Senior Adviser on Technology and Democracy

We promote the interests of British citizens, safeguard the UK’s security, defend our values, reduce poverty and tackle global challenges with our international partners.

Main Purpose of Job

To help uphold a world order in which free societies flourish, the FCDO created a Development and Open Societies Directorate (DOSD) that encompasses a broad range of policy areas to drive greater coherence in this agenda across all of FCDO, for a stronger collective impact.

DOSD includes teams leading on Democratic Governance and Media Freedom (DGMF), Civil Society and Civic Space, and Illicit Finance and Anti-Corruption and works closely with the Human Rights Department.

We are looking for an experienced and customer-focused Senior Adviser, with strong technical and generalist skills. The successful candidate will play a key role contributing to the delivery of the FCDO vision of a world where free societies flourish. This is an exciting opportunity to shape what is a new role in a critical part of FCDO, from a democratic governance perspective.

This is an exciting new post that will be central to DOSD’s efforts to promote inclusive and accountable governance around the world. The successful candidate will work within a team of five Senior Democratic Governance Advisers and with a range of internal and external stakeholders to increase posts’ capability to support democratic resilience and address rising authoritarianism. Within that team, you will specialise on the links between technology, the Internet and democratic governance.

Roles and Responsibilities

The successful candidate will:

• Provide high quality advice and support to FCDO’s Embassies and High Commissions overseas to help them work most effectively with government, private sector and civil society partners to mitigate the risks of technology to democratic governance in their host countries, and harness the potential.
• Be part of an in-house team of Senior Advisers working as part of a new FCDO Democratic Governance Centre of Expertise (CoE).
• Work closely with policy leads and other departments in the Directorate and in other parts of FCDO leading on security and economic issues, to ensure coherence and coordination.
• Work across the FCDO network, advising posts, including Heads and Deputy Heads of Mission, political and policy leads and others, ensuring that relevant evidence and best practice on the links between technology and democratic governance are shared and helping to shape priorities.
• Engage with the FCDO network in the Asia-Pacific /African /European/American/MENA regions to support and advise on areas of democratic governance programming and policy engagement to support UK priorities
• Provide bespoke responses to requests for advice on digital, Internet and technology issues related to democracy, including on elections, Internet shutdowns and restrictions, mis- and dis-information, AI, digital democracy and governance, to understand entry points for programme and policy engagement, design interventions, engage with partner governments.
• Liaise with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy on shaping and provision of their support to posts as part of the CoE.
• Draw learning, evidence and themes, aggregating these as part of the total learning effort of the CoE, to share these with the network and improve the coherence and quality of FCDO programme and policy engagement. Possibly establish and run Communities of Practice across the FCDO.
• Broker relationships between FCDO, researchers, civil society, think tanks and others working on similar issues to share lessons, build a network and enhance collaboration.
• Build relationships with international partners working on democratic governance issue to ensure complementarity with UK effort.

You will do all the above in line with the International Development Strategy’s long-term approach to supporting open, accountable and effective institutions.

It is essential in your application that you provide evidence and proven examples in each of the following Minimum Criteria, the Behaviours and the Technical question as far as you are able to do so. These responses will be further developed and discussed with those candidates invited for interview.

Minimum Criteria

We are looking for someone with the ability to:

• Communicate, influence and lead effectively on development and foreign policy priorities.
• Think strategically and with political awareness.
• Manage a quality service and be customer-focused.
• Work effectively with senior leaders, peers and more junior staff, ‘selling’ the importance of your technical area to non-experts and making it accessible and relevant in a proportionate way driven by business needs and corporate priorities.
• Demonstrate experience on digital, technology and Internet related issues  

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Governance Core Competency-GCC: Applied Governance and Political Economy Analysis
• Governance Specialist Competency-GSC 1: Accountable and Inclusive Politics.
• You will be asked to give a 5-minute Technical Presentation at the Interview
• You will be asked a Motivation question at interview.

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Governance Core Competency-GCC: Applied Governance and Political Economy Analysis
• Governance Specialist Competency-GSC 1: Accountable and Inclusive Politics.

See the attached candidate pack.

Job contact :

• Name : FCDO Recruitment Team
• Email : fcdorecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : fcdorecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk