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. Placing women's rights at the centre of all its efforts, UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States' priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
 
The recently established Research and Data Unit within the Policy Division at UN Women houses the flagship publication team for the organization, Progress of the World's Women, as well as UN Women's Knowledge Management team.  In 2012, the Unit will expand to include a Chief and a Research Specialist, with the mission of leading UN Women's research and data work.
 
The Research and Data Unit will work with the rest of the Policy Division with the aim of making UN Women a 'global knowledge broker' on gender equality, through forging partnerships both within UN Women, within the UN system and with the global research community.
 
Under the direct supervision of the Chief, Research and Data, the Programme Associate will provide programme support to the Research and Data Unit.  The Associate will work primarily with the Research and Data Section Directorate, but will provide programme support to the Progress of the World's Women team and the Knowledge Management team, as needed.  The Programme Associate will promote a client, quality and results-oriented approach to work within the Unit.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:
  • Ensures efficient and correct implementation of UN Women operational strategies for the Research and Data Section;
  • Ensures effective administrative and financial control in the Research and Data Section;
  • Administrative support to the Chief of the Research and Data Section, liaise with staff within the Research and Data Section to ensure the efficient functioning of the Unit.

Ensures efficient and correct implementation of UN Women operational strategies for the Research and Data Section, including the following tasks:

  • Ensure that full compliance of operations activities for the Research and Data Section is in line with the UN/UN Women rules, regulations, policies and strategies;
  • Assist the Chief of the Unit in organizing yearly work planning exercises for all divisions within the Section, follow-up quarterly on work planning processes as needed;
  • Maintain the attendance files for the Research and Data Section; enter all attendance takes into Atlas; liaise with the UN Women Human Resources Centre on attendance monitoring tasks as needed; liaise with the staff in the Section to ensure that all attendance files are in order and that a streamlined process for maintaining attendance is in place;
  • Prepare travel requests, expense checklists and expense reports for the Research and Data team; liaise with UN Women Policy Division Service Centre, the UN Women Procurement team, UNDP Amex and the UNDP Visa Desk on all travel and visa needs for the Research and Data Unit.

Ensures effective administrative and financial control in the Research and Data Section, including the following tasks:

  • Monitoring and administration of the Research and Data Section's budget, including implementation and maintenance of budget revisions, budget reports, procurement planning and other necessary monitoring to ensure that spending is on track and in-line with the organization's budget and procurement guidelines; 
  • Coordination and effective administration of all payments to vendors and consultants; to that end, provision of relevant documentation and close liaison with the Policy Division Service Centre and the UN Women Procurement and Finance Units;
  • Maintain internal expenditures control system to ensure vouchers processed are matched and completed;
  • Submit systematic financial reports to the Research and Data Section Chief for management monitoring and/or action;
  • Coordination and administration for procurement processes for the Research and Data Section, including working with the UN Women Policy Division Service Centre and the UN Women Operations Section to liaise with the UN Women AMRC and the UN Women Human Resources Centre on contract requests, and procurement and human resource processes.

Administrative support to the Chief of the Research and Data Section, liaise with staff within the Research and Data Section to ensure the efficient functioning of the Unit, including the following tasks:

  • Manage the Chief's calendar; prioritize and schedule requests for meetings with the Chief;
  • Collect, review and organize briefing materials for the Chief for appointments, meetings, official missions and other activities;
  • Review, prioritize and promptly route correspondence to and from the Chief's office; take proactive follow-up action as needed and keep the Chief and internal/external clients and stakeholders informed of the status of activities;
  • Review and verify completeness of required documentation and/or clearances prior to submission for the Chief's review and signature;
  • Draft routine correspondence;
  • Maintain organized hard copy and electronic files for the Research and Data Section for easy access and retrieval; ensure safekeeping of confidential materials;
  • Assist in organizing events and meetings hosted by the Research and Data Section; oversee the timely and efficient completion of administrative and logistics arrangements;
  • Brief Research and Data Section staff members on general administrative matters; provision of administrative guidance as requested;
  • Liaise with the UN Women HQ Facilities team and the UN Women ICT team on behalf of the Research and Data Section as needed. 
Impact of Results:
 
Execution of the key results will have an impact on the efficiency of the Research and Data Section. Efficient operations within the Unit strengthen the capacity of the Section, which in turn contributes to UN Women establishing itself as a key facilitator of women's rights research and data and promotes the image of UN Women as an effective contributor on this topic. 
 
These results will specifically contribute to the following deliverables in the UN Women 2011-2013 Strategic Plan:
  • Development Results Framework:
    Global policy and normative framework for gender equality and women's empowerment is reaffirmed, strengthened and deepened.
    Increase in the extent to which sectoral global policy and normative frameworks reflect gender equality and women's empowerment perspectives.
  • Management Results Framework:
    UN-Women programming practices reflect SMART and systematic results orientation.
    UN-Women HQ and field-based systems support evidence-based knowledge generation on gender equality and women's empowerment.

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. 

Functional:

  • Proven excellent administrative support skills;
  • Very strong organizational skills;
  • Excellent writing and communications skills;
  • Ample knowledge and use of computer office tools (Word, database, spreadsheets, web content production, filing).

Corporate:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling UN/UN Women values and ethical standards;
  • Demonstrates commitment to UN Women's mission, vision and values;
  • Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly and without favoritism.

Behavioral:

  • High levels of initiative and motivation;
  • Works well under pressure;
  • Communicates effectively, clearly, sensitively and persuasively across a range of audiences;
  • Plans, prioritizes, and delivers quality outputs effectively and on time;
  • Accepts additional responsibilities as required by the demands of service;
  • Highly effective team player;
  • Ability to deal with confidential matters in a discreet and reliable manner.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
  • Secondary degree is required.

Experience:

  • Six years of progressively responsible administrative experience is required at the national or international level;
  • Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc) and experience in handling of web based management systems.

Language Requirements:

  • Fluency in English is required.
  • Fluency in other UN languages is an advantage.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.
 
All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment

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.