POSITION INFORMATION • VA No.: UNDP/LBN/VA26/122 • Position Title: Institutional Reform Officer • Duty Station: Beirut • Duration: 4 months (without exceeding 14 working days per month) • Vacancy Date of Issue: 23 July 2026 • Vacancy Closure Date: 30 July 2026 • National or International consultancy: National consultancy To review the full Terms of Reference (TOR), please follow link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DAhQggYnP_lR9DO0pmDpGDmkIuaMqDPK/view BACKGROUND For over six years, Lebanon has been facing a prolonged economic, financial, and social crisis. The country has experienced multiple shocks, including an economic and financial collapse, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Beirut Port explosion, and, most recently, an armed conflict lasting more than a year that caused extensive damage and losses. These developments led to a severe economic contraction, depreciation of the Lebanese pound, soaring inflation, fiscal imbalances, and a sharp decline in the real value of income, particularly affecting public-sector employees. As a result, state institutions have struggled to fulfil their mandates due to a lack of financial resources and a significant loss of skilled public-sector professionals. Against this backdrop, the country s capacity for evidence-based policymaking, regulation, and the delivery of national priorities has been severely constrained. The State continues to face major resource and capacity constraints in responding to the crisis, supporting post-conflict recovery, and addressing structural challenges. At the same time, there is limited visibility regarding development aid directed to Lebanon. Since the economic collapse in 2019, most donors have made funding conditional upon the implementation of broad reforms and progress towards an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Consequently, only a small proportion of aid has been channelled through government systems. Most grants and loans remain off-budget, creating a disconnect between aid inflows and national public financial management systems. To address the implications of these crises, UNDP has been supporting the Government of Lebanon in restoring its core functions, resuming its role in service delivery, and implementing priority reforms. This support links traditional public administration, civil service, and policy reforms with a digital transformation process, with the ultimate objective of reactivating the social contract. In response, the Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR) launched Reinventing Government 2030 , one of Lebanon s most ambitious initiatives to modernize the State and rebuild citizens trust in public institutions. The reform vision is structured around the following three phases: Phase 1: Stakeholder Aspirations Listen, Analyse and Prepare OMSAR engaged thousands of stakeholders, including citizens, young people, members of the diaspora, civil servants, municipalities, civil society organizations, unions, media representatives, and political and religious leaders. Engagement took place through surveys, workshops, town hall meetings, and interviews. This participatory phase produced a unified vision and validated national reform aspirations. Phase 2: Blueprint Design for Government Restructuring This phase aims to reorganize ministries and public agencies by: • Redefining institutional mandates; • Eliminating fragmentation and duplicated functions; • Designing a Target Operating Model tailored to Lebanon; • Benchmarking against international governance models; and • Ensuring alignment with stakeholder aspirations and the future needs of the State. Phase 3: Full Implementation 2030 This phase will involve implementing the restructuring plan, introducing digital and process reforms, reskilling human capital, and establishing performance-based management across government institutions. Following the completion of Phase 1, OMSAR launched Phase 2 of the reform programme. Central to this phase is a baseline assessment of the current state of affairs within the Government of Lebanon. The reform design is set out in the Conceptual Framework, which provides the basic outline for the baseline assessment. It envisages a functional analysis of the Government of Lebanon across horizontal and vertical axes. The horizontal axis establishes four universal government functions: • National direction and policy setting; • Licensing and regulation; • Service delivery; and • Delivery oversight and surveillance. The vertical axis provides a thematic and sectoral classification of the governance model. In particular, it identifies seven clusters, 28 sectors, and approximately 120 subsectors in which the Government of Lebanon has competencies under existing legislation. This classification represents a consolidated list of sectors derived from six international classification systems, including those of the United Nations Classification of the Functions of Government, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank, and S&P Global, as well as governance benchmarks from Rwanda and Singapore. Following several rounds of consultations with OMSAR, UNDP Lebanon developed and validated a methodology for conducting the baseline assessment in line with the priorities established in the Conceptual Framework. The methodology is based on a rigorous research design to ensure that data is collected from multiple sources. It includes four research methods, with each method designed to build upon the previous one and move the assessment from theoretical institutional mandates towards operational realities: • Desk research; • Surveys; • Key informant interviews; and • Focus groups and validation workshops. In this context, UNDP Lebanon is supporting OMSAR in designing the reform blueprint and seeks to recruit an Institutional Reform Officer. The Institutional Reform Officer will support OMSAR s ongoing administrative reform initiatives by contributing to workstream planning, institutional and governance assessments, benchmarking, reform design, and stakeholder engagement across the initiative. 

Desired Candidate Profile

• Master's degree in Public Administration, Public Policy, Business Administration, Economics, Development Studies, or a related field.
• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience in project management, consulting, quality assurance, or organizational/institutional reform, including exposure to public sector or governance contexts.
• Fluency in Arabic and English (both written and oral).