Crisis Risk Specialist [Open to all applicants]

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

The Crisis Bureau (CB) is galvanizing UNDP’s efforts to support countries to build resilience by strengthening capacities to anticipate, prevent, respond to, and recover from the impacts of crises and shocks on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These efforts are geared towards reducing countries’ reliance on external humanitarian relief and peace interventions, while risk-informing development planning and decision-making to minimize creation of new risks. UNDP seeks to ensure that development perspectives are introduced as early as possible in prevention, response and recovery cycles, including approaching prevention and recovery as opportunities to reset development practices onto more resilient, green and equitable pathways.

UNDP seeks to consolidate and upgrade UNDP’s crisis mechanisms to break the cycle of protracted crisis and fragility; to get ahead of the crisis curve through anticipating and preventing crises; and to sustain development throughout crisis by investing in hope – from jobs to justice. These efforts seek to mitigate potential shocks and disruptions, protect hard-won development gains, and to provide sustained accompaniment throughout crises, and to pursue pathways out of crisis and build longer-term resilience. The CB supports Regional Bureaux (RBx) and Country Offices (COs) to ensure risk-informed and preventive approaches are integrated into development plans, priorities and programmes.

The overall objective of the Crisis Risk Unit (CRU) is to produce futures-informed decision intelligence to transform warnings about current and emerging risks that could reverse development gains into anticipatory development actions – in particular in the context of multidimensional risks and complex crisis requiring integrated, multidisciplinary responses. Working across the Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDP) Nexus, the CRU will enable the organization to respond with ...