

Each of these programmatic fields of activity contains a number of individual programmes, which are implemented in a holistic manner to achieve effective outcomes and impacts through UNIDO’s four enabling functions: (i) technical cooperation; (ii) analytical and research functions and policy advisory services; (iii) normative functions and standards and quality-related activities; and (iv) convening and partnerships for knowledge transfer, networking and industrial cooperation. Such core functions are carried out in Divisions/Offices in its Headquarters, Regional Offices and Hubs and Country Offices.

The Directorate of Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development (TCS) under the overall direction of the Director General, and in close collaboration with all relevant organizational entities within UNIDO, headed by a Managing Director, oversees the Organization's development of capacities for industrial development as well as industrial policy advice, statistics and research activities and the Organization's normative contribution to Member States and global development community in achieving the SDGs. The Directorate also ensures the application of strategies and interventions for sustainable industrial development related to Environment, Energy, SMEs, Competitiveness and Job creation, as well as Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence. Through coordination in-house and with Member States and industry stakeholders, it ensures that the services provided in these areas contribute toward effective and appropriate technical, business and policy solutions and are focused on results and on realizing any potential for scaling up and positioning UNIDO as a leading platform for industrial development in developing countries and global fora. The Directorate houses the technical Divisions of Capacity Development, Industrial Policy Advice and Statistics (TCS/CPS); Circular Economy and Green Industry (TCS/CEG); Energy and Climate Action (TCS/ECA), Climate Innovation and Montreal Protocol (TCS/CMP); SMEs, Competitiveness and Job Creation (TCS/SME); Digital Transformation and AI Strategies (TCS/DAS); and the Montreal Protocol Division. The Directorate also ensures close coordination and collaboration among the Divisions as well as with relevant entities in the Directorate of Global Partnerships and External Relations (GLO) and the Directorate of SDG Innovation and Economic Transformation (IET).

The Division of Climate Innovation and Montreal Protocol (TCS/CMP) under the supervision of the Managing Director of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development (TCS), and in close coordination with other organizational entities within UNIDO, assists Member States in the emergence, deployment, and large-scale up-take of solutions for lowcarbon and climate resilient industrialization. The division promotes system innovation approach to achieve transformational change in climate change by innovating across key levers of change including technology, finance, policy, and regulation. The Division is responsible for the dual mandate of accelerating innovation and building climate innovation ecosystems to promote low-carbon and climate-resilient industrialization; and planning, developing and implementing interventions to facilitate compliance with the Montreal Protocol and, in particular, its Kigali Amendment and to support countries in achieving their NDCs. In addition, the Division is responsible, in close collaboration with other relevant entities of the Organization, for facilitating the transfer of innovative low-carbon and climate adaptation solutions and building markets to ensure their widespread use by industry and local communities, thereby contributing to climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience in recipient countries. It collaborates closely on relevant and converging issues with TCS/CEG, TCS/ECA and IET/CTP.

The position is located under Climate Technology Innovation Unit (TCS/CMP/CTI), which is responsible for supporting Member States in fostering innovation across technologies, finance, policy and regulation to promote the emergence, deployment and large-scale up-take of low-carbon and climate adaptation solutions and business practices. In addition, the Unit is responsible, in close collaboration with other relevant entities in the Organization, for facilitating the transfer of and establishing markets for low-carbon and climate adaptation solutions, ensuring wide use by industry and local communities, thereby contributing to climate mitigation, adaptation and building resilience in recipient countries. The Unit positions UNIDO strategically in the global discourse on climate technology innovation support and acts as the focal point in UNIDO for partnership with the technology mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

PROJECT CONTEXT

Project title: Transforming the financial system to support the development of sustainable energy solutions through technical assistance and investment in Madagascar

a) Context of Joint SDG Fund Project in Madagascar

The UN Joint SDG Fund (the Fund) supports countries as they accelerate their progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Fund operates through a series of calls for the United Nations (UN) system that leads to the implementation of transformative Joint Programmes (JPs), under the leadership of Resident Coordinators (RCs). In doing so, the Fund is committed to forge paths and partnerships that unlock public and private capital for the SDGs at scale. All allocations made by the Fund will be in the form of grants to UN agencies.

In January 2020, the SDG Fund Call had been launched around two components:

• Component 1: “Reinforce the SDG financing architecture”: The Fund will support UN Country Teams in the development of financing strategies and enabling frameworks for SDG investment.
• Component 2: “Catalyse strategic investments”: The Fund will support UN Country Teams in investing in key initiatives that leverage public and private financing in order to advance the SDGs. These initiatives will provide a demonstration of concept and will be scalable both in country and elsewhere.

Through Component 2, the SDG Fund will invest programmatic interventions or initiatives that promote the financing as well as related institutional and market arrangements that contribute to the achievement of strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, through supporting directly and indirectly the objectives of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 goals. Interventions that can deliver a demonstration of concept at sufficient scale and be replicated will be selected. The scope has an intentionally open design based on lessons learned from development partners and the private sector. Therefore, the Fund will support the financing of non-prescriptive solutions, products, and approaches, such as a variety of catalytic capital that can leverage large-scale public and private investment to generate impact. The Fund emphasizes the need to innovate and diversify the sources of financing for the SDGs and thus, where possible and relevant, to leverage private finance and engage in public-private collaboration. This is in recognition of the fact that, while Governments play a leadership role in visioning and prioritization in the financing the Agenda 2030, a whole-of-society action agenda is essential to close the funding and financing gaps.

Thus, UNDP, UNCDF and UNIDO decided to join forces and submitted a Joint Proposal which addresses component 2 of the SDG call for and focuses on Sustainable Energy sector in Madagascar approved by the Joint SDG Fund in April 2022.

The Joint Project consists of three initiatives – a Sustainable Energy Incubator (SEI), an investment De-risking Facility, and technical assistance towards the creation of Madagascar’s Sovereign Development Fund. The SEI and De-risking Facility will solve for the energy bottlenecks noted. Following a four-year development timeline (2022-2026) the expected long-term impact of the JP is – through the availability of diversified strategic financial mechanisms - to transform the financial system of Madagascar into an integrated system responding to the needs of the public and private sectors and guaranteeing the availability of stable financial resources for the financing of the sustainable energy sector.

The three instruments will be:

1. the Sustainable Energy Incubator (SEI), that will act as an incubator for early-stage projects, coaching SMEs and providing small grants awards to start-ups related to innovative clean technology through national contests; UNIDO will be key in starting-up the incubator, selecting the national partner that will manage it and strengthen its capacity. Promising discussions during preparation phase already identified the Economic Development Board of Madagascar (EDBM) as host of the incubator.
2. the Derisking Facility (DF), that will provide De-risking Capital (grant, loans, guarantee loans) adapted to projects and SMEs for which co-financing are still needed to starting small/medium size projects; UNCDF will manage the facility on loan guarantee and loans while UNDP will have the leadership on managing the grants (only for mini-grid projects) and UNIDO will support on the project technical evaluations of projects.
3. the Sovereign Development Fund (SDF), that will invest mostly in large scale infrastructural projects; UNDP will be leading the support to the GoM in technical assistance to establishing the Fund.

The combination of the three main instruments developed in this joint project will help build sustainable solutions to the problem of lack of private and public investment in key infrastructure needs and will support the development of sustainable energy solutions for the population (including youth and women), SMEs and productive uses especially in rural areas. This JP will be essential to the achievement of several SDGs, with 7, 9 and 17 being the overarching SDGs.

b) Context of the Sustainable Energy Incubator (SEI)

A holistic transformation of the financial system to support the development of sustainable energy solutions requires a set of interventions, including at early-stage. Experience shows that it is essential to support companies throughout the continuum of business development in order to create the momentum to have a pipeline of investable projects and businesses that is adequate in quantity and quality. Therefore, incubator is an essential component to foster and enable a market for sustainable energy solutions which leads to diversified ready to invest companies and projects with high potential of financial leverage. The SEI will be market facing in nature, and will support the graduation of business from ideation towards investments / commercialization. It will be done using best-practice services by a provider to be identified – informed by the experience UNIDO has gathered along the years in spurring innovation through private sector engagement –- competitively during the inception phase.

UNIDO will be key coordinator to start up the incubator, and will work with a partner to execute the activities under its guidance. The structure that will manage and host the incubator has been selected during the inception phase of the project. UNIDO has experience is fomenting partnerships between private and public actors in numerous constituencies. Those are typically orchestrated with the objective of enabling markets and enhancing the deployment of clean energy in the way to benefits from and is in line with government priorities and support schemes. In those contexts, UNIDO has been able to engage directly with and through private sector actors. The support delivered is directed primarily at businesses, startups and small and medium enterprises in particular, whilst integrating the public efforts and strategies.

One of the key barriers for startups to grow is the inability to access adequate capital. Those early-stage businesses commonly find themselves in the so-called “valley of death”. They have exhausted ‘friends and family’ funding and available public support, yet they are unable to attract commercial capital yet. The grant provided by the SEI will be different in both nature and scale to the grant made available through the De-risking Facility (DF) which comes at a later stage of business maturity and is designed to crowd-in less concessional capital which would otherwise not be leveraged. Indeed, the SEI will provide small grants at start-ups/company level in order to test products or formalize company creation.

FUNCTIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Under the direct supervision of the Project Manager at HQ and the National Programme Coordinator in Madagascar and overall guidance of the UNIDO Country Representative in Madagascar, the Junior Private Sector Specialist will assist the National Programme Coordinator with his/her expertise for the successful implementation of the UNIDO Component of the SDG project. The person will work closely to the team for undertake all activities envisaged in the prodoc in close collaboration with other UN implementing agencies of the Joint SDG Fund Project in Madagascar (Resident Coordinator Office, UNDP, and UNCDF), and key stakeholders. The incumbent shall carry out following main duties.

• Compile general background information from readily available sources, on economic and social factors for an assigned sector, area, country or programme/project.
• Describe progress of ongoing project/s, investigate designated project activities, discuss findings with supervisor to identify implications for the work of the project unit, discuss rationale and context of project activities, consider the alternative methods for project design, management, problem identification and problem resolution.
• Maintain institutional memories or other documentation systems to record project/programme, history and ongoing activities.
• Assist in monitoring exercises related to the project execution and expedite project execution systematically through discussions and correspondence with technical, substantive and project staff, field visits, analysis of periodic project progress reports, participation in tripartite reviews and mid-term project evaluations; utilize information obtained as an input to corrective decision-making and revisions.
• Draft reports, ad-hoc assignments and research activities, as required.
• Arrange briefings, tours, and related activities for visitors, missions and fellowship holders.

In particular, the incumbent shall work in Antananarivo and other region of Madagascar to :

• Assist the NPC on creating an inclusive stakeholder mapping and engagement as well as validation of the strategic framework for the SEI.
• Assist the meeting secretary during the identification and evaluation of projects received during the SEI’s call for proposal.
• Participate in periodic meetings between the project team and the incubator host, ensure that the information discussed during the meeting is recorded in the minutes of the meeting and monitor its effectiveness.
• Read all project documents, in particular the prodoc and the SEI implementation strategy, to ensure that strengthening gender equality and women's empowerment as well as social and environmental safeguards are considered at the strategic level.
• Ensure that activities related to gender and environmental protection are carried out as planned.
• Provide support to the project team in the organisation of events organised as part of the project.
• In collaboration with other UNIDO projects in Madagascar, identify and classify the different business support structures in Madagascar according to their field of expertise, with a view to seeing the possibility of creating synergy between these structures and SEI.
• Work closely with the incubator host team to ensure that the information required by the project's monitoring and evaluation officer is available and well organised.
• Take part in awareness-raising missions and missions to monitor incubates, which will be organised with the incubator host team

MINIMUM ORGANIZATIONAL REQUIREMENTS

Education: Advanced university degree in economics, business administration, international relations or other relevant discipline with specialization in business management or financing, is required.

Experience, technical and functional expertise:

• A minimum of 1 year of progressively responsible working experience in the field of finance and business management, energy and/or environmental technology innovation projects, including experience at the international level, is required.
• Strong knowledge of design and delivery of investment and financing schemes (incubator start up) for facilitating private sector investments is required.
• Knowledge in evaluating the financing needs, conditions and problems of SMEs in developing countries is required.
• Very good understanding of working of IFIs, DFIs, institutional and private investors including impact investors and proven track record of working with them, is required.
• Experience/knowledge of SMEs and startups is highly desirable.
• Experience in evaluating the needs, conditions and problems of developing countries is required.

Languages: Fluency in written and spoken French and English is required. Written and spoken Malagasy is desirable. Fluency and/or working knowledge of another official UN language is desirable.

REQUIRED COMPETENCIES

Core values:
WE LIVE AND ACT WITH INTEGRITY: work honestly, openly and impartially.

WE SHOW PROFESSIONALISM: work hard and competently in a committed and responsible manner.

WE RESPECT DIVERSITY: work together effectively, respectfully and inclusively, regardless of our differences in culture and perspective.

Key competencies:
WE FOCUS ON PEOPLE: cooperate to fully reach our potential –and this is true for our colleagues as well as our clients. Emotional intelligence and receptiveness are vital parts of our UNIDO identity.

WE FOCUS ON RESULTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES: focus on planning, organizing and managing our work effectively and efficiently. We are responsible and accountable for achieving our results and meeting our performance standards. This accountability does not end with our colleagues and supervisors, but we also owe it to those we serve and who have trusted us to contribute to a better, safer and healthier world.

WE COMMUNICATE AND EARN TRUST: communicate effectively with one another and build an environment of trust where we can all excel in our work.

WE THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX AND INNOVATE: To stay relevant, we continuously improve, support innovation, share our knowledge and skills, and learn from one another.

This appointment is limited to the specified project(s) only and does not carry any expectation of renewal.
Employees of UNIDO are expected at all times to uphold the highest standards of integrity, professionalism and respect for diversity, both at work and outside. Only persons who fully and unconditionally commit to these values should consider applying for jobs at UNIDO.

All applications must be submitted online through the Online Recruitment System. Correspondence will be undertaken only with candidates who are being considered at an advanced phase of the selection process. Selected candidate(s) may be required to disclose to the Director General the nature and scope of financial and other personal interests and assets in respect of themselves, their spouses and dependents, under the procedures established by the Director General.

Visit the UNIDO website for details on how to apply: www.unido.org

NOTE: The Director General retains the discretion to make an appointment to this post at a lower level.

Notice to applicants:
UNIDO does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. If you have received a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Vacant positions within UNIDO are advertised on the official UNIDO website. Should you have any questions concerning persons or companies claiming to be recruiting on behalf of UNIDO and requesting payment of a fee, please contact: recruitment@unido.org