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.

The UN Women Independent Evaluation and Audit Services (IEAS), independent office within UN Women reporting to the Executive Director. IEAS is supported by two services, the Independent Evaluation Service (IES) and the Internal Audit Service (IAS). The overarching goal of IEAS is to provide independent assurance and advice, and to support organizational accountability and learning through evaluations to inform a more impactful, effective and efficient UN Women for greater change in the lives of the people it serves.

IEAS currently requires a copy-editor to support the copy-editing of various products throughout 2021. These may include but are not limited to: Annual Reports on Audit and Evaluation (annually), Evaluation and Audit Reports, Executive Summaries for senior management, Briefs as well as Guidance documents and standard operating procedures.

Summary of key needs and deliverables

Under the supervision of the Director, IEAS and in collaboration with the IES and IAS Chiefs, the consultant will specifically be responsible for the following:

Duties and Responsibilities

Developing and maintaining evaluation and audit reports style guide to be used for IEAS reports editing/proofreading.

Editing/proofreading IEAS reports and documents in English to check content and details in accordance with UN Women corporate writing guidelines/style guide and to ensure full consistency with UN Women terminology, consisting of:

1. Primary reading through text and correcting typographical errors, punctuation, spelling and easily corrected grammatical mistakes;
2. In-depth grammar and stylistic corrections, which may entail an entire re-writing of full sentences to obtain the best written English; and
3. Following up with original authors to clarify any confusing or unclear sections.

The functional responsibilities include:

• Improving the flow and clarity of language so that the report is clear and concise (Clear communications are easily understood and logical, avoiding unnecessary technical language and providing all significant and relevant information. Concise communications are to the point and avoid unnecessary elaboration, superfluous detail, redundancy, and wordiness);
• Checking internal consistency of the text, data, figures (including maps), tables and boxes
• Checking cross-references of the facts and ensure error-free texts, and raising any related queries with IEAS so that all references and sources are accurately and consistently cited;
• Correcting spelling mistakes and grammatical errors;
• Liaising regularly with authors to resolve queries directly with them. The copy editor should submit the work with tracked changes, and provide a list of queries and suggested solutions. Any major changes should be flagged;
• Sub-editing text written by several authors to ensure a single consistent style for all audit reports;
• Reviewing and correcting formats and ensure consistency and uniformity across all reports, checking manuscripts for correct design features, such as hierarchy of headings;
• Updating existing Standard Operating Procedures and utilizing a style checklist to ensure consistency in hyphenation, capitalization, formatting of references, etc.;
• Raising, discussing and resolving with concerned IEAS personnel any potentially libelous or particularly controversial sections;
• Reviewing pages for the title, contents and preface of a publication;
• Ensuring confidentiality of the original texts and source materials. The edited document submitted to UN Women under the given TOR is the property of UN Women and cannot be submitted, distributed to or used by any other party, unless arranged otherwise;
• The editor/proof reader is obligated to work within the required deadlines and be available to UN Women for comments and corrections;
• Perform other related duties as required.

Competencies

• Communication - the ability to write clearly and concisely in English is essential. Strong experience in Office Suite is essential. Experience in copy editing and proof reading essential.
• Teamwork - the incumbent must work closely and reliably with colleagues in IEAS. The ability to follow directions, work with others and maintain adequate transparency while doing so is required.
• Planning and organizing - the incumbent will be required to work independently with minimal supervision and to prioritize work to ensure that the reports are ready within planned timeframes.
• Accuracy - the incumbent will be required to be detail-oriented and able to detect and correct any errors, inconsistencies or discrepancies in the text they edit.

Required Skills and Experience

• University degree in English or equivalent is required;
• Over 5 years of proven experience in editing is required;
• Editorial experience in editing evaluation and audit report is required;
• UN Editorial experience is highly desired;
• Experience in editing reports related to gender equality is desired;
• Knowledge of other UN official languages is an asset.