Background

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

In support of the Arab Republic of Egypt’s Vision 2030 and the National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women (NSEEW), the work of the UN Women Egypt Country Office (ECO) is grounded in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA).

UN Women has placed emphasis on improving its strategic planning and managing for results by applying the Results-Based Management (RBM) throughout all the work of UN Women. This requires dedicated efforts to strengthen results culture in the organization. In order for UN Women to communicate impact stories on women and girls with financial data, strategic planning with strong emphasis on results management is pre-requisite to facilitate systematic and effective results monitoring and reporting during the implementation. 

Under the Egypt/UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework 2023-2027 and the Entity’s five-year portfolio therein, UN Women implements its triple mandate of supporting normative standard-setting to advance gender equality and women's empowerment, implementing national and grassroots programmes grounded in international norms and best practices in partnership with national stakeholders, and strengthening UN system coordination.

Over two decades of work in the country has resulted in UN Women ECO consolidating its expertise, partnerships and investments around three main areas of work: women's leadership and system-wide support to advancing gender equality; women's economic empowerment; and eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls, including harmful practices. Working under the UN Resident Coordinator System, and in close partnership with UN agencies, UN Women Egypt is the lead agency on supporting the advancement of the UN Country Team’s accountability and commitment towards gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Since its creation, UN Women has adopted systematic and strong strategic planning and managing for results’ protocols, requiring dedicated efforts to strengthen the results-based management (RBM) capacities in each office.

Reporting overall to the Country Representative and in the day-to-day to the Deputy Country Representative, the Planning and Coordination Specialist will provide technical guidance and support in ensuring  UN Women provides the UN Country Team in Egypt timely and quality support to strengthen its collective investment and accountability towards gender equality; and to ensure strong implementation of UN Women’s results-based management, strategic planning and partnership arrangement requirements in line with corporate policies, procedures and guidance. The staff member will work closely with the UN Women Egypt programme team, and the Strategic Planning and UN Coordination support teams in the Regional Office and at Headquarters.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide technical guidance and support in strategic planning for the Country Office ensuring conformity with corporate policies, procedures, guidance, and systems.

• Provide technical guidance and coordination to the overall processes and coordinate within ECO to develop and finalize Strategic Note, ensuring the timely submission and quality as well as the full alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and with UN Women Strategic Plan.
• Technically guide and coordinate the overall processes in ECO to develop and finalize the annual/biannual workplans under Egypt’s Strategic Note, ensuring the timely submission and quality.
• Ensure amendments of Strategic Notes and its annual/biannual workplans are completed in a timely manner, as needed, in line with relevant corporate procedure.
• Support the overall Egypt CO’s corporate monitoring and reporting requirements under the Strategic Note and UN Women Strategic Plan, including annual reports.
• Follow up on required action/outstanding issues and report on outcome/ result. Alert the Country Representative/ CO on critical issues to be addressed.
• Provide technical guidance and support to strengthen RBM capacity in ECO.

Provide technical support to the Country Representative and Country Office on advancing UN System-wide accountability tools on gender equality and overall UN inter-agency coordination on gender equality.

• Work closely with the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office to implement system wide requirements on gender equality and women’s empowerment.  Participate in and provide support to joint inter-agency UN planning processes and similar exercises; Contribute to the inter-agency strategic planning processes at the country level, including Common Country Assessment, the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) and Joint Workplans as well as use of UN INFO.
• Provide technical and logistical support to UN Women Representative to lead the UN Gender Theme Group and Women and Girls’ Results Group of the UNSDCF to implement the new Standards and Procedures for GTG, in close cooperation with the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office.
• Lead and coordinate inputs at every step of the UNSCDF and CCA in accordance with UNSDG guidance and companion pieces. Provide technical support to UNCT in monitoring and reporting and prepare analytical and regular progress reports on UN Women’s programme experiences.
• Provide substantive support and representation at conferences and meetings, joint programme development, joint advocacy, and research in collaboration with the Country Representative. Elaborate a capacity building plan on gender equality for UNCT members and its inter-agency groups.
• Prepare briefing materials related to gender equality and women’s empowerment for the Egypt CO on issues to be discussed in the UN and other events and meetings.
• Coordinate inputs from Egypt CO team members to ensure support to UN coordination as outlined in UN Women’s global Strategic Plan is prioritized in their work within the Strategic Note and annual/biannual workplans and accordingly reported on a yearly base.
• Provide inputs on gender equality and women’s empowerment and participate within regional and global internal and inter-agency dialogues on UN coordination on gender equality, where required.

Provide technical support and guidance to the development of partnership implementation arrangements.

• Provide technical guidance and backstopping to the Deputy Representative and programme team in the development of programme implementation arrangements including but not limited to financing agreements, partnership modalities, and budget management.
• Contribute to activities and other promotional events to engage bilateral and multilateral institutions/ donors, private sector, and civil society to expand and/or sustain interest and resources for UN Women programmes and joint UN system programmes.
• Provide network and capacity development to partner organizations on results-based management, as required.
• Execute quality assurance measures for all Donor/financing agreements.

Provide technical support and guidance on programme and joint programme management and oversight to ensure alignment with corporate requirements.

• Promote quality assurance for management of programme/joint programme implementation to ensure smooth workflow and processes for results-based management.
• Provide analysis, oversight and monitoring of Programme/Joint programme implementation and key performance indicators to ensure adherence to implementation rates and utilization of resources to meet agreed upon targets and results, and keep supervisor informed.
• Monitor programme/joint programme implementation exception reports for unusual activities, transactions, and investigates anomalies or unusual transactions.
• Analyze and align programme budgets with logical framework matrices and work plans in support to results based budgeting and appropriate cost recovery.
• Support in following up of programme and project audit recommendations and ensure tracking system is set up to monitor status of actions taken to improve management and business practices in overall delivery (implementation).
• Coordinate the corporate requirements for programme appraisal committees and act as the secretariat for the local programme appraisal committee of the Egypt CO and liaison to the Regional and Global committees, as required.

Facilitate knowledge building and sharing.

• Manage the development and dissemination of good practices and lessons learned; ensure incorporation into programme planning.
• Manage capacity building exercises on planning and coordination, as well as programme and project implementation, including partner management.

Competencies

Core Values

• Respect for Diversity;
• Integrity;
• Professionalism.

Core Competencies

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Functional Competencies

• Strong knowledge of gender equity and women’s empowerment issues;
• Strong knowledge of UN system and understanding of inter-agency coordination processes;
• Strong knowledge of and ability in strategic programme planning and results based management;
• Strong analytical skills;
• Ability to lead business process re-engineering, implementation of new systems, and affect behavioural change;
• Ability to coordinate and partner with multiple and diverse stakeholders;
• Ability to promote and monitor inclusion of gender-specific objectives, indicators, targets and activities in the UN agencies programmes;
• Ability to provide advice and support.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification

• Master's degree (or equivalent) in international development, public administration, public policy, or other relevant social science field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree
• A project/programme management certification (such as PMP®, PRINCE2®, or MSP®) would be an added advantage.

Experience

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience working with inter-agency coordination and strategic planning processes is required; 
• At least 2 years of experience in Results-Based Management (RBM) and strategic planning, including managing and coordinating the development of strategy, multi-year planning documents, work plans, and/or programme documents at the country, regional and/or global levels is required.
• Experience in the development, planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting of programmes and/or strategies is required;
• Experience in the use of computers, office software packages (MS Word, Excel, Power Point, etc.), spreadsheet and database packages is required.
• Experience in the use of a modern web-based results management system, is desirable.
• Experience working in gender equality and women’s rights at the international level is desirable;
• Experience working within the UN system, Agencies, Funds and/or Programs at the country, regional and/or global level is desirable;

Language Requirements

• Fluency (written & spoken) in English and Arabic is required;
• Knowledge of the other UN official working language is an asset.

Application: Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification. 

Interested Individual Candidate must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• ((ESSENTIAL)) All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11). UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment; make sure that you sign the form, and
• Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment, and
• A cover letter with a brief presentation explaining your suitability for the vacancy;

The above-mentioned documents MUST BE merged in a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permit to uploading one file per application.

You can merge your documents by using Online resources. 

Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification. Make sure that you provide a valid email address for future communications.

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)