Background

UN Women is the United Nations organization dedicated to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. As a global advocate for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress in improving the lives of women and responding to the needs they face around the world.

UN Women supports United Nations Member States in setting international standards for achieving gender equality and works with governments and civil society to formulate and enforce the laws, policies, programs and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and that they truly benefit women and girls around the world. It focuses on five priority areas:

• Increasing women's leadership and participation.
• Ending violence against women.
• Involving women in all aspects of peace and security processes.
• Improve women's economic empowerment.
• Make gender equality central to national planning and budgeting for development.

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women), Ethiopia Country Office (ECO) is working towards ensuring a gender responsive financing system within the public finance management system in Ethiopia. It ensures that new and existing internationally and nationally agreed commitments on GEWE are effectively financed in Ethiopia by enabling the government to establish Gender Responsive National Planning and Budgeting system.

Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) aims at mainstreaming gender into public budgets, looking into how financial resources are collected and allocated with respect to women and men. GRB is used to shape policies, set priorities and provide the means to meet the social and economic needs of all citizens. It helps governments understand potential adjustments in resources needed to achieve their priorities and commitments to achieve gender equality and advance women’s rights as stipulated in international conventions, commitments and goals, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing platform for action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Beyond ensuring accountability to women’s rights, GRB is also a step towards improved public transparency and economic efficiency.

Ministry of Finance (MoF) leads nationally in promoting GRB and has mandated its Gender Directorate to engage relevant directorates within the Ministry, demonstrating political will and direction. While progress has been made in integrating gender in the revised financial administration proclamation and budget call and building the capacity of experts and officials using the GRB guidelines, an accountability mechanism to ensure that gender is integrated in sectoral planning and budgeting processes is not yet in place. This limits the government’s ability to realize its commitment to uphold the rights of Ethiopian women, including through the financing of national programmes.

It is in this context that UN Women in Ethiopia is seeking to recruit a Programme Associate to support the National Planning (NP) Programme Portfolio and members of the Programme Team in the effective development, implementation, monitoring and knowledge management tasks  in consistent with UN Women rules and regulations. S/he contributes to research, financial management, and programme implementation, monitoring, reporting and communication by providing necessary operational, administrative and programmatic support.

Reporting to the NP Programme Analyst the Programme Associate works with and provides support to the members of the NP Programme. The Programme Associate works in close collaboration with the operations, other programme units and staff in the CO and UN Women Regional Office and HQs as required for resolving complex programmatic and finance-related issues and exchange of information.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide administrative and logistical support to the formulation and management of programmes and Partners Relations

• Provide administrative support in the preparation of programme work plans, budgets and proposals and programme implementation arrangements,
• Assist the programme team in the drafting of Terms of Reference (TOR) , call for proposals(CFP)  and Internal Memos  and related,
• Support the programme team in tracking use of financial resources, follow up with Implementing Partners (IPs) for timely reporting, review of reports from the same ,
• Prepare information for the audit of programme and support implementation of audit recommendations, 
• Follow up with the team on the regular update of the monthly and quarterly tracking tools,
• Closely work with programme and finance team in ensuring timely fund transfers as per the plans /agreements with Ips,
• Assist the programme team in conducting trainings to key stakeholders and partners,
• Prepare ToR, Concept note, contracts and workshop report for the NP programme   
• Support and monitor UN Women’s internal procedures in creating agreements and keeping appropriate recordings and relations with IPs,
• Support and monitor the logistical and administrative execution of the NP Programme activities.

Provide administrative support to the financial management of the Programme Unit

• Create projects in Atlas, prepare budget revisions, revise project awards and status; and determine unutilized funds and the operational and financial close of a project,
• Provide administrative support in monitoring budget preparation and the finances of programme/projects, including the finalization of FACE forms.
• Review financial reports and assist them technically if need may arise,
• prepare non-PO vouchers for development projects,
• Process payment for consultants,
• Maintain internal expenditures control system,
• Create requisitions in Atlas for development projects; register good receipts in Atlas and
• Assist in the preparation and follow up of cost-recovery bills in Atlas.

 Provide administrative support to the Programme Unit

• Undertake all logistical, administrative and financial arrangements for organization for meetings, workshops, events, and missions,
• Make travel arrangements for the Programme Team, including travel requisitions and claims, 
• Prepare public information materials and briefing packets,
• Assemble briefing materials and prepare power-point and other presentations,
• Create requisitions (ERQ) for procurements and process payments for consultants,
• Receive correspondence and articulate the response with counterparts,
• Assist in drafting annual reports of the programme and uploading of cleared reports to RMS,
• Support the registration of new contracts and vendors and ensure expenditures are aligned with budget lines,
• Communicate and follow up with the operations team in facilaiting gender responsive procurement by sharing up to date WOB information and providing technical support to the team,

Provide administrative support to Resource Mobilization

• Prepare cost-sharing and other agreements,
•  follow up with programme  unit’s  resource mobilization efforts;
• Organize, compile and process information from donors, Regional and Country Office, and programme team, as inputs to various databases and documents.

Facilitate Knowledge Building and Knowledge Sharing

• Provide administrative support synthesis of lessons learnt and best practices related to programme management and finance.
• Provide administrative support to the organization of training for the office staff and partners on programme and operations related issues.
• Assist the team in holding regular Programme team meetings and take minutes of the meetings and follow-up with the team members on implementations agreed action points,  
• Identify sources and gather and compile data and information for the preparation of documents, guidelines, speeches and position papers.
• Assist in dissemination of knowledge products generated under NP programme portfolio,
• Keep an updated physical and digital archive of all NP Programme documentation/ knowledge products,
• Assist suppliers/service providers in the production of knowledge products, the editing and design activities,  
• Assist the team in internally designing and production of quality knowledge products and promotion materials and
• Perform other job-related duties as assigned.

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

Functional Competencies

• Good knowledge of programme management.
• Ability to administer and execute administrative processes and transactions;
• Ability to create, edit and present information in clear and presentable formats;
• Ability to manage data, documents, correspondence and reports information and workflow;
• Strong financial and budgeting skills;
• Strong IT skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education 

• Bachelor’s Degree or Master’s  in Social Science field  is an asset.

Expierence

• At least 2 years of progressively responsible experience in administration or programme management/support.
• Experience in working in a computer environment using multiple office software packages;
• Experience in the use of ATLAS is an asset;
• Experience in supporting a team.

Language

• Fluency in English is required
• Knowledge of the other UN official working language and other local languages are an asset.
• Knowledge of Amharic is an asset