Junior Professional Officer Programme

The presence of Swiss nationals in UN development and humanitarian agencies as well as secretariat units considered as priorities for Swiss cooperation (UNDP, UNICEF, UN Women, UNFPA, WHO, UNAIDS, IFAD, WFP, UNHCR, UNRWA, OCHA) is unsatisfactory as things stand. The Junior Professional Officer Programme shall contribute to change this situation.

The overall goal of this Junior Professional Officer Programme is to increase the presence of Swiss nationals in SDC priority UN agencies and secretariat units, to enhance the quality of the dialogue with these agencies and secretariat units, and to strengthen the work of SDC priority UN agencies and secretariat units.

A Junior Professional Officer is a Swiss national holding a Master’s degree, between 24 and 32 years old, with at least two to three years of professional experience, preferably in a developing country. Junior Professional Officers are generally assigned temporarily to offices managed by organisations in developing countries.

The number of Swiss nationals working in Swiss priority UN organisations has increased as at least 50% of the JPOs have been retained following the JPO assignment.

The Swiss ability to influence its UN agencies is strengthened.

Dialogue with the priority organisations is better informed and access to internal information fostered.

Principaux résultats attendus:  

21 Swiss Junior Professional Officers are recruited and employed for Swiss priority UN organisations, including the UN secretariat.

More information from the field and from inside the agencies and the secretariat are available for SDC's policy diialogue with these agencies and units.

Lessons learnt from the first and this second phase of this Junior Professional Officer Programme shall help designing future measures with regard to increase the number of Swiss nationals in UN organisations and the secretariat.

Principaux résultats antérieurs:  

As of June 30, 2016, 14 Junior Professional Officers were recruited and deployed. At the time of this credit proposal, the third and last recruitment round of the first phase of the JPO programme is underway and the 7 Junior Professional Officers recruited in this round will be deployed in the coming months.

From the first recruitment round, so far 5 out of 7 have reached a 50% cost-sharing agreement with their host agency for the third year of the JPO assignment.

The standardised six monthly JPO reporting as well as the informal exchange between the JPOs and the SDC desk officers have provided valuable content for SDC’s policy dialogue with the agencies.

The objective of having at least a 50% retention of JPO within the United Nations cannot be assessed yet because the JPOs recruited in the first recruitment round are still serving their 3^rd year as JPOs.

Other junior programmes of Switzerland by UNIOD, HSD and SECO aim to in-crease Swiss presence in multilateral organizations.

The various Swiss offices financing junior programmes are coordinating and harmonising their approaches and efforts.

Phase 2 01.01.2017 - 31.12.2023   (Completed)