Junior Socio-Economic Consultant

Background

The current global crises and food system shocks have produced both supply constraints and price increases in global food and energy markets. The impact of the global crisis and food system shocks risks to jeopardize the country’s socio-economic recovery from the crisis induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. After a sharp contraction of 3.1% in 2020, the economy recovered by only a small growth rate of 3% in 2021 and has just started to pick up momentum in 2022. In addition, a set of pre-existing socio-economic vulnerabilities in the Cambodian context risk to exacerbate the impacts of the converging crisis (i.e., COVID-19 and the global crisis and food system shocks). These include: a large percentage of the population clustering around the poverty line, a high level of poverty headcount (i.e., 17.8% in 2020), increasing inequalities, deeply entrenched and persistent gender inequalities, high levels of household indebtedness, and a weak system of social safety nets.

In this endeavor, UNDP maintains an Economic Team within the Policy and Innovation Hub (PIH), supporting the Government and other stakeholders on a range of topics – from inclusive macroeconomic policies to the delivery of innovative social protection measures. Current and pipeline projects including the provision of technical advice on IDpoor formula improvement, rapid poverty survey, ageing policy pilot, integrated formalization, Cambodia SDGs and national planning, and Multi-dimensional Vulnerability Index. The Junior Socio-Economic Consultant position is part of the PIH of UNDP Cambodia. Working under direct supervision of the Country Economist and in close coordination with the National Economist and Policy Analyst – Social and Economics, the incumbent is responsible for assisting the Economic Team with developing various concept notes and proposals, socio-economic analysis, policy research, and for assisting with coordination and administrative matters (See Section 3 and 4).

Duties and Responsibilities

The LTA holder is to support the economic team of UNDP Cambodia to design policy and implement programmes related to inclusive growth, SDG financing, social protection and national planning. These include the following sets of activities:

I. Policy engagement in terms of policy dialogue and research under the policy and innovation unit

Draft proposals, concept notes and Terms of References (ToRs) for relevant research, communication and policy assignments related to economic policy, social protection and national planning policies
Proof read and edit data analysis and reports from vendors/contractors and other sources before they are integrated into the socio-economic analysis produced by the team
Documentation, research, literature review and prepare summary of the different topics the economics team is involved in
Identify key trends, alternative and uncommon data sources that can be resourceful to unfold key questions and hypothesis to enhance the socio-economic analysis done by the team
Perform estimations, elaborating graphs, tabulations and slides for documents and presentations to support the team in undertaking socio-economic policy analysis
Prepare briefing notes
Support in development of policy recommendations for priority measures for economic policy, social protection and national planning policies
Conduct background policy analyses and provide recommendations
Prepare reports and power point presentations
Arrange consultations and compile comments

II. Support the Partnership management:

Facilitate and coordinate with partners such as UN agencies, private sectors, government and development partners to do data collection/extraction and consolidation to enhance economic modelling and other predictions to propose policy recommendations

Maintain and update economic policy and social protection communication strategies
Draft blog posts on economic policy, ageing policy and social protection
Draft Memorandum of Understanding and stakeholder engagement plans
Regular information updates
Draft of outreach communication materials including brochures, pagers, project briefs, booklets, presentation, project reports etc.

III. Support the pipeline formulation and resource mobilization:

Collect data and information needed for the project formulation
Draft concept notes and project proposals based on guidance of the Country Economist, National Economist and/or Socio-economic Policy Analyst
Prepare powerpoint presentation
Arrange stakeholder consultations; and
Consolidate comments from key stakeholders

Competencies

Good report drafting ability
Ability to work collaboratively with team members by sharing information openly and displaying cultural awareness and sensitivity.
Excellent communication skill is an advantage
Positive and results-oriented attitude, able to meet targets/deadline.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

A minimum of a Bachelor’s degree (preferably a Master’s degree) in economics, development studies, public policy, international relations or social science

Experiences:

One year of working experience in socio-economic development and analysis;
Relevant experience in development work at international or national level;
Proven basic research/ analytical skills – in statistics/ econometrics; Ability to write policy papers and working documents (reports/ assessments/ reviews); and
Decent knowledge of the Cambodian development context.

Languages:

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of Khmer is an advantage