UN WOMEN Jobs - 62488- UN Women: Gender and Humanitarian Specialist

UN Women: Gender and Humanitarian Specialist

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Bangkok, THAILAND

Type of Contract :

TA International

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

30-Dec-15 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

P-4

Duration of Initial Contract :

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

364 days

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women 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 center of all its efforts, the UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations (UN) 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 scope of work of the Gender and Humanitarian Specialist requires experience and in-depth understanding of gender equality and humanitarian action, to translate UN Women's strategic plans into effective programmes and results. It also requires developing mutually reinforcing partnerships with relevant government counterparts, UN organizations, donors, CSOs, and the international and Pacific humanitarian system to enhance awareness and commitment as well as visibility and resources to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment. The incumbent will be responsible for UN Women’s strategic engagement in humanitarian response in the Pacific region in general and providing strategic direction for the Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster specifically.

Under the overall supervision of the Regional Director for the UN Women Regional office for Asia and the Pacific, he/she is expected to engage proactively with local and regional women leaders and UN Entities, particularly, the Pacific Humanitarian Team (PHT) to ensure gender issues are addressed on efforts related to humanitarian action the Pacific region.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

Technical Leadership and Strategic Planning on Protection, Gender Equality and Humanitarian Response;
Programme Formulation and results based management;
Coordination, partnership and resource mobilization;
Capacity-building, coordination, and advocacy.

Under the overall supervision of, and reporting to the Regional Director, the Gender and Humanitarian Specialist has the following key functions:

Technical Leadership and Strategic Planning on Protection, Gender Equality and Humanitarian Response:

Provide substantive leadership and policy advise to UN Women Offices in Asia and the Pacific on gender mainstreaming and humanitarian action;
Support the IASC regional network for Asia Pacific through the formulation of high quality gender equality programmes for capacity development and knowledge generation;
Lead the design and implementation of strategies for the Working Group on Gender in Humanitarian Action including the 2016 Plan of Action to ensure proper linkages with disaster risk reduction, relief, and recovery and development efforts;
Lead the strategic thinking and policy decisions on mainstreaming gender and protection into humanitarian response and influence agenda and priority setting in relevant UN system-wide inter-agency task forces and governmental coordination mechanisms;
Technical support through gender mainstreaming into interagency sector coordination mechanisms, governmental mechanisms and other relevant sectoral level processes focusing on humanitarian action. Such as relevant Inter Sector Working Group, sector coordination mechanisms and working groups, cross cutting thematic working groups, UNDAF processes, and similar exercises related to the R/HC system ensuring that gender perspectives are clearly reflected and mainstreamed in process;
From an inter-agency perspective; advise, support, guide and provide substantive inputs to ensure the formulation of high quality gender responsive country level humanitarian programmes and projects;
Through the Working Group on Gender and Humanitarian Action, provide substantive inputs to the interagency coordination mechanisms on humanitarian action and other strategic humanitarian financing mechanisms –Emergency Response Fund (ERF),Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), Consolidated Appeals Processes (CAP)- thoroughly analyzing and researching the contextual issues at county and national levels;
Support GenCap, RedR and other gender advisers, gender focal points, and GBV managers/focal points in other agencies and organisations (including governments, UN, INGOs, local NGOs, community and women’s groups), and other key actors at country and regional level;
Coordinate the delivery of training activities for UNCTs;
Advise country humanitarian clusters in setting up or adapting existing systems to monitor the progress in gender mainstreaming by using inter alia the framework and checklists in the IASC Gender Handbook and GBV Guidelines.

Programme Formulation and Results-based Management:

Guide the implementation of UN Women programmes in the region within the disaster preparedness and humanitarian response and recovery context, analyze progress on achievement of the objectives and results, proposing adjustments and solutions where necessary;
Lead the formulation and development of UN Women’s humanitarian programme and projects in partnership with other implementing partners with an aim to institutionalizing system wide gender equality and women’s empowerment perspectives into humanitarian response;
Lead the development and implementation of specific flagship technical projects in the region as appropriate to the UN Women Regional Office’s strategic direction and the UN Women’s Humanitarian Strategy;
Support the development and implementation of programme approaches and modalities in the region in line with the UN Women’s Humanitarian Strategy;
Prepare technical guidelines, documents, briefs and other strategic papers and materials for use in the development and presentation of a coherent country level strategic plans;
Lead the conceptualization of the country level annual work plan and strategic plans and ensure lessons learnt are captured to further guide recommendations and formulation of future humanitarian programme planning;
Undertake flagship technical projects as appropriate on humanitarian response. Conceive, design, staff, direct, and assess these initiatives.

Coordination, Partnership and Resource Mobilisation:

Support and develop UN Women’s engagement in existing inter-agency regional humanitarian coordination mechanisms and enhance coherence of UN system in promoting gender equality concerns in humanitarian response in the region;
As designated, participate in and support relevant regional inter-agency and inter-governmental forums and UN system-wide inter-agency tasks forces in the region;
Development and implementation of resource mobilization strategies to facilitate UN Women’s long-term UN Women’s long-term engagement in humanitarian response and disaster response;
Contribute to fund-raising including development of new project proposals for use in resource generation for the region;
Support the development of partnerships with member states and non-governmental partners in the region for key programming initiatives and build synergies for effective gender equality programming and advocacy;
Support the identification and development of strategic partnerships and alliances at the country and regional levels to promote gender equality and women's advancement through joint projects and interagency efforts;
Mobilize and manage financial resources, for gender and humanitarian action processes.

Advocacy and Knowledge Building:

Secure a flow of information between the Country Offices, the Regional Office and UN Women headquarters by putting in place mechanisms to ensure the region and Country Offices know about humanitarian action related activities undertaken by UN bodies and major global and regional actors and that good practices and lessons learned from the field are shared with HQ and relevant UN system assessments and compilations (such as by CC: Learn, ISDR, and OCHA, etc);
Promote the use and improvement of knowledge management mechanisms to share information about gender and humanitarian action related initiatives;
Share technical and strategic position papers, presentations, Specialisty and briefing notes, as needed;
Adapt HQ inputs for regional policy briefs/position papers in collaboration with other practices that address links between climate change and other development concerns such as governance, private sector, poverty alleviation, gender, crisis prevention and recovery, and capacity development;
Identify relevant lessons learnt to be disseminated between countries and identify and develop linkages between countries in the region as appropriate;
Promotion of awareness and understanding of the UN Women mandate, mission and purpose and focus on Sustainable Development with special emphasis on gender and humanitarian;
Build strategic alliances with other key actors at country and regional level to advocate for gender sensitive programming in humanitarian action, disaster preparedness;
Undertake research and studies on gender and humanitarian action;
Participate in community of practices and facilitate cross-regional exchange of best practices and lessons learned;
Contribute to the development of the UN Women regional and global knowledge hub.

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. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Core Competencies:

Ethics and Values:

Demonstrating / Safeguarding Ethics and Integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring:

Self-development, initiative-taking.

Working in Teams:

Acting as a team player and facilitating team work.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

Facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively.

Self-management and Emotional intelligence:

Creating synergies through self-control.

Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements:

Leverage conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning:

Learning and sharing knowledge and encourage the learning of others.

Functional Competencies:

Substantive knowledge and experience related to current policies and practices in the fields of gender equality and humanitarian action;
Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of humanitarian and development experience;
Strong communications skills, with proven expertise in writing cogent and convincing policy and programme documents;
Good knowledge of the UN system;
Proven ability to advocate and provide policy advice;
Ability to lead strategic planning, programme development and implementation, results-based management and reporting;
Proven analytical and problem solving skills;
Good planning, goal-setting and prioritization skills including ability to work under stress;
Effectiveness in establishing and fostering good relations with government counterparts, UN agencies, donors, and NGO partners.
Ability to leverage information technology, executive information systems, management techniques and tools for optimal office performance.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master degree (or equivalent) in international law, development-related disciplines, gender issues, public policy or other social and political science fields

Experience:

A minimum of seven years of experience in management and humanitarian programming, including in conflict, post-conflict and natural disasters’ settings and gender equality;
Programme and policy analysis, strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation and field experience in developing country contexts;
Substantive and technical experience in inter-agency coordination, experience working with governments, donors and CSOs internationally and in the field.

Languages:

Written and oral proficiency in English is required;
Knowledge of the other UN working knowledge is desirable.

Application Information:

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;
UN Women will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest.

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.