UN WOMEN Jobs - 45794- Gender and Humanitarian Specialist

Gender and Humanitarian Specialist - (Open to South Sudanese Nationals Only)

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Juba, SOUTH SUDAN

Type of Contract :

Service Contract

Starting Date :

01-Jun-2014

Application Deadline :

29-Apr-14 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

SB-5

Duration of Initial Contract :

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

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 centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations System’s efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. UN Women provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

Since December 2013 armed violence triggered by a political dispute within the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) on December 15, 2013, degenerated into fierce fighting between armed forces supporting the president and those loyal to his former deputy. The fighting resulted in massive violence and displacement, and spread rapidly from Juba, Central Equatorial State to Jonglei, Unity and Upper Nile states; taking on an ethnic trajectory. Lakes and Warrap states have been indirectly affected by the violence as people displaced from neighboring states have arrived there seeking refuge. The armed violence has resulted in a humanitarian crisis, including but not limited to the loss of lives, widespread displacement within and outside of the country, rape, and other forms of gender based violence against women and girls, torture, destruction of property, and forced recruitment of boys and male youth into the arms forces.

Violence against women and girls is both a feature of today’s escalating humanitarian crisis and a persistent feature of daily life across South Sudan. It is a deeply entrenched problem that has a severe impact on the health, well-being and opportunities of generations of women. Women and girls reported that rape and domestic violence were common, both during their flight and in the camp. Afraid to speak out, women and girls are often cut off from help, including health care and other basic services.

Within the IASC Cluster response, gender is identified as one of four priority cross cutting issues to be integrated in all stages of humanitarian action in the interest of helping to ensure quality and accountability of humanitarian assistance. At the country level, Cluster coordinators are responsible for ensuring that all cross-cutting issues, including gender, are integrated into sectoral needs assessments, analysis, planning, monitoring and response, and for ensuring gender-sensitive programming and promoting gender equality.

Gender-responsive humanitarian action helps to ensure a more accurate
understanding of a humanitarian situation, facilitates the design of more appropriate responses, highlights opportunities and resources within an affected community, and can provide a link between humanitarian assistance and long-term development. It helps to ensure that humanitarian assistance is planned and implemented in a way that benefits all sectors of the affected population, in line with an analysis of their specific rights, needs, and capacities.

In line with our global mandate, UN Women South Sudan will like to ensure that gender is effectively mainstreamed into humanitarian activities by: revising of existing Cluster standards, tools and guidelines; developing capacities in South Sudan on Gender and Humanitarian Action; deploying Gender Capacity experts.

As a result of the continued fighting the UN Humanitarian Coordinator has declared the emergency in South Sudan to be level 3, thus necessitating special measures such as the deployment of a Gender Advisor.

The Gender Advisor will provide technical leadership and support on Gender Equality Programming in Humanitarian Action in South Sudan.

Objectives and Expected Outputs

The main output is to facilitate and strengthen capacity and leadership of UN agencies to undertake and promote gender-sensitive humanitarian programming to ensure the distinct needs of women, girls, boys and men of all ages, are taken into account in humanitarian action in South Sudan.

The Gender Advisor will support the UN country team to improve planning, implementation and monitoring of humanitarian and early recovery programming. Main responsibilities encompass:

Identifying gender-specific information needs;
Undertaking analysis of key issues impacting on gender and gender based violence;
ssisting in incorporating gender analysis into planning frameworks; and
Supporting coordination forums to ensure cross-cutting aspects of gender analysis.

Priority Areas of Intervention

The Gender Advisor will focus on five priority areas of intervention

Information and analysis;
Programme planning assistance;
Capacity building;
Coordination and;
Advocacy.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of the UN Women Country Representative (Deputy Country Representative) the Gender Advisor will support the implementation of the following key activities:

Information and Analysis:

The Gender Advisor will assist sectors/clusters to incorporate sex and age disaggregated data into assessment, programming and monitoring frameworks;
The Gender Advisor will also be expected to undertake specific analysis on the impact of various conflict specific issues on gender and gender related violence;
Support the UNCT to undertake a gender assessment of Cluster work and capacity at national and state levels, including an assessment of Cluster work plans, Cluster assessment, planning and monitoring tools, and technical capacity on gender among Cluster partners, to identify gaps and opportunities.

Programme Planning Assistance:

The Gender Advisor will undertake fact finding missions to the conflict-affected areas and communities hosting IDPs to assess the humanitarian and human rights situation of IDPs / returnees;
Planning assistance will include support for the Common Humanitarian Action Plan (CHAP) as well as possible Transitional Plans to support stabilization and return;
Support the Inter agency clusters and partners to revise planning documents, and integrate gender into results frameworks, indicators and related monitoring and results tracking systems.

Capacity Building:

The Gender Advisor will facilitate capacity building activities which should include gender concepts, engendering information and analysis and incorporation of gender in planning frameworks. Training should also cover gender based violence. Develop a series of core training modules on the practical dimensions of gender responsive programming in emergencies in close collaboration with the UNCT and OCHA. The modules will serve as basis for capacity building activities for the interagency clusters and partners. Provide support in designing and implementing the gender-responsive interventions, and in setting up a system for monitoring impact.

Coordination:

The Gender Advisor will contribute to streamlining and effectiveness of the UNDAF Gender Thematic Group and the SGBV working group, as well as support cross sectoral coordination efforts of the UNCT and IASC work at both the national and state levels, in particular with regards to the protection and IDP working groups.

Advocacy:

The Gender Advisor will liaise with the various working groups (Protection, Gender Thematic, IDP, and IASC) to support the common understanding of key issues and to develop common messages and approaches for advocacy.

Impact of Results

The Gender Advisor will oversee the implementation of the UN Women South Sudan’s strategy for mainstreaming gender in humanitarian action to ensure gender equality in humanitarian action.

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.

Developing and Empowering People / Coaching and Mentoring:

Building staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation at the community level.

Working in Teams:

Building and promoting effective teams.

Communicating Information and Ideas:

Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication especially with local women groups.

Self-management and Emotional intelligence:

Creating an emotionally intelligent organization.

Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements:

Leveraging conflict in the interests of the organization & setting standards.

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.

Functional competencies

Promotes knowledge management in UN Women and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example;
Development and Operational Effectiveness; ;
Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting ;
Ability to lead the formulation. Implementation, management and monitoring of projects ;
Solid knowledge of financial and human resources management, contract, asset and procurement, information and communication technology, general administration
Ability to build strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills;
Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities.

Required Skills and Experience

Education

An advanced University degree (Masters level) in social sciences, political science, international affairs, local development, international development studies, gender/women’s studies, human rights or a related technical field.

Experience

At least 4 years relevant experience programming, especially in humanitarian action and gender;
Demonstrated knowledge and understanding of programming for community interventions;
Experience engaging in results oriented in-country capacity development;
Experience supporting community programmes in conflict and post conflict situations is desirable;
Professional project management, monitoring and evaluation experience;
Experience working with communities is desirable;
Experience working within the UN is an asset.

Language Requirements

Outstanding oral and written communication skills in English;
Fluency in Arabic and Arabic Juba is required.