Background

UN Women is the UN’s global entity for gender equality and women’s empowerment. It is an inter-governmental body that provides financial and technical assistance to innovative approaches aimed at fostering women's empowerment and gender equality at global, national, regional and sub-national levels. The UN Women Multi Country Office (MCO) works for countries including India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

UN Women works on several fronts towards ending violence against women and girls. This includes tackling its main root: gender inequality. Efforts are multiplied through advocacy campaigns and partnerships with governments, civil society and the UN system. Initiatives range from working to establish legal frameworks and specific national actions, to supporting prevention at the grassroots level, including in peace building and peace keeping initiatives. UN Women has also supported data collection on violence against women, facilitating new learning on the issue.

UN Women plays an active role in supporting the UN Secretary-General’s multi-year UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, launched in 2008.

In India, the UN Women Multi Country Office (MCO) for India, Bhutan, Maldives & Sri Lanka works on various programmes to end violence against women, that include but are not restricted to prevention of trafficking in women and girls; making public places safer for women; empowering single women, including widows; prevention of sexual harassment at the work place; addressing declining child sex ratio and combating domestic violence. UN Women Multi Country Office supports the Government and civil society to build a strong knowledge base and undertake reviews of laws relating to violence against women.

In South Asia, the UN Women MCO manages grants under the UN Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women. The UN Trust Fund works with partners in South Asia to secure much-needed services for women and girls affected by violence. As part of the Global Safe Cities Programme, UN Women works with UN Habitat, Jagori and Delhi Government to make New Delhi safer for women. As part of the project to prevent anti-trafficking in six states of India, UN Women supports the local panchayats and builds capacities of local communities to prevent trafficking in women and girls.  UN Women in India also works on empowering widows through evidence based research,  capacity and coalition building to end stigma and discrimination and enhance access to services and entitlements..

Under the supervision of the Program Specialist – EVAW Unit, the Programme Officer will undertake the following key tasks and other responsibilities as may be assigned.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

  • Management of the UN Women MCO EVAW programme;
  • Management of strategic partnerships under the EVAW programme;
  • Facilitation of knowledge building to enable informed programme responses.

Ensures effective management of the EVAW programme by:

  • Providing technical support to both the programme unit on Violence against Women and UN Women management;
  • Managing partnerships and extend relationships to networks from the UN community, bilaterals, national governments, NGOs in India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka.

 Programme Management:

  • Serve as the primary point of contact with the UN Women MCO partners on EVAW;
  • Total responsibility of all relevant disbursement information;
  • Ensure that UN Women MCO incorporates reports on progress of the grantees in their annual reports on implementation of UN Women MCO Strategy;

Provide monitoring support (financial and programmatic) to grantees in the following ways:

  • At the inception of the programme, work with the grantee to prepare a Performance Monitoring Framework to clarify indicators of success, methods of baseline and data collection, and tracking requirements for the grantee;
  • Review financial and narrative reports from grantees and flag areas that need attention. Total responsibility of relevant donor reports;
  • Link and position grantees with overall UN Women MCO strategic results and UN Country Teams and other partners.
  • Identify capacity-building and technical support needed from grantee(s);
  • Support media and communication outreach for the grantee(s), Where possible, the Programme Officer facilitates grantees to reach the media and use other forms of communication to expand their reach, and/or involve them in relevant media and communications initiatives in which UN Women MCO is involved.

Ensures creation and management of strategic partnerships and implementation of the resource mobilization strategy by:

  • Representing UN Women MCO, on the advice of the RPD, at different global / regional/ national meetings and conferences on EVAW;
  • Support the resource mobilization process for UN Women MCO on EVAW;
  • Facilitate documentation and advocacy processes in relation to EVAW which help to set up institutional and policy mechanisms to arrest or reduce violence against women;
  • Development of partnerships with the UN Agencies, , government institutions, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, private sector, civil society in the specific thematic areas based on strategic goals of UN Women MCO, country needs and donors’ priorities;
  • Analysis and research of information on donors, preparation of substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation, identification of opportunities for initiation of new projects, active contribution to the overall office effort in resource mobilization.

Ensures provision of top quality advisory services and facilitation of knowledge building and management by:

  • Identification of sources of information related to policy-driven issues;
  • Identification and synthesis of best practices and lessons learnt directly linked to UN Women MCO goals;
  • Sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice;
  • Documentation of successful initiatives under the EVAW initiatives.

Any other work assigned by the Representative, Deputy Representative or Programme Specialist (EVAW) in the day-to-day programme activities.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
  • Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

 Functional Competencies:

 Knowledge Management and Learning:

  • Promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture in the office;
  • In-depth knowledge on development issues;
  • Ability to advocate and provide policy advice;
  • Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more Practice Areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills.

 Development and Operational Effectiveness :

  • Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
  • Ability to lead formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects, mobilize resources;
  • Good knowledge of the Results Management Guide and Toolkit;
  • Strong IT skills;
  • Ability to lead implementation of new systems (business side), and affect staff behavioral/ attitudinal change.

 Management and Leadership:

  • Focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
  • Leads teams effectively and shows conflict resolution skills;
  • Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
  • Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills;
  • Builds strong relationships with clients and external actors;
  • Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
  • Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Masters degree in Social Science, Social Work, Gender and Development studies or any other related field.

Experience:

  • Minimum 2 years of relevant work experience in the field of women / social development in strategic planning, program design and management, institutional strengthening and evaluation at the national, regional or international level;
  • Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages, experience in handling of web based management systems.

Language:

  • Fluency in English and working knowledge of the national language of the duty station.