Ukraine’s vision of its strategic development may be defined by three conceptual frameworks – European integration, NATO Accession (Euro-Atlantic integration) and the Sustainable Agenda 2030. An adequate alignment of these frameworks as well as assessing their overlapping elements can address one of the key challenges of Ukraine’s long-term development planning.

Supporting institutional and policy reforms that foster inclusive, gender-responsive and sustainable human development in line with the national strategy and reform agenda is identified as Pathway I by the UNDP Country programme document for Ukraine (2018-2022) that identifies “Citizen expectations for voice, development, the rule of law and accountability are met by stronger systems of democratic governance” as one of the key objectives in enhancing inclusive and effective democratic governance in Ukraine.

Forming the responsive, efficient and accountable governance institutions that can respond to citizens’ needs and provide high-quality public services is the key objective of Ukraine’s 2020 Strategy of the Public Administration Reform and the Action Plan for its implementation in line with European standards of good governance. Increasing the efficiency of government bodies and local self-government is also one of Ukraine’s indicators for achieving the SDG 16 according to the 2017 Baseline National Report on SDGs.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Ukraine coincided with the uncertainties and changes in Ukraine’s political situation. With the population increasingly under lockdown in response to the coronavirus crisis, new ministerial appointment, and a series of cabinet reshuffles took place. At the beginning of March, the Parliament dismissed the previous Government and appointed a new Cabinet of Ministers headed by Denys Shmyhal’. According to the President, these changes were made because the reform process was not moving fast enough.

On 23 March 2020, the Cabinet of Minister of Ukraine has adopted a Resolution # 238 on the creation of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine. The newly established Ministry is the main body in the system of central executive bodies that ensures the formation and implementation of state policy in the fields of culture, state language policy, popularization of Ukraine in the world, state foreign broadcasting, information sovereignty of Ukraine ”) and information security, as well as ensures the formation and implementation of state policy in the fields of cinema, restoration and preservation of national memory, interethnic relations, religion and protection of national minorities in Ukraine, arts, cultural heritage, museums, export, import and the return of cultural values.

The new Government operates under the Government Action Plan adopted in March 2020, which defines the strategic role of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy in:

- Quality cultural services and consolidation of Ukrainian society;

- Cultural heritage, cultural values and national memory;

- Tourism;

- Information policy and security

- state foreign broadcasting;

- creative industries;

- support to the projects and initiatives on the culture of dialogue and tolerance.

To support the GOU efforts on establishing a solid legal and institutional framework for culture and Information policymaking on the pathway to a sustainable environment, UNDP Ukraine intents to establish a Policy Advisory Unit to provide high level/senior technical advice and strategic  guidance to the Minister/ Minister’s Office to support strategic policy-making and institutional efforts support for improvement policymaking and capacity development of the Ministry.

In this context, the United Nations Development Programme is recruiting Senior Technical Program Advisor to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine for the Policy Advisor Unit under the Office of the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine with relevant experience and track record.

The Senior Technical Program Advisor will be directly responsible for supporting the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine through the Policy Advisory Unit with technical advice and subject-matter expertise.

??. Duties and Responsibilities

The incumbent will report primarily to Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine with a reporting line to the UNDP Ukraine and the Project Manager as part of the Democratic Governance Team. The Expert will work closely with the other members of the Policy Advisory Unit under the Ministry and Crisis Management Units under the Office of the Prime-Minister and under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

S/he will provide support to the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine and its respective staffs through the following functions:

• Provide support to organize technical work of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine and facilitate the use of digital governance tools for the operational activities of the Ministry (meetings, decision-making).
• Analyze the business processes of the Ministry’s activities and provide prompt recommendations on a possible transformation of business activities in digital format in liaison with the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
• Provide support to the Ministry on digitalization of administrative services aimed at minimizing corruption and easing access to the cultural property;
• Provide recommendations on improving e-resource of cultural heritage to build national cultural heritage data infrastructure

• With the support of Strategic Advisor conduct an analysis of the business processes and public services provided by the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and its state-owned enterprises in order to ensure proper mapping of provided services.

• Map and model objects providing public services and propose options on the development of the IT solution to indicate this information.
• Ensure the transfer of ownership for the developed IT tools/solutions to the respective agencies belonging to the structure of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy.
• Provide sectoral advice and report to UNDP, whenever requested.
• Assist with product quality definition, testing and evaluation: product reviews, tests, and pilots
• Provide advice on proper hosted development tools, including permissions management, project setup and archiving, workflow or add-on configuration, etc.
• Advise on architect infrastructure, production environments building, best practices for projects development to delivery
• Provide recommendations for building a data collection and analytics systems.

Measurable outputs of the work assignment/deliverables:

• Information materials, papers, protocols, data modelling developed in cooperation with the representatives of the Office of the Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine – monthly.
• Advisory service on the above-mentioned issues provided – monthly.
• Progress reports are provided to UNDP – monthly.

Performance Indicators for the evaluation of results:

• Number of information materials, papers, protocols, data modelling developed in cooperation with the representatives of the Office of Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.
• Timely submission of the regular performance reports.

Monitoring / reporting requirements:

Work-progress reporting/monitoring meetings will be held with the consultant on a weekly basis. UNDP will be the final authority to control the quality and evaluate the work. No reports or documents should be published or distributed to third parties without an approval of UNDP.

The consultant will work under the daily supervision of the Project Manager and will interact with UNDP to receive any clarifications and guidance that may be needed.

The satisfactory completion of each of the deliverables shall be subject to endorsement of the Project Manager.

The Consultant will duly inform UNDP of any problems, issues or delays arising in the course of implementation of assignment and take necessary steps to address them.

All reports and results are to be submitted to the UNDP in electronic form (*.docx, *.xlsx, *.pptx, and *.pdf or other formats accepted by UNDP).

• Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism;
• Fulfils all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Experience and qualification requirements

Education

• At least advanced University degree (Specialist) or equivalent in computer science, IT, public administration, Economics, Law or related field

Experience

• At least 3 years of relevant experience in the field -in IT sphere at the national or international level;
• At least 4 relevant IT projects developed under the support of the incumbent (with indicating his/ her role in the process) according to the basic requirements of the customer;
• Proven experience in business development

Languages

• Fluency in English and Ukrainian languages is required.

Skills to be evaluated during validation interview stage with technically compliant candidates:

• Excellent analytical skills;
• Consistently demonstrated success developing and delivering user outcomes from digital transformation solutions.
• Thought leader in developing digital transformation solutions
• Expertise with data analytics and customer intelligence
• Experience working with databases
• Expertise in selecting QA tools for manual and automated testing scenarios.
• Ability to provide legal support to the project realization. Knowledge of the regulatory frameworks