UN WOMEN Jobs - 67108- UN Women: Recovery Specialist

UN Women: Recovery Specialist

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Amman, JORDAN

Type of Contract :

TA International

Starting Date :

Application Deadline :

11-Jul-16 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

P-4

Duration of Initial Contract :

5 months

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

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 is becoming more apparent and its impact on neighboring countries and host communities 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 Jordanian Government’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), the Jordan Response Plan for the Syria Crisis (both in 2015 and the current plan, 2016-18) which provide a coordinated and coherent multi-sectorial national response to the crisis.

To date, UN Women’s support to recovery efforts has entailed:

Supporting Syrian women refugees’ access to economic opportunities and to basic services, including working in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan through income-generating projects and access to psycho-social and legal support for GBV survivors; This work is currently being scaled up to Azraq camp;
Providing support to Jordanian nationals and Syrian refugees in the areas of service delivery and decision making in hosting communities, and providing Jordanian nationals with concrete employment and livelihoods opportunities;
Ensuring that there is knowledge and expertise available to address Syrian women’s humanitarian needs by the UN, the international community and other partners through assessments and documentation of the specific needs of Syrian women and girl refugees.

Against this background, UN Women is seeking to expand its work in the area of women’s economic empowerment and social cohesion in host communities affected by the Syrian crisis, and is providing ongoing technical to the Government of Jordan and partners in support of gender mainstreaming through the humanitarian and resilience response. Additionally, UN Women has brought on line a new work stream on women, peace and security.

The Recovery Specialist, under the supervision of the UN Women Representative in Jordan will assist the UN Women Country Office at multiple levels: 1) addressing specific needs of Syrian Women Refugees in the camp setting and communities for livelihood and social cohesion support, 2) responding to the needs of host communities; and 3) providing technical expertise to the relevant humanitarian and development coordination fora.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of key functions:

Policy Guidance and Strategic Planning;
Coordination and Partnership Building;
Evidence-based advocacy and Communication;
Capacity Building and Knowledge Management;
Programme Oversight and Management.

Description of Key Responsibilities:

Policy Guidance and Strategic Planning:

Lead development and implementation of the UN Women’s recovery framework with a focus on host communities and refugee crisis in Jordan, in partnership with UN agencies, in support of mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment concerns into recovery planning and programming;
Liaise with Government of Jordan and provide technical support on gender mainstreaming for the implementation of the Government’s Jordan Response Plan (JRP) for the Syria Crisis (2016-18);
Ensure high quality and timely reports, position papers and follow up actions;
Respond to requests for technical input on gender mainstreaming, social protection, and livelihoods in national JRP fora;
Promote the development of new projects under the JRP;
Draft/ provide inputs to concept notes, funding proposals and project documents;
Identify strategic programme approaches and modalities which provide value added for UN Women’s engagement in humanitarian action and recovery in Syria and countries in the region impacted by the Syrian crisis that are both relevant to the regional context and contribute to the global practice development;
Support collection of lessons learned, best practices, knowledge management;
Contribute to strategic thinking and policy decisions on strengthening gender mainstreaming into the JRP programming.

Coordination and Partnership Building:

Participate and lead UN Women’s contribution to the existing inter-agency coordination mechanisms established in Jordan in response to Syria crisis and contribute to enhance coherence of UN system in promoting gender equality concerns in recovery planning;
Contribute/Support internal UN Women processes that strengthen complementarity between Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan and JRP;
Contribute to strategic thinking and policy decisions on strengthening gender mainstreaming into recovery planning and programming;
Forge strategic partnerships and alliances at the country level to promote gender equality and women's advancement through joint projects and inter-agency efforts;
Negotiate relevant partnerships as needed to achieve UN Women Jordan strategic goals.

Advocacy and Communication:

Support UN Women’s Advocacy efforts to help raise awareness and stimulate action in addressing specific needs of Syrian women and girls refugees and advancing gender equality and women's rights in Jordan, establishing strategic partnerships with governments, UN agencies, NGOs, academia, foundations, private sector etc.;
Ensure information exchange on crosscutting themes within UN Women, with a particular focus on information chains between the Programme Division, Regional office, and relevant HQ teams;
Actively participate in country level programming processes, ensuring that the UN Women is strategically placed within UN recovery context. Assist the Jordan UNCT to secure expertise that will ensure commitment, quality control and resources for gender equality programming.

Capacity Building and Knowledge Management:

Contribute to UN Women’s global knowledge management efforts related to collection and dissemination of best practices on crisis response by documenting and sharing best recovery practices;
Promote development and dissemination of gender-sensitive tools and methodologies for strengthening gender coordination and mainstreaming in humanitarian action and recovery in the assigned portfolio;
Contribute to the development and maintenance of regional and national knowledge networks and practices on mainstreaming gender into recovery contexts;
Support country staff capacity development to engage in recovery and in supporting system coordination and responses from a gender perspective.

Programme Oversight and Management:

Manage and coordinate relevant program activities towards achieving expected results in accordance with the Project Document and the UN Women rules and procedures;
Assume responsibility for daily management of relevant parts of relevant portfolio- both organizational and substantive matters – budgeting, planning and general monitoring of the project;
Oversee execution of activities;
Facilitate the project implementation and coordination with partners;
Support reporting processes – both for internal and external stakeholders;
Monitor the expenditures, commitments and balance of funds in line with the annual implementation plan and reporting requirements;
Ensure full compliance with operational UNW rules and regulations in terms of procurement, human resources and finance.

Impact of Results

The functions of the incumbent have direct impacts on strengthening recovery programming for the benefit of Syrian refugee women and girls and Hosting Communities in Jordan. As such, the activities carried out by the incumbent will have a significant influence on the positioning and standing of UN Women in the country before national authorities, donors and other relevant stakeholders.

Competencies

Core values and 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 promote ethics and integrity by creating organizational precedents.

Organizational awareness:

Build support for the organization and ensure political acumen.

Development and innovation:

Support staff competence development, and contribute to an environment of creativity and innovation.

Work in teams:

Build and promote effective 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.

Communication and information sharing:

Create and promote an environment for open and 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:

Share knowledge across the organization and build a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.

Appropriate and transparent decision making:

Ensure fair and transparent decision making processes and manage risk.

Functional Competencies:

Proven ability in managing and empowering teams to work effectively together in reaching results;
Demonstrated political acumen and technical capacity in representing the organization effectively in national and international fora to advocate and to promote organizational priorities, initiatives and a better understanding of the organizational strategic agenda;
Proven ability to leadand to drive results;
Ability to establish and maintain broad strategic networks and partnerships with UN agencies and other international partners to promote partnership and build alliances to advance organizational interests and competencies;
Ability to go beyond established procedures and practices, introduce new approaches and strategic innovations;
Good knowledge of Results Based Management principles and approaches.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Advanced university degree in international development, public administration, public policy or other relevant social science fields.

Experience:

A minimum of 7 years of relevant professional experience development programming in the area of recovery and gender equality, including in conflict and post-conflict settings. Livelihoods experience is an asset;
Substantive and technical experience in inter-agency coordination, experience working with governments, donors and civil society organizations internationally and in the field;
Substantive knowledge and experience related to current policies and practices in the fields of gender equality and humanitarian action and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development experience.

Languages:

Proficiency in written and spoken English;
Knowledge of Arabic language is desirable.

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.

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment.

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. Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.