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 Policy Division develops and implements the UN Women programme of work on analysis, research and knowledge management that provides the evidence base and global policy compass to guide UN Women’s work at country and regional level, the intergovernmental process, and the UN system on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment. It identifies emerging issues and trends and develops and proposes new strategies for achieving agreed goals through innovative approaches and lessons learned about what works in practice.

UN Women works to implement Outcome 2 of its 2018-2021 Strategic Plan, “Women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems,” and contributes towards achievement of several Sustainable Development Goals, namely Goal 5 on gender equality. Women’s political participation is a primary area of UN Women’s work. The work includes, inter alia: supporting legal and policy reforms to promote women’s electoral participation; strengthened capacities of women to engage in political life; supporting parliamentary bodies to deliver gender equality reforms; monitoring and preventing violence against women in politics; and improved data and statistics on women’s representation in local government (SDG indicator 5.5.1b). UN Women works with a range of partners and stakeholders nationally, regionally and globally to ensure more women of all ages fully participate, lead and engage in political institutions.

UN Women’s corporate commitment to knowledge management is essential to enhancing the effectiveness of the organization’s interventions, especially at country and regional level, and to improving collaboration across the UN system, globally. The Women’s Political Participation Team in HQ provides integrated policy advice, and comparative knowledge technical assistance on women’s political participation at global, regional, and country levels.

Under the guidance and supervision of the Global Policy Advisor on Political Participation, the Capacity Development and Knowledge Management Specialist on Women’s Political Participation will: Support knowledge management on women’s political participation; implement and coordinate the organization’s global community of practice on women’s political participation; and develop and implement capacity development initiatives related to women’s political participation.

Lead the provision of knowledge management guidance and advice on women’s political participation:

• Lead the implementation of knowledge management activities in the Team’s annual work plan, track progress made, identify any issues and make recommendations to address them;
• Manage the Team’s global knowledge repository on women’s political participation by tracking and codifying knowledge products and good practices from UN Women’s global, regional and country programming;
• Provide substantive inputs to the production of programming tools and programming guidance on key areas, including social norms change and a ten-year review of women’s political participation programmes;
• Act as focal point for knowledge management on women’s political participation, represent the team at corporate Knowledge Management focal points meetings and liaise with other knowledge management specialists as needed; 
• Provide substantive inputs to funding proposals, donor report and other reports as requested;
• Provide technical contributions to writing and editing documents, including briefing notes, talking points, press and media releases, or human-interest stories, as required;
• Provide knowledge management guidance on women’s political participation connected to corporate, UN System and intergovernmental initiatives and processes, including CSW65 (2021), as requested.

Manage the implementation and coordination of UN Women’s global community of practice on women’s political participation

• Implement and coordinate communications and activities for UN Women’s global Community of Practice (COP) on women’s political participation to help facilitate cross-regional knowledge sharing, including through monthly updates to the COP;
• Oversee the organization of a global COP meeting on women’s political participation;
• Document lessons learned and good practices on women’s political participation programming, ensuring that knowledge from programmes are documented, stored and disseminated among colleagues;
• Ensure the relevant UN Women Intranet pages and Knowledge Library on SharePoint are updated;
• Provide technical support for and substantive advice as needed on developing, implementing and disseminating knowledge management tools and knowledge products on women’s political participation.

Develop and implement capacity development initiatives related to women’s political participation

• Develop and disseminate guidance and training materials to address staff capacity needs at all levels;
• Liaise with relevant thematic advisors and field offices and provide technical guidance on the implementation of UN Women’s training curriculum for women candidates and aspirants;
• Convene and/or support in-person trainings and thematic webinars to address capacity needs, facilitate peer-to-peer learning and promote a coordinated approach to women’s political participation priorities and implementation at country level;
• Support the development of additional training materials for UN-Women partners and beneficiaries at country level as needed, and support and monitor usage of materials. 

Key Performance Indicators: 

• Timely implementation of global knowledge management strategy on women’s political participation.
• Number of new knowledge products developed disseminated.
• Community of Practice, intranet pages and other platforms are up-to-date.
• Timely and effective communication and liaison with different departments to ensure integration of knowledge management in systems and processes.
• Quality support to field offices to ensure a constant and consistent flow of information with HQ and other field offices.
• Timely development and effective oversight of staff capacity development on political participation.

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

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 Values and Competencies Framework: 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:

• Affinity with UN Women’s mandate of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment;
• Ability to link Knowledge Management to key processes including programming, results-based management, monitoring, reporting and evaluation;
• Ability to apply knowledge, information, and best practices from within and outside of UN Women;
• Substantive knowledge of issues on gender equality and women’s empowerment;
• In-depth substantive knowledge of Knowledge Management and development policy issues;
• Ability to manage for results: translate strategy into achievable plans, with established priorities, monitors them, making periodic adjustments as required;
• Ability to build strong relationships with and focuses on results for clients and partners. Responds positively to feedback;
• Outstanding networking, team-building, organizational and communication skills.

Education: 

• Master’s degree in International Development, Gender Studies, Political Science, Management, or another relevant field is required; 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: 

• At least 7 years of experience in managing projects and building capacity on women’s political participation for diverse groups;
• Experience designing and implementing women’s political participation programmes;
• Experience drafting and coordinating production of knowledge products on women’s political participation;
• Experience working in the field of Knowledge Management; familiarity with different Knowledge Management approaches including the development of practice communities and the use of ICT/web-based systems (familiarity with SharePoint an asset);
• Experience in programme analysis, evaluation and results-based management is an asset;
• Experience designing and delivering trainings and workshops an asset;
• Working experience in a governmental, multilateral or civil society organization in a developed or developing country is an asset.

Languages: 

• Fluency in English is required; 
• Knowledge of French and/or other UN official working languages 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 https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558. 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.