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.

The Policy Division develops and implements the UN Women program of work on analysis, research and knowledge management that provides the evidence base for the advice and guidance UN Women provides to the intergovernmental process, the UN system, and to UN Women staff working at country and regional level on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The Peace and Security Section of the Policy Division supports UN Women to fulfill its coordination mandate in the area of peace and security, UN system efforts to promote improved implementation, and monitoring and reporting of global commitments on women and peace and security, including as set out in the Beijing Platform for Action and in Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2122 (2013) and 2242 (2015), relevant Statements by the President of the Security Council, as well as related accountability frameworks established by the UN system.

To further this work UN Women has entered into a partnership with the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) to support the implementation of the Secretary-General’s Report on Women’s Participation in Peacebuilding and the Women, Peace and Security agenda more broadly. Under the commitment on post-conflict financing, the Secretary-General committed the UN to allocate at least 15 per cent of UN-managed funds in support of peacebuilding to projects that address women’s specific needs, advance gender equality and/or empower women as their principal objective.  The Gender Promotion Initiative is a special call for proposals that enables UN Country Team members and civil society organizations in select countries to access the PBF for gender-responsive peacebuilding projects. The Business Plan of the Peacebuilding Fund for 2017-2019 further commits to allocating up to 30 per cent to projects that promote gender equality. Lessons learned and good practice from PBSO’s experience must be documented and disseminated to inform practice and system reform processes at HQ and at the country level. At the same time, several important and time-bound policy initiatives are underway, which require technical expertise on gender-responsive peacebuilding, including the roll out of the Peacebuilding Commission Gender Strategy, PBSO Gender Policy 2017-2019, the elaboration of the Secretary-General’s report on peacebuilding and sustaining peace, mandated by General Assembly resolution A/RES/72/262 and review and possible revision of the Seven-Point Action Plan.

Under the supervision of UN Women’s Policy Specialist on Sustaining Peace in close coordination with the PBSO’s Chief of Policy, Planning and Application Branch, the Policy Specialist is responsible for providing technical programmatic support to the UN country teams working on peacebuilding and policy support on gender and peacebuilding to all UN Women offices. 

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide Advisory services and technical support to the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF):

  • Provide technical support to the integration of gender in conflict analysis, peacebuilding priority plans and peacebuilding project design and implementation in close coordination with the with the Peacebuilding Support Office and PBF team in NY and in-country PBF Secretariats;
  • Participate in and provide technical support to inter-agency joint assessment and technical support missions prior to the development of peacebuilding priority plans;
  • Provide substantive support to UN Women’s Country Offices engaged with PBF in project design, implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation and support their gender mainstreaming role within the United Nations Country Teams;
  • Conduct joint monitoring with the PBSO and contribute to mid-term and final reviews and evaluations of peacebuilding priority plans and PBF projects;
  • Provide programmatic and technical support in the implementation of the 2017 Gender and Youth Promotion Initiative projects;
  • Provide coordination and technical support in the implementation of the PBSO, UN Women and UN Volunteer partnership to deploy volunteers to support Gender Promotion Initiative projects; and
  • Provide coordination support in the launch and roll out of the 2018 Gender and Youth Promotion Initiative.

Provide Policy development and research support:

  • Lead the organization of Peacebuilding Commission meetings to operationalize the PBC Gender Strategy; and
  • Provide technical support in the inclusion of gender into preparations for the High Level Meeting on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in April 2018.

Provide knowledge management and capacity building support:

  • Finalize a meta evaluation / synthesis of results of Gender Promotion Initiative projects implemented between 2011 and 2016;
  • Develop and finalize a capacity-building plan for the PBSO, based on a capacity assessment under taken in 2016, as part of the implementation of the PBSO Gender Policy 2017-2019;
  • Provide suggestions and technical input to capacity building for UN Women Country Offices engaged with the PBF as well as staff members of in-country Peacebuilding Fund Secretariats; and
  • Provide substantive support to the preparation and organization of two follow-up trainings at regional-level based on the global pilot training on gender and peacebuilding, In partnership with PBSO.

Provide any other support as requested by supervisor.

Key Performance Indicators:

UN Women demonstrates global leadership on gender-responsive peacebuilding and women’s participation in transitions and improves the responsiveness of the UN’s peacebuilding efforts to engage women and respond to their needs. UN Women leverages partnership with the UN Peacebuilding Support Office to increase political space and financial resources to women’s participation in peacebuilding. 

  • Timely and accurate technical advice Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) as per annual workplan and budget;
  • Timely and accurate advice to country offices;
  • Timely organization of Peacebuilding committee meetings;
  • Timely development of high level studies/reports;
  • Quality of capacity-building plan.

Competencies

Core Values:

  • Respect for Diversity;
  • Integrity;
  • Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

  • Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
  • Accountability;
  • Creative Problem Solving;
  • Effective Communication;
  • Inclusive Collaboration;
  • Stakeholder Engagement;
  • Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-employment-values-and-competencies-definitions-en.pdf.

Functional Competencies:

  • Strong knowledge of gender-related issues including in peacebuilding, statebuilding and transitions;
  • Ability to undertake lessons learned and policy research in the field of gender-responsive peacebuilding;
  • Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;
  • Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints;
  • Establishes, builds and sustains effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client’s perspective;
  • Ability to draft policy papers, speeches, briefings etc.; and
  • Knowledge of programming and practice in the field of gender-responsive peacebuilding. 

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Master’s degree (or equivalent) in development related disciplines, gender issues, conflict studies, economics, political science, human rights, law or other social science fields, of direct relevance to women, peace and security.

Experience:

  • A minimum of 5 years of increasingly responsible professional experience in gender and peacebuilding/statebuilding;
  • Experience in programme management;
  • Experience in policy research and gender/conflict analysis;
  • Field experience;
  • Experience working on gender equality programming in the framework of the Peacebuilding Support Office/Peacebuilding Fund is highly desirable. 

Languages:

  • Fluency in English is required;
  • Fluency French is highly desirable;
  • Working knowledge of another UN official language is an asset.

Application:

  • 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.

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.