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 in Lebanon 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.

Today, Lebanon is facing the long term structural challenges as well as the profound effects that the subsequent crises are having on its economy (the Syrian crisis since 2011 and more recently the monetary and economic crisis), and there is ongoing need to support job creation and inclusive economic growth especially for the most vulnerable in the most disadvantaged areas. These adverse conditions coupled with the recent financial crisis and the rising unemployment make supporting job creation and economic opportunities a top priority. In particular, women face disproportionately high levels of unemployment and vulnerability. Without serious efforts to support the economic empowerment of women, high levels of unemployment and poverty are likely to persist and even worsen, thus further reducing the resilience of communities and their ability to withstand the shocks and stresses caused by local and regional crises.

Under Lebanon Recovery Fund, UN Women is supporting a joint UN programme in Lebanon, namely Productive Sectors Development Programme (PSDP), with technical gender analysis and the implementation. The purpose of the joint programme is to support gender-responsive job creation and economic opportunities in the agriculture and agro-food sectors, prioritizing women, and female youth in disadvantaged areas. Considering the wide array of challenges that particularly women and girls are facing in the agriculture and agro-food sectors–ranging from a poor policy environment to high cost of doing business and shortage of skills– a comprehensive approach is needed in order to tackle those challenges and create an enabling environment for inclusive and sustainable job creation.

In the PSDP, UN Women is one of six participating UN agencies responsible for a set of activities/outcomes as part of the overall programme. Given the importance of gender equality to the programme and UN Women’s expertise in this area, a Gender Equality Advisor is being recruited for the PSDP to make sure that gender equality outcomes are integrated and achieved throughout the inception phase and implementation of the programme. The Gender Equality advisor will work closely with UN Women and the PSDP Programme Coordinator in support of all participating UN Agencies and the overall objectives of the programme.

The Gender Equality Advisor will support PUNOs in the implementation of the PSDP in support of Lebanon’s productive sectors. S/he will ensure gender mainstreaming throughout the implementation and support the participating agencies on gender related issues, including support to the implementation of UN Women’s PSDP programme interventions

The main purpose of the consultancy is to support United Nations partners and UN Women in the implementation of a joint programme in support of Lebanon’s productive sectors. The consultant will ensure gender mainstreaming throughout the PSDP implementation and support the participating agencies on gender related issues and will lead the implementation of UN Women’s programme interventions. This will be done through 2 major areas of work:

a) Knowledge production: Support in the selection of target value chain and the development of gender analysis and develop at inception the gender equality strategy for the project. These will support the government of Lebanon and UN partners to mainstream women gender issues across the programme, to understand the role of women in productive sectors and cultural and social barriers to women’s work, and promote financial inclusion for women including equal access to capital, markets and business development services, thus further advancing gender responsive policy work at a national scale.

b) Coordination: Support in mainstreaming gender in the M&E framework and progress reports, support UN partners in mainstreaming gender consideration in all project activities throughout implementation. This will support UN and governmental stakeholders of the UN Joint Programme to ensure gender-responsive job creation and economic opportunities with a view to promote dialogue and advocacy for gender responsive policy and legislative reforms amongst key stakeholders.

Under the overall leadership of UN Women and the day-to-day supervision of the RCO Programme Coordinator, the consultant is expected to:

Responsibilities, Scope of Work, and Tasks:

Gender Mainstreaming (60%)

• Develop the Gender Equality Strategy for the Programme in line with Feminist International Assistance Policy
• Support the Programme Coordinator in the development of the M&E framework and ensure that sex disaggregated data and gender considerations are mainstreamed throughout
• Provide support to all PUNOs in mainstreaming gender in their activities during the inception phase and implementation of the PSDP
• Provision of policy options and high-quality advisory inputs to the PSDP from a gender perspective to ensure alignment with national policies, priorities and strategic plans, and advance programme goals.

 Gender training, including for national counterparts (10%)

• Provide training for programme staff and national/local counterparts on gender mainstreaming, gender sensitive, gender responsive and gender transformative programming or another requested gender-related topic.

Gender-related communication, research, codification of knowledge (10%)  

• Support the Programme Coordinator in developing and implementing a gender sensitive PSDP communication plan
• Formulate gender stories and results in line with corporate guidelines
• Conduct research synthesize best practices and codify PSDP experiences on the ground in comprehensive knowledge products with lessons learned and step-by-step guidance for replication. 
• Support the Programme Coordinator in developing gender sensitive communication strategy

 Support the implementation of UN Women’s interventions in the programme (20%)

• Support the development of UN Women’s initiatives, and on boarding of partners;
• Support the process of monitoring the programme/ project implementation of activities and finances using results-based management tools;
• Finalize quarterly reports and donor reports, focusing on results, output and outcomes.

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

Functional Competencies:

• Substantive experience and record of accomplishment in gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Proven ability to advocate and provide policy advice.
• Good knowledge of UN Women and the UN system.
• Demonstrated people management skills, especially in multi-cultural contexts.
• Proven ability in managing and empowering teams to work effectively together in reaching results.
• Demonstrated analytical and technical skills in managing development projects/Programmes.
• Ability to lead strategic planning, programme development and implementation, results-based management, and reporting.
• Ability to develop and maintain strong partnerships and mobilize resources.
• 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.
• 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 introduce new approaches and strategic innovations.
• Familiarity with the region and women's rights organizations and networks in the region considered an asset.

Education:

• Master’s degree in human Rights, International Affairs/Development, Sociology, Public Administration, Economics, Gender and Women’s Studies, and/or with strong knowledge of gender issues, or related discipline.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree

Experience:

• Minimum 7 years of progressively responsible professional experience in issues of economic empowerment, with work on gender equality and women’s empowerment an asset.
• Experience at the international level, preferably in developing countries within the UN system, Agencies, Funds or Programmes is a distinct asset.
• Experience working in the agriculture and agro-food sectors in the Middle East region in general, and Lebanon in particular, is also an asset.
• Computer skills, internet communication and command of MS Office

Language Requirements:

• Written and oral proficiency in English and Arabic is a must