UN WOMEN Jobs - 74146- Programme Associate – Gender Responsive Budgeting

Programme Associate – Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) - Colombo, SRI LANKA, Open to Sri Lankan Nationals Only

Advertised on behalf of

UN WOMEN

Location :

Colombo, SRI LANKA, SRI LANKA

Type of Contract :

Service Contract

Starting Date :

02-Oct-2017

Application Deadline :

27-Aug-17 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

SB-3

Duration of Initial Contract :

One Year (Renewable subject to availability of Project Funds)

Languages Required :

English

Expected Duration of Assignment :

One Year (Renewable subject to availability of Project Funds)

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 and the third gender as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

All human development and human rights issues involve gender dimensions. UN Women globally focuses on key priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, and that can unlock progress across the board. The six priority areas include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, engaging in all aspects of women peace and security processes, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting through Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

UN Women’s work on GRB involves ensuring that national planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation processes incorporate a gender perspective. UN Women’s GRB programmes at the regional and country level have made significant contribution towards this by building political support, developing technical resources and capacities, generating good practices for improving women's access to services and increasing accountability for Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment (GEWE). At the forefront of global, regional and local advocacy for application of GRB, UN Women has built partnerships with diverse government, inter-governmental and non-governmental partners, to further efforts and demonstrate GRB’s relevance to sustainable development, aid effectiveness, public sector reform and financing for development.

Today more than 100 countries globally have adopted GRB to advance gender equality and women’s rights. In 2011, 65 countries were supported by UN Women in the area of national planning and budgeting. UN Women’s GRB programmes at the regional and country level have made significant contribution towards this by building political support, developing technical resources and capacity, generating good practices for improving women's access to services and increasing accountability for GEWE.

Sri Lanka led one of the five Commonwealth pilot initiatives in GRB in the mid-1990s. The vision of ‘A new Sri Lanka for women’ identifies priorities in national development strategy for the advancement of women. Importantly, to take stock of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, the government has adopted the National Action Plan for the Protection & Promotion of Human Rights (2011-2016). The National Action Plan includes a Section on the Rights of Women, with sub sections on health, economic empowerment, employment, ending violence against women, political representation, ending discrimination and reaching out to women affected by conflict.

The Ministry of Women and Child Affairs (MoWCA), Government of Sri Lanka, has shown renewed interest in GRB. More recently, recognizing the urgent need for accelerating investments for rural women, upon the initiative and push of MoWCA, the Cabinet Ministers approved a Cabinet Memorandum in March 2016 mandating allocation of at least 25 per cent of the project investment on rural economic development for women. This is a significant step and will go a long way in ensuring that benefits of the development projects reach rural women.

There has been a greater push towards transfer of funds from the national to sub national levels in Sri Lanka wherein the Provincial Councils Act No.42 of 1987, together with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1987 devolves considerable autonomy regarding several important subjects to Provincial Councils. The Pradeshiya Sabha Act No.15 of 1987 at divisional level, also provided for establishment of Pradeshiya Sabhas (divisional-level councils of people's representatives) through general election. The newly elected government has reiterated the significance of decentralization of powers to local bodies.

UN Women’s Multi Country Office (MCO), based in New Delhi, India, covers four countries of the region, i.e., India, Bhutan, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. UN Women India MCO is currently implementing a project with the objective of identifying strategies and operational approaches to strengthen on-going efforts in the area of GRB in India and Sri Lanka. Insights generated from this project will enable key stakeholders at the national and regional level to accelerate their efforts to ensure that women’s priorities are adequately reflected in national budgeting processes, and to make concrete changes for adequate resource allocation towards women’s priorities. This project focuses on the following dimensions:

Establishing/strengthening institutional mechanisms for GRB;
Generating evidence on how sectoral policies/programmes could be made more gender responsive;
Enhancing capacities of officials for sustaining change;
Strengthening the linkages between outlays to outcomes through gender audit.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance and direct supervision of GRB Analyst, the Programme Associate will support in strengthening the efforts of the Government of Sri Lanka on GRB.

The Programme Associate will work with the Project team to ensure that the project produces the results to the required standards of quality and within the given time and cost specifications.

Therefore, the Programme Associate will support the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs, Government of Sri Lanka on achieving the following results:

Support the Government of Sri Lanka in the designing of GRB strategies;
Support the government in implementation of GRB;
Support the project team in evidence generation and advocacy on GRB;
Administrative support to the Project.

With a view to achieving the above, the Programme Associate will provide inputs and support implementation of the project in Sri Lanka.

Key Responsibilities will include:

Project design

Support in identifying the core elements of GRB work at the national and provincial level;
Support in identifying strategies for project design and planning.

Implementation

Support implementation of project activities and develop a mechanism to monitor implementation of planned activities and budgets;
Establish effective coordination within the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs and relevant other Ministries/Departments to identify the scope for applying GRB across sectors;
Identify opportunities for collaboration, and joint action with select departments and other partners to enhance their capacities on GRB;
Compile relevant sections for periodic/annual reporting of the project;
Participate in key meetings, conferences, and trainings under the project and prepare proceedings report/meeting minutes;
Document and maintain project related reports/files and extend support in preparation of quarterly/biannual/annual narrative reports;
Coordinate with other implementing partners/vendors and support preparation of financial reports to UN Women (Funding Authorization and Certificate of Expenditures (FACE) forms), payment to vendors using ATLAS Ti, etc.).

Capacity Development:

Collate existing training resources on GRB and identify areas/gaps to design, plan, implement and evaluate schemes/programmes from a GRB lens;
Support trainings on Gender Responsive Budgeting;
Prepare reports to capture key issues, achievements and challenges of capacity development initiatives under the project.

Technical Support:

Provide technical support and inputs on key processes and result areas on Gender Responsive Budgeting to relevant stakeholders.
Build/strengthen partnerships on GRB at the local level (provincial and district) through documenting, analysing and building evidence for application of GRB for gender aware and women centered policy uptake and implementation.
Provide coordination and support (IEC/advocacy) on GRB trainings/workshops.

Research, documentation and knowledge management:

Coordinate and manage evidence generation and dissemination on GRB;
Develop partnerships with relevant institutions, agencies, experts and practitioners on GRB;
Support process documentation of the project;
Provide inputs on different knowledge products generated during the course of the project.

Apart from the above, the Programme Associate will also be required to execute other duties and assignments entrusted by UN Women as relevant to the implementation of the project in the state.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

Demonstrates integrity by modelling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women;
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
Treats all people fairly without favouritism.

Functional Competencies:

Technical Knowledge:

Thorough familiarity with the development context and challenges regarding inclusive growth, human development and disadvantaged groups in the State, with particular reference to Gender Responsive Budgeting, development and social inclusion;
Adequate knowledge of the policy context of GRB within the state;
Knowledge of programmes and schemes relevant to budget plans, implementation and audits in the State.

Knowledge Management and Learning:

Promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture in the office;
Demonstrates ability to advocate and provide policy advice;
Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in the area of professional discipline and job knowledge, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills;
Demonstrates competent analytical and presentation skills.

Development and Operational Effectiveness:

Ability to facilitate strategic planning, results-based management and reporting;
Ability to lead formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects, mobilize resources;
Excellent working knowledge of MS Office-Word, Excel, Access, Power Point, Intra-Internet, e-mail applications etc. Knowledge of other applications such as Front Page, Publisher and some multimedia tools would be useful.

Management and Leadership:

Focuses on expected impact and results and responds positively to feedback;
Promotes teamwork and shows conflict resolution skills;
Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude;
Demonstrates strong oral and written communication skills;
Builds strong relationships with stakeholders and external actors;
High interpersonal skills and ability to remain calm, in control and good humoured under pressure;
Ability to prioritize assignments and requirements, and multitask as needed;
Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities;
Demonstrates skills to liaise with varied government stakeholders and report to senior government officials.

Communication Skills:

Excellent oral and writing and communication skills in English and National/Local languages;
Sound analytical and presentation skills;
Good interpersonal and presentation skills, with an ability to work in a multi-cultural environment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Minimum Secondary School education required. A Univesity Degree in Social Sciences/ Social Work /Gender Studies/Public Administration/Policy or related fields will be an asset.

Experience:

At least five years of experience at the national/state level working with development projects including hands-on experience of design, implementation and monitoring of projects preferably in the area of Gender Equality and Women’s Rights. Experience on GRB with national/ provincial governments is highly desirable.

Language:

Proficiency in English and good command over the National/Local language.

Application Information:

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org
•All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs;
•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;
•UN Women will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest.

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.