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. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.As the protracted nature of the Syrian conflict continues and its impact on neighboring countries and host communities is more severe, there is an increasing recognition among all partners that the development challenges arising from the crisis need accelerated actions and enhanced capacity in order to be addressed. In this respect, UN Women is contributing to the UNCT and HCT processes to support the Government of Jordan’s efforts and the UN humanitarian response to the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on the Jordanian host communities. UN efforts have led to the preparation and adoption of a National Resilience Plan (NRP) for 2014-16 and a Jordan Response Plan 2015 to the Syria Crisis (JRP), which provides a coordinated and coherent multi-sectorial national response to the crisis.

Experiences and best practices from refugee and resilience programming has enabled UN Women to be well placed to quickly scale up and respond to the growing and specific needs of women, girls, boys and men in host communities and among refugees. Given UN Women’s strong partnerships with the civil society in Jordan and the increasing strategic and technical contributions within both the development sector and the humanitarian context, strategic involvement and implementation is planned according to good practices from existing programs to support the building of social cohesion in Jordan. Through partnership with local partners UN Women ensures that the most vulnerable women, girls, boys and men are identified and addressed in order to maximize impact of the planned activities.

The Gender Programme Specialist will serve as a member of the Response, Recovery and Resilience Team within the UN Women Country Office and will be responsible for supporting the team’s work on programme roll out through supporting high quality project strategy and implementation, including leading on the team’s advocacy and research.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision and guidance of the UN WOMEN Jordan Recovery Specialist, who serves as the head of the Response, Recovery and Resilience Team, the Specialist will support programme oversight, will serve as a technical leader on gender and protection in humanitarian and resilience programming, and will roll out the team’s advocacy and up-stream policy research work.

  • Support to programme delivery through the creation of strategic interventions and partnerships to enhance UN Women’s humanitarian and resilience programming through programme monitoring, identification of areas for programme strengthening; the development of strategies to address these and work with field level staff to roll out the implementation of these strategies. E.g. the coherent integration of men and boys in UN Women’s protection work.
  • Support to the implementation of the RRR team programme, including through the provision of support on operational issues and delivery.
  • Strengthening of working level partnerships with government institutions, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, private sector, civil society– especially in areas related to protection, livelihoods and social cohesion.
  • Support to grantee’s in rolling out UN Women’s social cohesion portfolio with technical assistance.
  • Analysis and research of information on donors, preparation of substantive briefs on donor strategies and national development strategies, provision of advice to UN Women staff on ensuring synchronicity, alignment and complementarity between these strategies and UN Women activities.
  • Support UN Women’s engagement in national and other coordination structures on issues related to resilience, humanitarian action and protection.
  • Ensuring linkages and consistency between the inter-agency SGBV and protection working group efforts and UN Women camp-based programme implementation, incl. collaborating on joint events, campaigns and standard operating procedures (SOP).
  • Enhance UN Women visibility and leadership in JRP related sectoral working groups and IASC working level groups, including through the provision of technical assistance on gender equality
  • The provision of technical assistance on gender equality to national and international partners.
  • Attend technical working groups as relevant.
  • Implementation of UN Women’s advocacy work on gender equality in Jordan
  • Collate, analyze and disseminate knowledge on gender equality in Jordan, with a focus on humanitarian action and resilence programming.
  • Develop strategic alliances between national and international partners to identify common areas of concern for increased advocacy/awareness, specifically related to gender equality in humanitarian action and women’s engagement in the economy.
  • Support the development of common advocacy strategies across partners, linked to the UN’s communication initiatives, and link advocacy with Government of Jordan key policy issues.
  • Commission research on identified knowledge gaps and oversee the production and dissemination of research.

The duration of the assignment will be one year and the duty station will be Amman, Jordan with travel to field operations. The Specialist is expected to carry out his/her functions from the UN Women premises. Office space and equipment will be provided by UN Women.

Competencies

  • Good Team player.
  • Knowledge of the gender dimensions of humanitarian and development response.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
  • Substantive knowledge of issues on gender equality and women's economic empowerment.
  • Outstanding networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills.
  • Capacity to work with and promote collaboration with diverse partners including governments, donors, UN country teams and civil society.
  • Ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure.
  • Strong knowledge of the development and humanitarian frameworks that guide the Syrian response in Jordan.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Masters Degree related to humanitarian response, international development, or a related social science subjects.

Language(s):

  • Fluency in spoken and written English is a requirement;
  • Spoken Arabic is a strong asset.

Experience:

  • A minimum 5 years of progressively responsible experience working on humanitarian/ development issues; Experience working in protracted crises/ post conflict environments is a strong asset. 
  • Proven experience working on issues of gender equality and advocating for women’s needs/rights.
  • Proven experience working on protection in humanitarian contexts.
  • Demonstrated ability to work in an independent manner; ability to organize work efficiently and deal with multiple tasks.
  • Proven experience supporting UN/national coordination processes/mechanisms
  • Experience developing M&E frameworks and overseeing their implementation.
  • Experience engaging with stakeholders, and working with diverse partners.
  • Prior working experience with the UN is strongly desired. Experience working in Jordan is strongly desired.

Language:

  • Fluent in English.

Salary:

The position will be remunerated based on an “all inclusive” monthly lump-sum (week-ends and public holidays are not included). The proposed  lump-sum will also be inclusive of travel to and from Jordan, Teminal expenses and  Visa and Residence Perimit fees.The successful candidate will receive his/her payment at the end of every month based on a time sheet duly approved by the UN Women Country Representative.

Interested applicants for this position must submit the following or the application will not be considered:

  • UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
  • Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment;
  • Proposed monthly-lump sum.

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The selected applicant will be requested to submit a “Statement of Good Health” from a recognized physician prior to commencement of work, certifying that the individual is in good physical and mental health and is capable of undertaking the related consultancy and if required to travel is fit to travel and has had the required inoculations for the country or countries to which the individual is to travel. The individual shall take full responsibility for the accuracy of that statement.