UN WOMEN Jobs - 77212- UN Women: Policy Specialist

UN Women: Policy Specialist - Gender-Responsive Peacebuilding

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Type of Contract :

FTA International

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

05-Mar-18 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

P-3

Duration of Initial Contract :

1 year

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

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

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 center 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.

The Policy Division develops and implements the UN Women programme of work on analysis, research and knowledge management that provides the evidence base for the advice and guidance UN Women provides to the intergovernmental process, the UN system, and to UN Women staff working at country and regional level on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The Peace and Security Section of the Policy Division supports UN Women to fulfill its coordination mandate in the area of peace and security, UN system efforts to promote improved implementation, and monitoring and reporting of global commitments on women and peace and security, including as set out in the Beijing Platform for Action and in Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2122 (2013) and 2242 (2015), relevant Statements by the President of the Security Council, as well as related accountability frameworks established by the UN system. In the area of sustaining peace, UN Women supports Member States and civil society in implementing parallel resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly (A/RES/70/262 and S/RES/2282 (2016)) on sustaining peace and together with the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) coordinates the implementation of the SG’s Seven-Point Action Plan on Gender-Responsive Peacebuidling. UN Women as well makes efforts towards ensuring that the voices of the WPS experts and activists are informing policy framing on sustaining peace.

Under the supervision of the Policy Specialist on Sustaining Peace, the Policy Specialist is responsible for contributing to the development and implementation of the organization’s policies in the area of gender-responsive peacebuilding to achieve gender equality and advancement of women. The incumbent provides technical, policy and programme support for coordination, policy development, policy advocacy, and for the development and implementation of global programme strategies.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide Technical Guidance and Support:

Provide technical support to UN Women Country and Regional Officeson gender-responsive peacebuilding, youth, peace and security and conflict analysis programming and policy;
Identify country and regional needs and provide capacity building support for peacebuilding priorities and the implementation of the Secretary-General’s Seven Point Action Plan on Gender-Responsive Peacebuilding and other related frameworks, in partnership with the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO);
Identify needs and provide support to high quality policy and programming in peacebuilding contexts, with priority to the projects funded and catalyzed by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF);
Participate in, and provide assistance to, inter-agency joint assessments and technical support missions to fragile and conflict affected settings;
Ensure high-quality, results-oriented reporting on the Seven Point Action plan, for internal and external audiences (e.g. UN, donors), including providing guidance to UN Women Country and Regional Offices and partners in the submission of timely, quality reports and contributions;
Backstop gender and peacebuilding processes managed by the Peacebuilding Contact Group and the Senior Peacebuilding Group through preparation for meetings, research,background papers and technical notes.

Provice technical support in Policy Development:

Maintain an on-going watching brief of policy developments in the fields of peacebuilding, statebuilding, fragile state governance, public service delivery, and early recovery including via monitoring of debates in the Security Council, PBC, regional organizations and other relevant forums;
Manage the working level coordination of the implementation of the Secretary-General’s action plan for gender-responsive peacebuilding (October 2010, A/65/866-S/2010/466) as it is integrated in broader peacebuilding, conflict prevention and sustaining peace frameworks, In partnership with the PBSO,
Provide technical support to UN Women Country Officess as well as UN Missions and select UNCTs in implementing gender-responsive peacebuilding programming and policy work, through regular exchanges, community of practice, commissioned research, networking and exchanges, conferences, training, and other relevant forms of support;
Maintain a rolling calendar of major peacebuilding opportunities for women in conflict and post-conflict situations, such as peace talks and national dialogues, constitutional debates, donor conferences, recovery and Peacebuilding Assessments, Common Country Assessments, Transition Plans, etc. Negotiate with relevant partners support for women’s direct input to these processes or for the provision of gender analysis and expertise;
Provide technical support to UN, Government and CSO partners on gender-responsive peace building, as requested;
Organize expert preparatory meetings, panels and other interactive events on gender, youth and peacebuilding and conflict prevention as requested by the supervisor and in close coordination with Section Colleagues;
Provide inputs to public and internal communication of results and good practices of Seven Point Action plan and related results, including preparation of briefs, managing production of knowledge products, participation in appropriate global knowledge events.

Provide Partnership Building and Advocacy Support:

Strengthen partnerships with other UN agencies and international policy making forums to highlight and reinforce accountability mechanisms for promoting and implementing gender-responsive peacebuilding approaches, programmes and policies; support inter-agency work and processes pertaining to gender, conflict prevention, transitions and peacebuilding within the UN system, as requested;
Provide technical comtributions to the development of strategic approaches to policy dialogue, resource mobilization, partnerships, and outreach;
Establish and nurture relationship with academia, research institutes, civil society and experts in women and peacebuilding to expand and share knowledge, exchange views on latest findings, incorporate cutting-edge thinking in UN work on gender-responsive peacebuilding and youth, peace and security;
Provide technical support to UN Women’s internal network and partnership with inter alia Country, Regional and Multi-Country Offices, thematic sections, programme division and intergovernmental support division to capture and utilize internal capacity to engage in conflict prevention efforts, as well as sustaining the gains in peacebuilding.

Provide Knowledge Management Support:

Establish systems for documenting and analyzing the successful practices and lessons learned in the area of gender-responsive peacebuilding, including implementation of the Seven Point Action Plan (including contracting consultants for commissioned research);
Provde technical inpuits to the development of policy and knowledge, as appropriate and under the guidance of the Policy Specialist and overall direction of Section Chief;
Monitor and provide substantive guidance and technical inputs to ensure the quality of knowledge products and capacity development tools, as requested;
Provide feedback to UN Women offices on case studies and other related knowledge products and publications as requested and needed;
Identify knowledge gaps and recruit, monitor and assess performance of consultants and other service providers hired to design and develop knowledge products related to the on-going programmes, as requested;
Produce knowledge products to meet UN Women needs and standards of quality, as requested'
Provide technical support to the development and implementation of training of UN Women staff and UN partners in gender-responsive peacebuilding, as requested.

Key Performance Indicators:

UN Women demonstrates global leadership on gender-responsive peacebuilding and women’s leadership and engagement in transitions and improves the responsiveness of the UN’s peacebuilding efforts to engage women and respond to their needs. High quality technical assistance on gender and peacebuilding is made available via knowledge products and hands-on advice to UN Women Country and Regional Offices. The incumbent contributes to the smooth and successful implementation of peacebuilding priority interventions that support the WPS frameworks and policies, with priority on the SG’s Seven Point Action Plan.

Timely and quality technical advice to Regional and Country Offices;
Results-oriented reporting on the Seven Point Action plan, for internal and external audiences as per work plan;
Quality brief of policy developments in the fields of peacebuilding, statebuilding, fragile state governance, public service delivery, and early recovery;
Releationship with partners;
Systems deveveloped for documentating and analyzing successful practices, maiking information easily available.

Competencies

Core Values:

Respect for Diversity;
Integrity;
Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
Accountability;
Creative Problem Solving;
Effective Communication;
Inclusive Collaboration;
Stakeholder Engagement;
Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf.

Functional Competencies:

Good knowledge of gender related issues including in peacebuilding, statebuilding and transitions;
Ability to undertake policy research and prepare quantitative studies, utilizing statistical methodologies, knowledge of database applications for statistical analysis;
Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;
Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints;
Establishes, builds and sustains effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client’s perspective;
Ability to draft policy papers, speeches, briefings etc;
Ability to develop and maintain roster of experts, and a databank of research institutes, academics, civil society experts, etc. of direct relevance to the Focus Area.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree (or equivalent) in development related disciplines, gender issues, economics, political science, human rights, law or other social science fields, of direct relevance to women peace and security.

Experience:

A minimum of 5 years of increasingly responsible professional experience in gender and peacebuilding/statebuilding, policy research and gender analysis, policy and programming;
Experience implementing gender-responsive peacebuilding intiaitives at the country level is strongly preferred;
Experience working on gender equality programming in peacekeeping or peacebuilding contexts is highly desirable.

Languages:

Fluency in English is required. Working knowledge of another UN official language is an asset, especially Arabic or French.

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.