Delivering Africa's Jobs Future Sooner

Host entity: United Nations Development Programme

Application deadline: 31/08/2026

Mission and objectives

UNDP works in about 170 countries and territories, helping to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, and build resilience so countries can sustain progress. As the UN’s development agency, UNDP plays a critical role in helping countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
The UNDP Strategic Plan 2026–2029 sharpens this mandate around systemic change through integrated solutions driven by national priorities. Its strategic objective of Prosperity for All includes expanding opportunities for decent jobs and livelihoods and strengthening countries' capabilities to translate national plans into implementable programmes and financing strategies.

In Africa, these national priorities form part of a larger continental transformation architecture. Agenda 2063 is Africa's long-term development plan and, viewed through the lens of jobs, a continental Job Creation Platform. Regional Economic Communities, Member States and Local Authorities translate this continental ambition through their respective Development Plans. Their plans therefore represent interconnected delivery pathways through which Africa's jobs future can be created.

The Development Plans Register makes this architecture visible by bringing together Development Plans across Africa. Countries' National Commitments to SDG Transformation provide an additional expression of the transformations governments have committed to accelerate. Together, Agenda 2063, Development Plans and SDG Transformation Commitments provide an existing architecture for turning continental ambition into jobs at country and local levels.

This assignment asks a practical question: How can Africa's Development Plans deliver their jobs futures sooner? Online Volunteers will work with selected Development Plans to identify the jobs future they seek to create, the investment portfolios required to deliver it, and the leadership routines needed to sustain implementation. The resulting evidence will contribute to a continental understanding of how Development Plans can function more effectively as Job Creation Platforms—contributing upward to Agenda 2063 while translating Africa's long-term ambition into jobs and prosperity for people and communities.

Assignment context

Africa has already articulated the future it wants. Agenda 2063, Africa’s long-term development plan, provides the continental ambition, while Regional Economic Communities, Member States and Local Authorities contribute to and leverage that ambition through their respective Development Plans. Together, these plans can be understood as an interconnected continental platform for creating prosperity, economic opportunity and jobs.

The challenge is increasingly one of delivery. The 2023 SDG Summit placed jobs and social protection among the critical transitions for accelerating SDG achievement, and countries subsequently articulated National Commitments to SDG Transformation. At the same time, Africa is implementing the Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan of Agenda 2063. These commitments create an opportunity to examine how existing Development Plans can be leveraged to deliver jobs at greater scale and speed.

The Development Plans Register brings together Development Plans across Africa, while the United Nations National Commitments to SDG Transformation provide visibility into countries' commitments to accelerate SDG progress. These provide an important evidence base for understanding the jobs futures countries have already articulated and the pathways through which they intend to achieve them.
This opportunity is closely aligned with the UNDP Strategic Plan 2026–2029, which places Prosperity for All among its four strategic objectives and emphasizes systems approaches, nationally driven priorities, decent jobs and livelihoods, and stronger institutional capabilities to translate plans into implementable programmes and financing strategies.

Against this background, the assignment will mobilize Online Volunteers to co-create a continental knowledge product around one practical question: How can Africa’s Development Plans deliver their jobs futures sooner? Volunteers will generate evidence from Development Plans and conversations with practitioners, using a common Story–Delivery–Routines methodology. Their individual Jobs Future Practice Notes will provide the building blocks for a continental synthesis on how Africa’s existing development architecture can function more effectively as a Job Creation Platform.

Task description

Online Volunteers will contribute to the co-creation of a continental knowledge product on Development Practice, exploring one practical question: How can Africa’s Development Plans deliver their jobs futures sooner?

The knowledge product will bring together evidence and insights generated across African countries, Regional Economic Communities and Local Authorities. Online Volunteers whose contributions meet the established quality and contribution threshold will be acknowledged as contributors to the final continental knowledge product. The common methodology, quality criteria and acknowledgement threshold will be communicated to volunteers at the start of the assignment.

Each Online Volunteer will select or be assigned a Development Plan from a Regional Economic Community, Member State or Local Authority, recognizing these plans as interconnected delivery pathways contributing to Agenda 2063 as Africa’s continental Job Creation Platform.

Using a common methodology and template, the volunteer will:

1. Articulate the Jobs Future — Story. Review the selected Development Plan and identify the future of jobs and economic opportunity it seeks to create. Develop a short Letter from the Future that makes this jobs future tangible and identifies relevant anchor indicators.

2. Identify Job Creation Investment Portfolios — Delivery. Identify and organize the major investments, sectors, programmes and interventions in the Development Plan that could create, enable or improve jobs, treating them as interconnected Job Creation Investment Portfolios rather than isolated projects.

3. Identify Institutional Practices for Jobs — Routines. Examine the institutional practices and recurring actions required to translate the Development Plan and its investment portfolios into jobs, including coordination, implementation, financing, monitoring, learning and accountability practices.

4. Conduct at least 10 conversations with practitioners. Engage government officials, businesses, development partners, civil society, young people, researchers and/or other relevant actors to understand how jobs are actually being created, what constrains delivery, and what could help achieve the Jobs Future sooner.

5. Prepare a Jobs Future Practice Note. Synthesize the analysis and practitioner insights into a concise country, REC or local-level practice note structured around Story – Delivery – Routines, highlighting practical opportunities to accelerate job creation.
The assignment is not an assessment or ranking of governments or Development Plans. It is a collaborative learning and knowledge co-creation exercise designed to generate practical evidence on how Africa’s existing development architecture can be better leveraged to create jobs and advance Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals sooner.

Expected output: A final Jobs Future Practice Note, with qualifying contributions informing the continental knowledge product.

Skills and experience

Applicants should demonstrate three core competencies:

1. Development Analysis: Ability to review Development Plans, policies and related evidence and identify development outcomes, indicators, investments and institutional practices relevant to job creation.

2. Practitioner Engagement: Ability to conduct structured conversations with diverse stakeholders and capture practical insights on what enables or constrains delivery.

3. Evidence Synthesis and Communication: Ability to integrate documentary evidence and practitioner perspectives into clear, concise and well-supported analytical products.

Applicants may come from diverse academic and professional backgrounds. Knowledge of Agenda 2063, the SDGs, job creation or the selected Development Plan is an advantage but not a prerequisite.

Full eligibility requirements, conditions of service and application instructions are available on the official UNV platform.