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 European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) have embarked on a new, global, multi-year initiative focused on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls (VAWG) - The Spotlight Initiative. The Initiative is so named as it brings focused attention to this issue, moving it into the spotlight and placing it at the centre of efforts to achieve gender equality and women's empowerment, in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Complementing the Spotlight country programmes in six Caribbean countries (Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago), the Regional Spotlight Programme will support and catalyse regional approaches that will cascade to the national levels, for the development of standardised approaches to essential services; prevention programming; and data collection and analysis. It will expand the influence of the women’s movement to participate in, influence and monitor the implementation of regional strategies; and it will provide resources for regional, national and community-based organisations to scale up their work and to innovate evidence-based prevention programming. All of this will be done based on intersectional analyses to ensure a focus on those under-served or marginalised because of discrimination and social exclusion.

The regional programme will maximize investment, and contribute to the scale, sustainability, visibility, lessons learnt and replication of programming throughout the region. It will address specific regional barriers/challenges/bottlenecks that inhibit progress on the prevention of and response to violence against women and girls. In particular, the regional programme will support CARICOM and OECS as the two intergovernmental frameworks leading functional cooperation in the region.

UN Women is the Technical Lead for the Regional Spotlight Initiative and also leads the pillar on Data and Research (Pillar 5). UN Women, in its role as the lead agency for Pillar 5 is leading a Multi-Country Study on the Economic Costs of Violence against Women and Girls.  The study will have two components:

Component 1: Multi-Country Study on Economic Costs of VAWG which will:

• Estimate the annual economic cost of family violence against women by an intimate partner at the household level;
• Estimate the annual service provision costs across sectors including health, police, judicial and social service sectors;
• Develop macro-estimates of aggregate costs for national economy, cost of service provision; and cost due to productivity loss.

Component 2: Estimating the Impact of VAWG in the Workplace: This study will raise the awareness of employers and trigger preventative and mitigating measures. This component will include the following:

• Methodologies on the impact of VAWG on lost outputs and enterprise level productivity.
• Capacity building on estimation methodologies for relevant CSOs, public agencies and academic institutions.
• Case studies based on outcomes of research and available data, drawing primarily on Women’s Health Surveys (four Caribbean countries) and other available data. Trinidad & Tobago where the ILO is conducting this type of research under the national Spotlight would be one of the four countries, and three more would be added.
• A Regional compendium of the four national studies.

This assignment refers only to Component 1.

An expert Research Team has been contracted to conduct the study in the following countries on Component 1: Grenada, Guyana and Jamaica, with the latter study financed by the national Jamaica Spotlight Programme.

In order to broaden the skillsets available in CARICOM to conduct studies of this kind, internship opportunities will be provided to five young CARICOM-based Researchers, including young Feminist Economists, to  understudy the Research Team conducting the Multi-Country Study on the Economic Costs of Violence against Women and Girls.

The overall objective of this assignment is to expand the pool of young Researchers in CARICOM with the skillsets required to undertake studies on the economic costs of violence against women and girls. Analyses of economic costs will generate an understanding of the wider effects of family violence on society, beyond the immediate victim. Costing studies also make the societal dimensions of family violence more visible. The analysis of the costs will identify the scale and dimensions of the impact on a range of social and economic institutions. It will be used to advocate for the targeted allocation of resources to family violence programmes and will form a basis for monitoring and evaluation of interventions.

Deliverables

• Estimate the annual economic cost of IPV against women at the household level to include:
  • Estimate of annual direct costs for households related to incidents of intimate partner violence. These costs include those associated with seeing services for medical care (physical, sexual and mental), shelter, mediation and judicial resolution; as well as the consumption costs related to the replacement of property;
  • Estimate of indirect costs – income loss due to missed work, loss of productive labour, children’s health and children’s school performance including missed days, failing and poor grades.
• Estimate the annual service provision costs across sectors including health, police, judicial and social.
• Develop the following macro-estimates:
  • Aggregate costs for the national economy;
  • Cost of service provision;
  • Costs due to productivity loss.
• Draft a research paper (exact topic to be determined after consultation with the research team) of no less than 10 pages.

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:

https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies:

• Strong statistical analysis and social research and analytical skills;
• Excellent written and oral communications skills including the conveying complex concepts and recommendations, in a clear and persuasive style tailored to match different audiences;
• Ability to interact independently as part of a team;
• Energetic self-starter and the ability to multi-task and operate effectively in stressful situations.
• Interest in the work of UN Women and to the ideals of the UN Charter;
• Computer literate in standard software applications and familiarity with internet-based research;
• Ability to successfully interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds and beliefs, which include willingness to try and understand and be tolerant of differing opinions and views.
• Strong computer skills (i.e. MS Word, Excel, Power Point, Teams, Zoom and research software);
• Detail oriented. 

Education: 

Must meet one of the following requirements:

1. Be enrolled in a postgraduate degree programme (such as a master’s programme, or higher) in any of the following areas: Economics, Statistics, Public Health, Gender and Development;
2. Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (such as bachelor’s degree or equivalent) in any of the following areas: Economics, Statistics, Public Health, Gender and Development;
3. Have recently graduated with a university degree (as defined in (a) and (b) above) and, if selected, must start the internship within one-year of graduation; or
4. Be enrolled in a professional traineeship program which is part of a postgraduate degree programme of which the internship may form part

Language:

• Fluency in written and oral English is required;

Remuneration

Interns who are not in receipt of financial support from other sources such as universities or other institutions will receive a fixed stipend from UN Women to partially subsidize their basic living costs for the duration of the internship.

Application Information

• All applicants must submit a completed and signed P.11 form with their application.
• Due to the high volume of applications received, we can ONLY contact successful candidates.
• Successful candidate will be required to provide proof of enrollment in a valid health insurance plan at the duty station of the internship, proof of school enrollment or degree, a scanned copy of their passport/national ID and a copy of a valid visa (as applicable).  

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.