Capacity Building Senior Officer

Job Description

This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to integrated territorial development and capacity building within the Western Balkans, working directly with regional and local stakeholders to implement EU Cohesion Policy principles. The position offers a chance to apply specialized expertise in urban and spatial planning, strategic planning, and project preparation, while enhancing your skills in facilitation, training, and report writing within a dynamic international development environment.

The EU Support to Integrated Territorial Development – EU INTEGRA strengthens governance and fosters balanced socio-economic development in Serbia through an integrated territorial development approach. Funded by the European Union (EU) through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) 2024, the Programme is implemented under the leadership of the Ministry of European Integration (MEI), with two implementing partners: the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities (SCTM) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).

EU INTEGRA builds on the achievements of the EU PRO Plus Programme (2021–2025), which introduced the Integrated Sustainable Territorial Development (ISTD) model to Serbia, developed 12 territorial strategies, funded 18 integrated projects, and strengthened alignment with EU Cohesion Policy and Chapter 22 of the EU acquis.

Targeting 144 local self-governments (LSGs) and regional development agencies (RDAs) across Šumadija and Western Serbia, Southern and Eastern Serbia, and Vojvodina, the Programme promotes the development and implementation of integrated projects through capacity building, technical assistance, and support for the use of EU territorial instruments such as Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI).

Through its two complementary components, EU INTEGRA aims to modernise public administration, enhance strategic planning, and prepare Serbia’s institutions for efficient use of future EU structural funds. The development of new territorial strategies, in line with EU Cohesion Policy 2021–2027 and Serbia’s Sustainable Urban Development Strategy until 2030, represents a key milestone in this process.

Under the direct supervision of the Senior Officer for Capacity Building and coordination of the Capacity Building Specialist for ISTD, the Capacity Building Senior Officers (Integrated Territorial Development) will be responsible for the provision of technical assistance to the Programme and respective territories  in developing territorial strategies in line with European Union Cohesion Policy and designing and delivering activities aiming to support strategic planning process.

In order to support place based  approach and to enhance capacities of the regional and local level to apply integrated territorial development, the Programme is recruiting Capacity Building Senior Officers (Integrated Territorial Development) with specialised professional backgrounds. The Programme will strengthen current teams by  the pool of additional experts to support interdisciplinary working groups in development of territorial strategies, for the territories previously selected through a transparent process. 

Therefore, the Capacity Building Senior Officers should be specialised in one or more of the following fields:

• Urban and spatial planning
• Integrated territorial development
• Strategic planning
• Project identification and preparation 
• Capacity building 

• Contributing to the introduction of place based approach and integrated sustainable territorial development  
• Development of training materials and conducting training on following topics, but not limited to: SWOT, identification of needs and priorities, definition of objectives and measures and priority areas of intervention.
• Contribution to design of the questionnaire to be used for preparation of the contextual analysis urban/territorial development topics for respective territories and conducting development of contextual analysis 
• Performing review of existing relevant documentation and statistical data relevant for analysis of territorial context  for assigned territories
• Conduct development of contextual analysis on urban/territorial development topics for  assigned territories
• Preparation  the proposal of  preliminary contextual analysis, SWOT and identified needs based on collected data for assigned territories 
• Conducting five thematic round tables per assigned territory related to presentation of preliminary contextual analysis, SWOT and needs  and consolidate material upon received feedback
• Guidance of  the strategic planning processes and facilitation of  work of working groups for development of territorial strategies 
• Review and revision of  material and parts of the territorial strategies prepared by the working group, and finalise draft territorial strategies
• Leading and facilitating the  identification of integrated strategic projects derived from priority areas of intervention within territorial strategies
• Conducting presentations of draft territorial strategies within public insight procedures in assigned  territories
• Finalisation of  territorial strategies for adoption upon received remarks under public insight procedure
• Timely production of monthly progress reports, training evaluation reports and additional reports on the progress of activities on as needed basis and positively assessed by the Senior Officer for Capacity Building  
• Performing  other duties as may be reasonably required and in line with the incumbent’s scope of services above.

About the Organization

United Nations Office for Project Services