Background

The 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 leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

To ensure that the voice and experience, knowledge and expertise of civil society contribute effectively to normative intergovernmental processes, UN Women engages widely and comprehensively with civil society at all levels. UN Women is cognizant that its engagement with civil society must be consistent, substantive and strategic, so that it can leverage civil society’s political advocacy clout in addition to its knowledge and expertise to navigate the normative inter-governmental arena with a view to achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The Civil Society Section is part of the Strategic Partnerships Division and supports the effective intergovernmental dialogue in the areas of gender equality and women’s empowerment and leads the work of UN Women in the area of civil society partnership, advocacy and outreach.

The Programme Specialist (Civil Society Section) reports to the Chief of the Civil Society Section and is the Deputy of the section.  The staff member is responsible for:
  • Supporting the strategic advocacy and partnership with civil society organizations as well as contributing to the facilitation of partnerships between civil society and Member States;
  • Organizing the participation of non- Governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and other intergovernmental processes, for maintaining liaison with the NGO Committee on the Status of Women and outreach to the NGO community at large;
  • Contributing to the strategic discussions at UN Women, as part of the Civil Society Section and for advising the Section on its role in thematic discussions in the organization;
  • As Deputy of the Section, the staff member will also manage and mentor the team members and support the Section Programme performance and budget documentation;
  • Fulfill representational roles as necessary and contribute and lead on relevant work plan aspects of the Section as required.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

  • Forging Strategic Partnerships;
  • Coordination and implementation of NGO participation in intergovernmental processes including CSW;
  • Substantive contribution to strategic and thematic discussions at UN Women;
  • Representation;
  • Management and Mentoring.

Description of Key Functions:

Forging Strategic Partnerships:
  • Contribute to the development of strong and effective partnerships for advocacy with NGOs – globally, regionally and nationally, including with the Civil Society Advisory Groups;
  • Facilitate Member States - CSO collaboration through consultation fora;
  • Support the Chief of the Section and coordinate the strategy development for and implementation of the Section’s outreach to new constituencies including youth, faith-based organizations, men & boys, and civil society in regions of interest;
  • Provide inputs and coordinate the development of innovative fund-raising strategies for the Section’s partnership activities, including catalytic funding for civil society projects.

Coordination and implementation of NGO participation in intergovernmental processes including CSW:

  • Facilitate the active, substantive participation of NGOs in the CSW annual sessions and in other intergovernmental processes;
  • Manage collection, clearance and submission of NGOs’ written statements to CSW as part of the official CSW documentation, in consultation with CSW Secretariat;
  • Maintain liaison with the NGO Committee on the Status of Women during and in between CSW sessions, including representation of the Section in planning meetings of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women;
  • Ensure relevance and accuracy of information to NGOs on UN Women website;
  • Coordinate the Sections’ side events and meetings on the sidelines of CSW and other intergovernmental processes;
  • Support the Chief during NGO Consultation Day and NGO morning briefings and other representational assignments;
  • Coordinate NGO oral interventions during the CSW sessions in consultation with the CSW Secretariat.
  • Coordinate briefing notes and talking points for NGO briefings by the Chair and for CSO meetings with UN Women Management;
  • Manage the Yvonne-Hebert Funding Programme;
  • Coordinate analysis of NGO participation as inputs to UN Women’s internal evaluation and recommendations.

Substantive contribution to strategic and thematic discussions at UN Women:

  • Advise the Section on its role in thematic discussions in the organization;
  • Support the Chief in contributing to internal strategic and thematic discussions;
  • Support and coordinate the Section’s strategic collaboration with other parts of UN Women, including substantive offices, field offices, and funds;
  • Provide input to UN Women reports and evaluations, briefing notes, talking points.

Representation:
  • Represent the Section externally including at conferences, panel discussions, presentations, meetings, media interviews, lectures and trainings, etc.
  • Represent the Section internally including in working groups, meetings, presentations, workshops and trainings, etc.
  • Prepare presentations, speeches and media contributions.

Management and Mentoring:
  • As Deputy, support the Chief by managing the day-to-day operations of the team and coordinate team members and team activities;
  • Supervise drafting of briefing notes and talking points;
  • Support the Chief in delivering the Section work plan by overseeing team member work plan development.
  • Support the Section’s programme performance and budget documentation;
  • Under the guidance of the Chief, manage the Section’s projects and support team members’ learning activities and professional development;
  • Contribute and lead on specific and relevant aspects and deliverables of the work plan of the Section as required.

Impact of Results:

The key results have a major impact on the overall effectiveness of UN Women’s strategic partnerships as well as enhanced visibility and reputation of the organization.

Competencies

Core values and 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.
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:

  • Knowledge of the Intergovernmental process in particular as related to gender equality issues and the work the UN in gender equality issues;
  • Knowledge of the women’s movement networks and organization (global and regional);
  • Knowledge of gender equality and women’s empowerment policy issues.
  • Excellent drafting, editing, and oral presentation skills;
  • Planning and organizing skills, supervisory skills and technological awareness.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
  • Masters degree (or equivalent) in women’s studies, media studies, journalism, international relations, or related social sciences.

Experience:

  • Minimum of 7 years’ experience at the national and/or international level, in advocacy, communications, outreach activities preferably in a large international and/or corporate organization;
  • Experience in the UN system is an advantage.

Language:

  • Fluency in oral and written English is required;
  • Proficiency in another UN working language is desirable.

Application:
  • 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.
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.