Background
Duties and Responsibilities
Summary of key functions:
Advisory and technical support to Sub-Regional Portfolio
- Advise, support, guide and provide input to assure quality control in the formulation of relevant, high quality, results-based and rights-based country programs and projects.
- Provide strategic and specialized technical advice to the Regional Director on the development of systems, processes and mechanisms to support effective program planning, implementation, monitoring and timely progress reporting.
- Review and evaluate proposals submitted to the Regional Centre and oversee the preparation of donor proposals and reports to ensure quality, compliance with requirements as per established rules, regulations, including the commitments under relevant UNDAFs and the UN Women global Strategic Plans Take timely action to take any corrective action to meet standards for submissions.
- Prepare policy document, briefs and other strategic papers/materials for the Regional Director for use in the development and presentation of a coherent regional perspective to help define regional strategic and plans of action for implementation.
- At the sub-regional level of West Africa, assess the country level and sub-regional level annual work plans and present Regional Director with recommendations and conclusions to assist in development planning.
Program management, monitoring and oversight – Sub-Regional
- Plan, implement and/or supervise the support provided to the sub-regional portfolio, including country offices and sub-regional programmes, to ensure timely and appropriate services are provided as required. Identify areas of competencies and/or weakness to ensure focused and targeted services are provided.
- Recommend and/or set monitoring standards, criteria and other indicators for measuring and assessing progress and results.
- Monitor the progress on, mutually agreed results frameworks and performance indicators and timely take action, make decisions and/or provide timely support.
- Lead the annual process of gathering information and prepare reports for HQ on progress of program implementation, assessing results and identifying areas for Regional Director action and/or decision to ensure achievement of results as planned and in accordance with UNW goals and objectives and accountability framework.
- Identify areas that may require improvement and capture best practices/lessons learned, using corporate monitoring tools, as such as the Balance Score Card, Atlas Snapshot and Dashboard, Staff Surveys, Audits and other corporate reports. Take action to improve areas of weakness.
- Manage the timely allocation of funds to sub-regions and countries. Monitor and ensure the appropriate utilization of resources approved and allocated to regional programs and projects that are managed by the SRO.
- Substantive and good quality proposals following the established rules, and regulations, and adhering to the Strategic Plan and Annual Work plans.
- Sustainable and solid relations developed with counterparts, resulting in the enhanced reputation and credibility of UN Women.
Resource Planning and Mobilisation
- Support RD to implement the resource mobilization strategy
- Using the regional vantage point, identify and support networking for new partnerships
- Support RD in strategy innovation and targeting for resource mobilization
- Support RD in RM by conducting UN W country offices in RM missions and discussions
Advocacy and support to Regional Director and UNW presences on UN coordination, joint programming and reform
- Support Director Regional Center and country level representatives in establishing and maintaining effective consultations with governments, partners, stakeholders and donors to achieve active collaboration, cooperation and alliances on program development and implementation, resource mobilization and sustained partnerships.
- Upon the request of the Director Regional Center, represent UN Women in UNCTs as appropriate/delegated to consult, collaborate and/or interact on common issues and activities and participate in the CCA/UNDAF process to ensure the active participation of UN Women in these processes to advance gender equity and women’s human rights On behalf of the sub-regional portfolio and in partnership with country-level UN Women Representatives, actively seek out participation of UN Women in UN system thematic and other working groups to establish effective network and to keep abreast of ongoing debate and thinking on aids development, facilitate joint programming and promote UN Women competencies and interests to advance gender and women’s human rights.
Knowledge management and capacity building – Support to Sub-Region
- Ensure regular assessments of the regional and sub-regional strategic and implementation plans. Identify lessons learned and areas of emphasis to guide program improvements and future strategic development plan.
- Manage the process of collecting and sharing lessons learned on gender equality and women’s empowerment to build knowledge and capacity of partners and stakeholders.
- Design and implement capacity building training activities to enhance skills and knowledge in Results Based Management, Results based budgeting and systematic quality assurance.
- Contribute to the development and maintenance of global and regional program knowledge networks and practices, and development of knowledge products.
Management of operations
- Under the overall responsibility of the Director Regional Center, provide day-to-day supervision of the Operational services, i.e. human, financial, procurement and IT services of UN Women sub-regional and country programs and projects, ensuring compliance of all services according to rules, regulations, processes and procedures and UN Women’s accountability framework.
- The Deputy Director will backstop the Operations Manager in preparing and providing guidance to the offices on the whole process of audit exercises, oversee the collection and verification of accurate and complete documentation for audit review, advice on the preparation of responses to audit and monitor the timely and full implementation of audit recommendations and required actions.
Impact of results:
The effective support provided by the Director Regional Center in the management of programs and operations in the office directly impact on the quality of UN Women program development, implementation and results that in turn directly impact on the credibility and image of UN Women as an effective partner for regional and country organizations and as a competent knowledge based organization on gender equity and women’s human rights issues.
Competencies
Core values/guiding principles
Integrity: Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity: Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.
Core competencies
- Ethics and Values: Promoting Ethics and Integrity / Creating Organizational Precedents
- Organizational Awareness: Building support and political acumen
- Developing and Empowering People / coaching and mentoring: Building staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation
- Working in Teams: Building and promoting effective teams
- Communicating Information and Ideas: Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication
- Self-management and Emotional intelligence: Creating an emotionally intelligent organization
- Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements: Leveraging conflict in the interests of the organization & setting standards
- Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning: Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning
- Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making: Fair and transparent decision-making; calculated risk-taking
Functional Competencies
- Demonstrated theoretical, intellectual and technical skills in aid development and programming particularly those that are pertinent to UN Women strategic priorities on gender issues and women’s rights. Demonstrated political acumen and technical capacity in representing the organization effectively in national and international fora to advocate and to promote organizational priorities, initiatives and a better understanding of the organizational strategic agenda.
- Proven ability to lead a practice area and to drive results. Ability to establish and maintain broad strategic networks and partnerships with UN agencies and other international partners to promote partnership and build alliances to advance organizational interests and competencies.
- Ability to go beyond established procedures and practices, introduce new approaches and strategic innovations.
- Good knowledge of Results Based Management principles and approaches.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:
- Master`s degree (or equivalent) in development related disciplines, economics or public policy or other social science fields.
Experience:
- Over 10 years of extensive development experience that combines intellectual, strategic and managerial leadership in development programs some of which should be in the area of gender equality and women’s rights at the international level, preferably in developing countries within the UN system, Agencies, Funds or Programs or renowned institutions/academia.
Language Requirements:
- Written and oral proficiency in English and French is required.
- Knowledge of the other UN working knowledge is desirable.