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.

The Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division develops and implements UN Women’s programme of work across its normative, coordination, and operational triple mandate and provides policy advice and guidance and technical support to intergovernmental processes, UN system, and UN Women regional and country offices, among other partners and stakeholders. The Division is organized in thematic sections, which undertake policy research; analyze data on country, regional and global trends; and propose evidence-based options for global policy, norms and standards as well as for UN Women’s policy advocacy and global programme strategies, including flagship programme initiatives. The Division also undertakes substantive preparations for the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and drafts reports on behalf of the Secretary-General on multiple topics. With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Women is supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) towards achieving gender equality and women's economic empowerment by 2030 to benefit all women and girls. UN Women works in partnership with governments, multilateral organizations, the UN System, civil society organizations and the private sector.

Economic empowerment (EE) is one of the priority areas of UN Women. UN Women works with governments and partners to promote women’s income security, decent work, and economic autonomy. Under UN Women’s Strategic Plan (2022-2025), the Economic Empowerment section will undertake signature interventions on Women’s Climate Action and Green/Blue Economies and Decent Work and Entrepreneurship.

Aligned to these signature interventions, UN Women jointly implements the Joint Programme ‘Accelerating Progress towards Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment’ (JP RWEE) together with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP). The JP RWEE is a global initiative with an overarching goal to secure rural women’s livelihoods, rights and resilience in the context of sustainable development. Specifically, the programme has 4 integrated outcomes: 1) it seeks to Improve food security and nutrition; 2) Increase income to sustain livelihoods; 3) enhance women's participation in decision-making; and 4) enable a more gender-responsive policy environment for the economic empowerment of rural women.

The first phase of this programme was jointly implemented from 2014 to 2021 by the FAO, IFAD, UN Women and WFP in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Nepal, Niger and Rwanda. The programme reached almost 80,000 direct beneficiaries and over 400,000 indirect beneficiaries during the first phase of implementation. The programme has recently begun implementation of a Phase 2 in Nepal, Niger, the Pacific Islands, Tanzania and Tunisia from 2022-2027, with support of Norway and Sweden through the United Nations Multi-Partner Trust Fund. The programme seeks to further scale up this proven holistic model to new locations, and UN Women has received funding to include Rwanda in Phase 2 through a direct grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) on “Food Crisis Response: Rural Women's Economic Empowerment”.

The Programme Specialist will support the implementation and monitoring and evaluation of the “Food Crisis Response: Rural Women's Economic Empowerment” project in close collaboration with the JP RWEE Global Coordination Unit to ensure harmonization across countries, with specific attention to Rwanda. The Programme Specialist will represent UN Women in the JP RWEE global Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) that is responsible for contributing to knowledge management, including the development of knowledge products and building the evidence base by integrating the latest research and findings to strengthen implementation and monitoring. The Programme Specialist will  contribute to Outcome 4 at global level to improve gender-responsive policies to create an enabling environment for rural women to secure their livelihoods, rights and resilience by supporting the strengthening of capacities of policy makers and other relevant stakeholders to enhance data collection and analysis and the use of gender-responsive tools to track progress on rural women’s economic empowerment, such as the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, and the organization of global and country-level policy dialogues to further decent work and entrepreneurship, food security and nutrition, climate-resilient agriculture and gender-responsive green/blue economies to advance rural women’s economic empowerment.  

Under the supervision of the Policy Advisor, Sustainable Development, and in close coordination with the JP RWEE Global Coordination Unit, the Programme Specialist will provide policy advice and technical support to UN Women HQ and field offices, particularly Rwanda, and partners in the context of the JP RWEE and contribute to interagency and intergovernmental processes.

Note: The duty station for the post will be determined at a later stage. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Support the technical implementation of the Food Crisis Response: Rural Women's Economic Empowerment project in the context of the Joint Programme on Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment (JP RWEE)

• Serve as a liaison with BMGF, support effective financial management of the BMGF grant and contribute to the evaluation and reporting on results, output and outcomes to BMGF;
• Support the finalization of the Rwanda JP RWEE programme workplan and budget during the inception phase in coordination with the JP RWEE Global Coordination Unit and Rwanda country team;
• Support project monitoring and reporting and contribute to the results framework and results tracker and to the preparation and submission of financial and narrative reports;
• Represent UN Women in the JP RWEE Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and participate in the JP RWEE International Steering Committee Meetings;
• Strengthen partnerships with implementing partners and research institutions working on data collection, monitoring and reporting in coordination with the Global Coordination Unit M&E Specialist;
• Support capacity development of national and sub-national stakeholders, including national statistical systems and ministries of agriculture, in collecting, analyzing, utilizing and reporting on gender statistics including sex-disaggregated data (such as agricultural censuses, surveys and SDG indicators);
• Promote the use of tools and data to track progress in the economic empowerment of rural women, such as the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index;   
• Contribute to the development of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index Global Synthesis Report of the JP RWEE in collaboration with the Global Coordination Unit M&E Specialist and IFAD.

Provide policy guidance and technical support on gender-responsive legal frameworks, policies and institutions to create an enabling environment for rural women to secure their livelihoods, rights and resilience

• Provide technical support on gender-responsive policies related to food systems, food security and nutrition, climate-resilient agriculture and decent work and entrepreneurship in the context of sustainable development, gender-responsive green/blue economies and the JP RWEE Outcome 4;
• Contribute to policy briefs and guidance on key issues related to JP RWEE;
• Support the capacity strengthening of policy makers and other relevant stakeholders to design, implement and track gender-responsive policies, strategies, legal frameworks and budgets.

Provide substantive support to intergovernmental and interagency processes in the context of food systems, food security and nutrition, climate-resilient agriculture, decent work and entrepreneurship to advance rural women’s livelihoods, rights and resilience

• Provide substantive support for UN Women’s engagement in normative processes, including Committee on World Food Security (CFS), Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) towards advancing the goals of the JP RWEE and creating an enabling environment for rural women’s economic empowerment by drafting background papers and briefings and preparing analytical summaries of debates, negotiations and outcomes;
• Provide technical contributions and participate in international meetings and conferences, bringing UN Women expertise and the experiences of the JP RWEE into global debates and discussions.

Facilitate knowledge management on rural women’s livelihoods, rights and resilience

• Provide technical and analytical support to the development and dissemination of policy papers, practice notes/concepts, other knowledge products and capacity building tools to help influence/advance policy dialogue, the evidence base for action and build knowledge among stakeholders;
• Support opportunities for experts and practitioners to share expertise, lessons learned and good practices by helping to organize online and offline dialogues (e.g., technical meetings, consultations, conferences, webinars).

Key Performance Indicators

• Quality and timely project design and inputs
• Quality and timely project delivery in line with budget and workplans
• Quality project management through effective donor relation management, financial management and donor reporting
• Quality project monitoring and evaluation
• Quality technical support to UN Women country office in Rwanda
• Quality and timely research, analysis and writing on gender equality and rural women’s livelihoods, rights and resilience
• Quality and timely contributions to briefings, knowledge products, publications and other documents related to the JP RWEE
• Quality representation, coordination and contributions to intergovernmental/interagency fora

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: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf 

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

• Substantive knowledge of gender equality and women’s rights issues in the area of economic empowerment and gender-responsive green/blue economies and food systems;
• Demonstrated relevant experience in supporting multi-country programmes;
• Demonstrated experience with project budgets and financial reports;
• Proven experience to deliver quality and timely donor reports;
• Strong oral communication and writing skills, with proven expertise in writing cogent and convincing policy and programme documents;
• Significant familiarity with intergovernmental and normative processes, i.e., CFS, CSW, UNGA, 2030 Agenda, etc.;
• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks under time constraints by establishing priorities;
• Proven ability to produce high quality written work within short timeframes.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in international development, gender/women’s studies, environmental, agricultural or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. 

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible work experience in supporting programme development and management in the area of gender equality, women’s economic empowerment, sustainable development and gender-responsive green/blue economies.
• Experience contributing to monitoring and evaluation of multi-country programmes.
• Experience working with United Nations Joint Programmes is an asset
• Demonstrated experience in contributing to normative and intergovernmental processes, such as CSW and UNGA.
• Experience working within the UN system highly desirable.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Working proficiency in French highly desirable.
• Knowledge of another UN official working language is an asset.

Application:

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc. 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.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)