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, the 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 Policy Division develops and implements the UNW program of work on analysis, research and knowledge management that provides the evidence base for the advice and guidance UNW provides to the intergovernmental process, the UN system, and to UNW staff working at country and regional level on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment. It identifies emerging issues and trends, and develops and proposes new strategies for achieving the agreed goals through innovative approaches and lessons learned about what works in practice. It also designs and oversees the training and capacity development programs of UNW, working closely with the UNW Training Centre in Santo Domingo.

Based on UN legislative mandates and UNW Strategic Plan, it undertakes or coordinates global or sectoral research and data analysis; advises on norms, policies and strategies for achieving the internationally agreed goals related to gender equality and women’s empowerment issues. It acts as a knowledge hub, collecting evidence on progress and emerging issues, identifying trends in implementation of global commitments; and sharing knowledge on innovative approaches and lessons learned in implementation. It designs tools for inter-regional capabilities building and institutional development programmes and fosters strategic substantive partnerships with academia and other UN partners, in close collaboration with the Intergovernmental Support and Strategic Partnership Bureau, the Programme Division and UNW Training Center (Santo Domingo.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Research Assistant (Peace and Security) will support the lead author of the global study on the implementation of the Security Council resolution 1325 (2000).

Security Council resolution 2122 (2013) requests the Secretary-General to prepare a global study in advance of the high level review of resolution 1325 (2000) to be held by the Security Council in 2015. As the Secretariat of the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee on Women, Peace and Security, UN Women will provide the secretariat functions to the development and production of the report, as well as to the system-wide advocacy efforts in relation to the high level review.

Consultations have been held within the Interagency Standing Committee on Women, Peace and Security,chaired by UN Women, to determine collective recommendations on how to carry forward the Global Study. Initial consultations have also been held with Member States on the expectations for the Study, as well as with civil society partners. The report itself will be drafted by a commissioned lead author and the Women, Peace and Security policy section at UN Women Headquarters will serve as the Secretariat, providing support on project management, support, communications and advocacy functions,
planning of consultations and coordination functions.

The guiding principles for the study include that it will be undertaken as independently as possible, be inclusive of a broad range of actors, and that it should have a strong focus on impact and real change and progress in the lives of women and girls as a result of the women, peace and security agenda over the past 14 years, rather than processes.
The Study presents an invaluable opportunity to take stock of progress, review trends over time, fill knowledge and data gaps, critically examine persistent and emerging challenges and capture lessons learned and good practices across regions. It is also an opportunity to revisit the agenda and its impact by focusing on local, national, and regional level change. It will build on the findings of the two high-level studies on women, peace and security undertaken in 2002 and lessons learned from the tenth anniversary of resolution 1325 (2000) in 2010.

The Study comes at an opportune time aligning with other major policy reviews and debates underway, including discussions linked to the Post-2015 development framework and the 20-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The Study will greatly benefit from and be informed by these processes and allows for an examination of linkages between the various agendas and synergies supporting the maintenance of peace and security from a gender perspective.

Summary of key functions:

The role of the Research Assistant will be central to the production of the final Global Study. The section is commissioning a number of background papers and case studies from external partners which will form part of the information required to compile the report. But the lead author will also require additional pieces of research for the report, as well as support in writing the final product. The main responsibilities will be to work with the lead author to:
  • Carry out high quality desk research and literature reviews on key topics for the Global Study. This will involve locating relevant information and synthesizing large amounts of academic, programme and evaluation literature on aspects of the women, peace and security agenda, to draw out the main findings and relevant conclusions to feed into the lead author’s work;
  • Research and write case studies on examples of the implementation of Security Council resolution 1325. This will involve identifying examples of good practice in relation to women, peace and security, including from UN Women’s own work, thoroughly researching these examples and writing the findings up in case study format;
  • Support the lead author to draft sections of the Global Study, with particular responsibility for drafting boxes and panels. Full participation in proofreading, fact checking of report content, the incorporation of reader’s group comments, the contribution of bibliographic information, and providing input on draft chapters and sections of the Global Study as required;
  • Support the Global Study coordinator and the Women, Peace and Security team in any additional research that would feed into the Global Study and the web portal that will house any additional information that does not make it into the Global Study. Ensure that the Study’s content, including figures, maps and other visual elements, are presented in ways that are accessible to non-technical audiences.
In addition to those mentioned, the consultant is also expected to work on other assignments as and when requested by the Women, Peace and Security team.

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.
Working in Teams and Furthering Interagency Collaboration and Partnerships:
  • Building and promoting effective teams and partnerships.
Communicating Information and Ideas:
  • Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication.
Self-management and Emotional intelligence:
  • Creating an emotionally intelligent organization.
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.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
  • Master degree (or equivalent) in development related disciplines, gender issues, economics, public policy, law or other social science fields. (Education in Peace and Security is an advantage)
Experience:
  • Minimum 3 years of relevant work experience, with a demonstrable ability to carry out desk research and literature reviews. Outstanding writing skills and an excellent grasp of substantive and policy issues related to women, peace and security.
  • Proven capacity to produce high quality research and case studies on women’s rights, and specifically in the area of women, peace and security.
  • Experience of compiling substantial policy reports, preferably on women’s rights, including the ability to identify and mobilize evidence to make a compelling case and recommendations.
  • Proven outstanding writing skills, for a range of different audiences.
  • Substantial experience of working on policy and advocacy work on women’s rights and/or human rights.
  • Excellent understanding of women, peace and security issues in a range of contexts.
  • Ability and willingness to work as part of a team to meet tight deadlines and produce high quality work.
Language Requirement:
  • Written and oral proficiency in English is required.