Background

Candidates who previously applied need not re-apply.

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.

This position is joint with UNHCR. UNHCR is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people.

In Bangladesh UNHCR provides protection and essential services for 30,000 registered refugees from Myanmar. They live in two refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar region. The camps represent one of the most protracted refugee situations in the world, with around 60% of residents born in Bangladesh. One of the biggest protection issues in the camp is the lack of safety for women, combined with low rates of participation by women in decision making and few opportunities for economic engagement.  An existing conservative culture among the refugee population coupled with years of frustration and hopelessness have contributed to a very high level of sexual and gender based violence in the camps.

The Gender Advisor will work with the International/ Senior Gender Advisor to provide technical leadership and capacity development aimed at addressing violence against women and supporting women’s participation in economic activities and decision-making processes.  This position will also work directly with women in the refugee camps to design and implement programs to improve their status and reduce SGBV.

Objectives and Expected Outputs

The overall objective of the work of the Gender Advisor is to contribute to increased economic and social empowerment of women in the refugee camps through overseeing direct interventions and strengthening the capacity and leadership of UN agencies and other humanitarian stakeholders to undertake and promote gender-sensitive humanitarian programming. 

Priority Areas of Intervention:

The Gender Advisor will focus on two priority areas of intervention:

• Programme design and implementation – working with both female and male refugees in a participatory manner to design and implement activities to increase women’s social, political and economic empowerment in the camps, strengthen women’s voice in community structures and decision making, and other issues;
• Capacity building and knowledge management – designing and overseeing capacity building for women and men in the camps, contributing to capacity building of key humanitarian stakeholders on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment in the humanitarian context and supporting  UN Women’s capacity to contribute to humanitarian response in Bangladesh.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of the UN Women Country Representative (Deputy Country Representative), the support of the UNHCR Senior Protection Officer and direct supervision of the Senior Gender Advisor  the Gender Advisor will support the implementation of the following key activities: 

Programme design, implementation and monitoring:

• Contribute to and support initial analysis of gender equality and women’s empowerment issues in the refugee camps, and a comprehensive mapping of processes and activities intended to address these issues;
• Facilitate the engagement of refugee women and men in prioritizing key issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment and in designing interventions to address these issues;
• Lead outreach activities in the camp targeted towards young refugee women to address child marriage and adolescent pregnancy;
• Support the Senior Gender Advisor to establish a strong community warden system that includes both female and male refugees;
• Implement activities to increase the economic empowerment of female refugees, and ensure that all activities include education on women’s rights and life skills (such as reproductive health);
• Support the Senior Gender Advisor to design and implement activities to facilitate outreach to young females, to increase awareness of child marriage and adolescent pregnancies, with a strong focus on activities that target young women who face restrictions on their movement;
• Support the Senior Gender Advisor in implementing processes for monitoring and reporting on progress toward the intended results of the IKEA Foundation project and adapting interventions as needed.

Capacity Building and Knowledge Management:

• Provide capacity building that will strengthen women’s capacities to participate in improving their situation and having a voice in decision-making, including interventions aimed to create a more enabling environment as well as to build individual or group awareness, skills and knowledge;
• Identify needs and opportunities to provide inter-agency capacity building support across sectors/ partners in coordination and with the support of the Senior Gender Advisor;
• Facilitate capacity building activities for staff and partners which should include gender equality concepts, engendering information and analysis, good practices for working with and supporting women refugees, and incorporation of gender equality issues in programming frameworks;
• Contribute to and develop UN Women knowledge and practice in humanitarian action.

Impact of Results

The impact of the Gender Advisor’s role  will be to support changes in the refugee camps in order to achieve positive outcomes for women and girls by:

• Supporting implementation of initiatives that directly address key issues of gender equality and women’s social, economic and political empowerment;
• Enhancing the capacity of refugees, partner NGO staff and UNHCR staff to ensure an enabling environment for women’s equality and empowerment.

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;
• Professionalism: Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.

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 an enabling environment through open communication, especially with local women groups.

Self-management and Emotional intelligence:

• Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others.

Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements:

• Address conflicts proactively, acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning:

• Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

• Fair, transparent, creative and informed decision making.

Functional Competencies:

• Ability to pragmatically apply in-depth knowledge and experience of issues and practices in the fields of gender equality and women’s empowerment to humanitarian context;
• Strong communications skills, and experience in presenting evidence and ideas for policy and programme;
• Proven analytical and problem solving skills;
• Effectiveness in establishing and fostering good relations with humanitarian counterparts, UN agencies, NGOs, national and local partners;
• Ability to promote knowledge management and a learning environment in UNHCR and UN Women through personal example;
• Ability to contribute to strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
• Ability to contribute to the formulation. Implementation, management and monitoring of projects;
• Knowledge of financial management, contract, asset and procurement, information and communication technology, general administration as it relates to programme management;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
• 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 2 years of directly relevant, progressively responsible experience with the development projects;
• Specialized knowledge or experience in at least one of gender-based violence, women’s participation in decision-making or women’s economic empowerment for women;
• Demonstrated skills in capacity development and programme development or implementation related to gender equality or women’s empowerment;
• Familiarity and experience with humanitarian system coordination and results-based management would be a distinct asset.

Language:

• Fluency in oral and written English is required;
• Outstanding oral communication skills in Bangla.