Background

The UN Women (UNW), 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 centre of all its efforts, the UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN WOMEN West & Central Africa has been supporting multi initiatives through programming, global advocacy and building strategic partners with national governments, civil society, UN agencies and other bilateral and multi lateral development organizations. In this process, UN WOMEN West and Central Africa has contributed to building interest, capacity and commitment to integrating Gender issues processes in West and Central Africa region. UN WOMEN Regional and country offices are supporting a number of other initiatives at regional levels.

UN WOMEN’ West & Central Africa strategic plan is to increase the number processes that fully incorporate Gender Equality. To achieve this, UN WOMEN West & Central Africa envisions to deepen its programmes, strengthen application in priority sectors and broaden partnerships with multi lateral and bilateral development agencies. UN WOMEN regional strategies include implementation of cross regional programme as well as national programmes in support of Gender issues.

The Programme Assistant reports to the Senegal Programme Coordinator and is responsible performing a variety of programme and administrative task and services in the Senegal programme ensuring timeliness, accuracy and compliance with UNW rules, regulations, processes and procedures and promotes a client, quality and results oriented approach. The Programme Assistant works in close collaboration with Programme unit team and Operations team in location in the WCARO to exchange information and ensure consistent service delivery.

Duties and Responsibilities

The incumbent will specifically handle the following tasks:

  • Overall administrative arrangements, operations and logistics;
  • Preparation of correspondences, documents and publications in collaboration with the communication unit;
  • Support for substantive and financial project reporting;
  • Review budgets and assist the Programme & Policy unit in determining appropriate budget lines where activities can be charged;
  • Arranging appointments, meetings and missions;
  • Organize both in-coming and out-going correspondences;
  • Organize consultation meetings with clients, including participants’ travel and administrative arrangements, negotiating and securing meeting venues, meeting set-up and meeting documents preparation as well as report finalization;
  • Arrange for regional meeting as required, including the liaison officers meetings;
  • As required, assist in drafting assessment reports, evaluation reports and research documents;
  • As required, assist in developing budgets for projects and strategies.

Competencies

Core Values/Guiding Principles.

Integrity:

  • Demonstrate 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 and valuing diversity:

  • Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff;
  • Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity. 

Core competencies.

Ethics and Values:

  • Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity.

Organizational Awareness:

  • Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment.

Development and Innovation:

  • Take charge of self-development and take initiative.

Work in teams:

  • Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.

Communicating and Information Sharing:

  • Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication.

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:

  • Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.

Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing:

  • Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge.

Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making:

  • Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making.

Functional Competencies:

  • Ability to administer and execute administrative processes and transactions;
  • Ability to extract, interpret, analyze data and resolve operational problems;
  • Ability to perform work of confidential nature and handle a large volume of work;
  • Ability to support a team and team building skills;
  • Good knowledge of administrative rules and regulations;
  • Strong IT skills;
  • Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback;
  • Ability to handle web-based management systems;
  • Attention to detail;
  • Excellent knowledge of office software packages;
  • Strong organizational and planning skills;
  • Strong focus on client service; ensuring impact and results for client;
  • Produces quality outputs in a timely manner;
  • Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
  • Ability to work well under pressure, and to meet deadlines.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: 

  • Secondary education;
  • Undergraduate degree in Business Administration or related fields is desirable but not a requirement.

Experience: 

  • 6 years of relevant experience in administration, procurement, HR, or logistic support service;
  • Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.). 

Language:

  • Fluency in English is required;
  • Knowledge of official national language essential.