Preventing Hate Speech Specialist

In parallel with the rise of social media, the use online of dangerous or hateful speech to disparage individuals and to promote violence against them based on ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other difference has grown exponentially. In some contexts, malicious actors exploit the internet to capitalize on offline grievances such as the increased vulnerabilities created by COVID-19 as well as pre-existing social tensions and divisions, to manipulate public sentiment around current events through online propaganda, and to incite violence. Hate speech is observed to spread at heightened levels during periods of political transitions, and discriminatory discourse and hate speech against vulnerable groups and gender-based hate speech and disinformation are especially widespread during election campaigns.

The UNDP Crisis Bureau (CB) is responsible for UNDP’s crisis-related work and drives UNDP’s vision and priorities for peacebuilding and crisis prevention, response and recovery. The Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (CPPB) Team is placed within UNDP’s Global Programme Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions (CPPRI) at the UNDP Crisis Bureau. The Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (CPPB) Team is a global policy team, positioning UNDP at the forefront of conflict prevention and peacebuilding at the international level while also providing strategic policy and programmatic support to Regional hubs and Country Offices. The CPPB team takes a transformative and inclusive approach to conflict prevention and peacebuilding with a continuous focus on conflict sensitive, risk-informed and preventive measures and seeks to strengthen national and local capacities for conflict prevention. This includes the Hate Speech portfolio and also serves as UNDP's technical focal point at the UN Hate Speech Working Group.
 

• Advise the implementation of the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech as well as UNDP's Action Plan on Hate Speech including the integration of innovative approaches and AI-driven solutions.
• Proactively establish strategic partnerships with key actors from civil society, academia, influencers and the private sector to foster collaboration and leverage their expertise in advancing global policies and strategies.
• Take the lead in conducting comprehensive and robust globalresearch, analyzing global/regional/national level trends, and identifying emerging issues in the field of hate speech.
• Manage researchcoordination and consultative processes, including throughmanagement of consultants, for development of knowledge products for thought leadership.
• Foster policyinnovation to enhanceprogram delivery in the specificarea of hate speech prevention.
• Provide timelytechnical policy adviceintegrating innovation and the use of AI and digitaltools, and ensure quality assurance for UNDP's global portfolio on Hate Speech.
• Contribute to the UN Working Group on Hate Speech and facilitate collaboration among global interagency partners.
• Facilitate partnership engagements in resource mobilization through the preparation of funding proposals, donor briefings, reporting, and advocacy efforts.

2.Programme Advisory Knowledge Management, and Data Analytics:

• Advise in the development of tools,analysis, and projectsaimed at monitoring and addressing hate speech, violent extremism, and divisive narratives, both online and offline.
• Collaborate closely with Regional Hubs and Country Offices to ensure responsive and tailored interventions in addressing hate speech in emerging security threats both online and offline, including crisis situations. This collaboration should incorporate data-driven insights and analysis.
• Provide ad-hocsupport to CountryOffices regarding the conceptualization, inception, implementation of and reporting on development programmes related to Hate Speech.
• Organize and facilitate relevant events to promote knowledge exchange, advocacy and capacity-building in the thematic area of hate speech prevention.
• Coordinate the extraction, analysis, documentation, and codification of knowledge and lessons learnedin the specific thematic area, adhering to corporate tools and guidelines.
• Facilitate conflict analysis, scenario building exercises, and the development of risk monitoring tools, including the application of the UNDP Crisis Risk Dashboards.
• Management of UNDP’s Hate Speech CoP tofacilitate and fosterknowledge sharing among regional hubs and country offices; and contribute to other knowledge networks and (online/offline) communities of practice, sharing valuable insights and expertise.
• Facilitate cross-regional and global exchange of knowledge in collaboration with Regional Hubs, by producing knowledge-based tools, guidance, and case studies to influence policy dialogue.
• Promote strategic collaboration and knowledge exchangeacross the UN entities on Hate Speech
• Draft comprehensive background documents and develop talking points on addressing hate speech, violent extremism, divisive narratives, and conflict prevention and peacebuilding more broadly, ensuring accuracy and coherence with UNDP's objectives and the specific thematic area.
• Oversee communication strategies for promotingUNDP’s key messagesin addressing hate speech.

• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organization.

Institutional Arrangement

The position will be office based with consideration of travel if required. S/he will report to the Team Leader, Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding.
 

• Business Direction and Strategy  -  System Thinking:    
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system
     
• Business Development -  Knowledge Facilitation:   
  • Ability to animate individuals and communities of contributors to participate and share, particularly externally
     
• Business Management  - Communication:   
  • Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication; to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience
  •  Ability to manage communications internally and externally, through media, social media and other appropriate channels
     
• Partnership Management  -  Relationship Management:
  • Ability to engage with a wide range of public and private partners, build, sustain and/or strengthen working relations, trust and mutual understanding 
• 2030 Agenda- Peace - Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions:
  • Conflict Analysis and conflict sensitivity
     

• Fluency in English with excellent writingskills is required.
• Working knowledge of UN language(s), especially Spanish, French and Russian, is an advantage.

Travel:

Travel costs are covered only in the event that the function will be undertaken physically outside the duty station.