JPOS SERVING THE WORLD, ONE AT A TIMEThe JPO Programme: bringing Young Talent to UNDP

For Njeri Kamau from Kenya, the day began with coffee and a ‘Good Morning’ to colleagues in the UNDP Zanzibar sub office. Njeri was about to start her day in the office when suddenly the phone rang: “Are you in charge at the UN Zanzibar office? The Vice President wants to talk to you, immediately. Would you please come to his office, now.” Baffled by this early morning call, Njeri got ready to leave right away, as indeed she was the officer in charge, the highest UNDP official being out of the country. She herself had only recently joined the UNDP office as a Junior Professional Officer (JPO). At the Vice President’s office Njeri expected a question about the UNDP Zanzibar Programme, governance, poverty reduction or something along those lines but instead the Vice President needed advice on the Convention of the Law of the Sea and Exclusive Economic Zones. So within the next hour Njeri contacted her colleagues in Dar es Salaam and New York and managed to get all the necessary information. She still remembers the day clearly: “That day was a great challenge for me but also a great opportunity. That’s the reason I love to work in the field.”

When Njeri finishes her working day, Erlend Wilhelmsen from Norway starts his in the UNDP Haiti office. He became a JPO in March 2011, did his first year in New York and then went to Haiti as a Human Resources analyst. “After two months I can say that I really enjoy working in the field. I feel that it is more rewarding although the working and living conditions are more difficult than they were in New York”, he tells and adds “first I was hesitant and I felt very junior. I didn’t know how much I was able to contribute to the UNDP programmes and projects, but being in the field I get a lot of learning opportunities and I am surprised about my own adaptability. I enjoy the fact that I work for an organization that has a vision which is more than profit. That really motivates me.”

Erlend Wilhelmsen and Njeri Kamau are just two examples of how young professionals from different countries, with different cultural and educational backgrounds, become part of the UNDP family. One is sponsored by his home country Norway and the other by the Dutch government, which supports young nationals from developing countries additionally to its own nationals.

When the JPO Programme was established by UNDP in 1963, the objective of the programme was to bring young talented professionals into UNDP and provide them with training opportunities in the field of development. Although the programme has professionalized tremendously over the years, the JPO Programme still provides a UNDP career perspective and offers young talents a chance to work within UNDP and develop professionally.

Erlend Wilhelmsen with his colleagues at the UNDP office in Haiti

UNDP JPOs by Region of assignment

Africa 35 Eastern Europe and the CIS 6 Arab States 10 Headquarters 57 Asia Pacific 26 Latin America and the Caribbean 13

Jens Wandel, Director of UNDP’s Bureau of Management, sees the JPO Programme as an integral part of UNDP’s human resource strategy, to find talented people for the organisation, but also believes that: “JPOs are a source of knowledge and innovation. They are inspired and well educated and a good talent pool for the organization that supports the UNDP strategy for sustainable development, economics and social environment. The JPO programme is good development assistance and we wish that more governments would consider joining the JPO programme.”

The most recent figures show that as of March 2012, there are 316 JPOs who are administered by the UNDP JPO Service Centre, 44% of them working directly with UNDP and its affiliated funds and programmes. Usually sponsored by their respective governments, JPOs cover a variety of thematic fields ranging from governance and human rights, to energy and environment, poverty reduction, crisis prevention and recovery, and UN coordination. They are posted in headquarters or in the field and carry out their tasks under the supervision of senior UNDP staff members working closely with national and international staff as well as national counterparts.

The UNDP JPO Service Centre in Copenhagen in this context also plays an important part. It administers the JPO Programme and deals with all matters relating to recruitment, selection, placement, reassignment as well as administrative and financial issues, while also acting as focal point for countries supporting the programme.

That UNDP’s strategy to find new creative talents through the JPO Programme is successful can be seen in the newly released figures of the JPO Service Centre: out of 724 former UNDP JPOs who ended their JPO assignment in 2001-2009, almost half of them (359) continued working within the UN System for at least six months after their JPO assignment. But even those JPOs who decide to leave and work elsewhere can share their experience of working in a multilateral organisation with others, acting as ambassadors for UNDP and development work in general.

As many as 20% of the current UNDP professional staff members are current or former JPOs and an increasing number of former JPOs serve in high ranking management positions in UNDP, such as both Jens Wandel and Marta Ruedas, Deputy Director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR), who both started out as JPOs.

Many JPOs decide to stay with UNDP after their JPO assignment which, in the case of BCPR, Marta Ruedas explains this way: “There is no plan as such for the retention of JPOs in BCPR. Everybody has to go through the whole process of application and interviews. Last year BCPR underwent a re-structuring in order to be more effective and to better integrate Crisis Prevention and Recovery within UNDP and the UN system. Within this process there were various job openings and some of the applicants had a JPO background that made it easier for them because they knew the UN mechanisms and had experience in working in this field.”

Both Leontine Specker a former Dutch JPO, who worked in BCPR in New York, and Anne Kahl, a former Danish JPO working in UNDP Lebanon and New York, decided to continue their careers in UNDP after two years of their JPO assignment. As Leontine says: “I am grateful to be able to continue my work within BCPR focusing on livelihoods recovery and natural resource management.” For Anne staying on meant: “For me it was a continuation of my JPO career and I have more responsibility now. Overall it was a smooth transition

UNDP JPOs by Donor

Austria 1Belgium 9Denmark 6 Finland 8France 6Germany 12Greece 4Italy 4Japan 18Luxembourg 10Norway 16Republic of Korea 3Spain 33Sweden 6 Switzerland 1The Netherlands 10

from the JPO Programme to a UNDP job”.

Especially for JPOs from the South the JPO Programme is an opportunity to enter the UN system and build a career. With fewer opportunities open to them, most JPOs from the South rely on JPO programmes such as the one of The Netherlands and Spain, who have limited openings for young professionals from developing countries. The retention rate of JPOs from developing countries is higher than the retention rate for JPOs from developed countries (53% against 49%). Haoliang Xu, Deputy Regional Director for Europe and the CIS, joined UNDP via this route. Coming from China he was sponsored by The Netherlands and went to Kazakhstan in 1995. “It was a very important time for me. At that time Kazakhstan had recently become independent and stood at the beginning of its transition. We had a number of challenging project portfolios such as developing SMEs and managing restructuring enterprises and I had to familiarise myself with the project cycles, the appraisal and evaluation of projects. It was a lot of responsibility for me in a very junior position. But it gave me credibility and that was very important for my further career”, he remembers.

Zanofer Ismalebbe, a Sri Lankan citizen, was also funded by the Dutch JPO programme and joined UNDP Uzbekistan working in the area of human rights and governance. He says: “It was my intention to stay with UNDP after completing my assignment as JPO because there was so much to learn. Just before I began my third year as a JPO I was selected as the Human Rights Policy Specialist and Programme Officer with the Democratic Governance Group/BDP in UNDP Geneva, and hope that I will be able to further advance within UN.”

Overall the JPO Programme has achieved a lot over its almost 50 years of existence. Many young professionals have joined UNDP since then and many have stayed on to become members of UNDP senior management. All JPOs however have in common that they remember their time as a JPO, not just professionally. Jens Wandel still remembers the very friendly people of Western Samoa who love to dance, Marta Ruedas thinks back fondly of the times she drove around Mexico in her Beetle car, Haoliang Xu still dreams of the beautiful Kazakh mountains and steppes. And surely Njeri Kamau will always be able to boast about her meeting with the Vice President.

Rose Haji (UNWomen Tanzania) shaking hands with the Presi-dent of Zanzibar Dr Ali Mohamed Shein. Looking on are Njeri Kamau, Anna Collins-Falk, UN Women Country Programme Manager in Tanzania and John Hendra the UN Women Deputy Director and Assistant Secretary-General.