Background

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women (UNW) will work 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 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.

UN Women's Andean regional office is located in Ecuador and carries out activities in each of the five Andean countries (Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia). In the context of Latin America's economic, social and political challenges, UN Women Andean Region fosters numerous opportunities to improve the conditions of Andean women and the fulfilment of their rights.

UN Women Andean Region will support and track changes in this thematic areas of work that contribute to Un Women's overarching goal of strengthening implementation of international commitments. In each it will spearhead global, regional and national-level advocacy, knowledge and network building, South-South exchange and capacity-development. It will also support cross-cutting actions at the national level.

In 2000, UN Women initiated its work on gender-sensitive budgets convinced that these are a powerful instrument to make public resource allocation more transparent, accountable and oriented to equality between women and men, as well as to foster women's participation and influence in governance processes. In Latin-American the programme started in Ecuador and was progressively extended to other Latin American countries. In 2005 this work was articulated in a regional programme named: Strengthening democratic governance at local level: Gender Responsive Budgets Initiatives in Latin America implemented from October 2005 to September 2009.

Building on the recommendations of the external evaluation carried out in 2008, a second phase of the programme was formulated for a four-year period (October 2009-September 2013). In this second phase the Programme will continue to provide support to gender responsive budgeting (GRB) efforts in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela which were part of the first phase of the programme, plus Colombia, where GRB was previously funded through UN Women core funds.

The second phase of the programme has already established partnerships with the Spanish Cooperation (AECID), the Basque Government and the United Nations Volunteers Programme (UNV). The programme also receives funding through its inclusion in two cross-regional programmes managed from UN Women and supported by the European Commission and the Belgium Government.

Duties and Responsibilities

1-Programme  and Financial Management:

• Overall coordination, supervision and assistance to develop the country implementation plans and to monitor its implementation in the 9 countries of the programne (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia Ecuador, Honduras, Peru, Venezuela and Uruguay);
• Coordinate the implementation of regional activities defined in the programme;
• Ensure the identification and the creation of necessary links with stakeholders to implement the the Programme;
• Monitor progress towards overall programme results through supporting regular review of activities and results at the country level, and through encouraging regular collection of data as indicated in the monitoring and results framework. Frequent field missions are an essential part of this;
• Identify gaps in Programme outputs and make the necessary adjustments;
• Supervise the production of finance and managerial information such as:  programme and project financial reports, including analysis of income, expenditure; monitors and updates financial data relating to the regional programme on a timely basis;
• Supervise the use of funds and the implementation arrangements;
• Supervise the performance of the programme team members to ensure that all tasks are executed in order to meet the objectives of the Programme;
• Ensure procurement and staffing requirements of the global programmes are met and comply with UN Women rules and regulations; 
• Ensure coordination and coherence with other program, project and activities on gender responsible budgets carried out by UN Women in the LAC region and on GRB worldwide;

2-Representation and outreach:

• Coordinate communication among UN Women Andean Region Office and the other executing Offices (Brazil and Mexico), as well as with LAC Section and the GRB team in NY;
• Supervise the preparation and submission of reports - financial and narrative reports to donors and partners as well as to UN Women;
• Provide donors and partners with periodical information about the implementation of programmes activities .Provide the Regional Programme Director with technical support to in order to negotiate further fundraising for the Programme;
• Represent UN Women at national and international events when delegated by the Regional Programme Director;
• Coordinate communication among UN Women Andean Region Office and the other executing Offices (Brazil and Mexico), as well as with LAC Section and the GRB team in NY;

3-Policy Support, Knowledge-sharing and Advocacy :

• Undertake periodic Programme reviews and visits to support strategic planning, monitoring progress of the activities and results, promote knowledge-sharing and enhance advocacy work); 
• Supervise the dissemination of tools, publications and products of the Programme;
• Coordinate and supervise regional studies and researches taken under the Programme framework;
• Establish systems for documenting and analyzing the conditions enabling notable impact of these initiatives (including contracting consultants for commissioned research). Frequent field missions are an essential part of this. Ensure information flow between field and HQ on lessons learned, promising approaches, less promising approaches;
• Support institutional learning, promoting the systematization of lessons learned, results and knowledge finding as result of the impact programme;
• Participate in global knowledge events and meetings, seminars and consultations planned as part of the programme as well as those defined by UN Women; 
• Attend programme meetings within UN Women, and other forums for coordinating planning and quality programme implementation, as relevant; provides other support to the programme team as necessary, including support in drafting project proposals, organizing programme workshops etc;
• Promote the dissemination of knowledge and lessons learned in the Programme at national and international events.
  

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: 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;
• Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning: Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.

 FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES

• Hands-on, operational, solutions-focussed, creative and resourceful;
• Strong Knowledge on gender and economic issues;
• Open to change with ability to manage complex situations and deliver satisfactory and timely results; 
• Demonstrated ability to juggle competing demands, to manage time effectively and adhere to deadlines, and to work flexibly with many advisers in a multicultural team; 
• Demonstrated initiative and ability to work independently; 
• Demonstrated ability to excel in a multi-cultural team environment; 
• Excellent interpersonal skills to support building networks and partnerships; 
• Excellent client service orientation; 
• Excellent communication / organizational skills, attention to details; 
• Strong analytical, writing and strategic thinking skills; 
• Extensive experience with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook & the Internet, human resource management, procurement and administration and financial management, familiarity with UN Women would be a strong asset; 
• Experience in operating web-based management systems and ERP systems, in particular ATLAS;
• Ability to quickly learn corporate software applications is a definite advantage;

Required Skills and Experience

• Master's Degree (or equivalent) in Economics or  in Gender and Development.

• At least 5 years of progressive working experience in  the promotion of women's human rights.
• Experience on gender responsible budget initiatives at least 5 years.
• Experience of at least 2 years on programme coordination.

• Written and oral proficiency in Spanish and English is required;
• Knowledge of other UN language is desirable.