Historique

UNCDF makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF’s financing models work through two channels: financial inclusion that expands the opportunities for individuals, households, and small businesses to participate in the local economy, providing them with the tools they need to climb out of poverty and manage their financial lives; and by showing how localized investments — through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance — can drive public and private funding that underpins local economic expansion and sustainable development. By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to SDG 1 on eradicating poverty and SDG 17 on the means of implementation. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile and address exclusion and inequalities of access, UNCDF contributes to a number of different SDGs.

UNCDF provides investment capital and technical support to both the public and the private sector. It provides capital financing -- in the forms of grants, soft loans and credit enhancement – and the technical expertise in preparing portfolios of sustainable and resilient capacity building and infrastructure projects.

UNCDF has proven its ability to deliver true leverage on smaller and more risky investments and interventions within its core areas of expertise: Inclusive Finance and Local Development Finance. The concept- proven pilot projects and programmes are replicated and brought to scale with the help and the add-on financing of other development partners with different and complementary mandates.

UNCDF’s work on inclusive finance

UNCDF’s work on inclusive finance seeks to develop inclusive financial systems and ensure that a range of financial products is available to all segments of society, at a reasonable cost, and on a sustainable basis. UNCDF supports a wide range of providers (e.g. microfinance institutions, banks, cooperatives, money transfer companies) and a variety of financial products and services (e.g. savings, credit, insurance, payments, and remittances). UNCDF also supports newer delivery channels (e.g. mobile phone networks) that offer tremendous potential for scale.

Expanding Financial Access (EFA) Programme: To support the government of Myanmar in the implementation process of the Financial Inclusion Roadmap, UNCDF developed the programme “Expanding Financial Access (EFA) that focuses on priority areas of the Financial Inclusion Roadmap. Started in 2015, EFA is the core programme in Myanmar and works hand in hand at the country level with other regional and global UNCDF.

The EFA programme intends, by 2021, to increase the percentage of the adult population which are financially included from 30% in 2015 to 40%, and those which use more than one financial product from 6% to 15%. Moreover, EFA aims to have 830,000 low income direct beneficiaries and 3 million indirect ones by providing a full range of affordable, quality, effective and responsible financial services to MSME, small-scale farmers, women-led enterprises, youth, poor and low-income clients by encouraging stakeholders to work together in an integrated manner.

A core component of EFA is the Market Development Facility which seeks to address systemic market failures in a number of thematic areas through targeted funding solutions. It functions as a catalytic wholesale financial agent able to take-on risk and leverage outside sources of capital to boost funding to undercapitalized MFIs operating in Myanmar. Digital Financial Services and Women's Economic Empowerment are also critical cross-cutting themes and form the basis for a number of UNCDF Myanmar interventions, and the CleanStart programme provides funding to institutions working in renewables and clean energy. EFA also works in partnership with the innovative regional Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations (SHIFT) funding facility which aims to accelerate financial inclusion across the ASEAN region.

Another component recently added to the EFA Programme is the Women’s Economic and Financial Inclusion Initiative aims at increasing 200,000 women and girls’ awareness of, access to, and use of agency over appropriate financial products and services responsibly provided by diverse and sustainable service providers in a well-regulated environment with a focus on conflict-affected areas of Myanmar. As a result, FSPs will have an enhanced capacity to collect, analyse and use sex-disaggregated financial inclusion data. They will be able to recognize the importance of serving diverse segments of women and girls leading to an expertise to design and pilot financial products and services customized to their needs. At the institutional level, FSPs will be able to implement policies and practices to enhance the gender diversity of their workforce as well as promote leadership programmes for women at staff and management levels. 

On the demand-side, women and girls will have greater access to financial information and services offering the potential for an enhanced quality of life and expanded livelihood and development opportunities.

UNCDF is looking to hire a Gender Officer to provide the overall drive, direction, implementation of the gender-related activities within the EFA Programme.

The Gender Officer will report to the UNCDF Programme Specialist P-4 /Myanmar Country Coordinator and is expected to work closely with the rest of project team. 

This position will be based in Yangon, Myanmar.

Devoirs et responsabilités

Summary of Key Functions:

• Leads the implementation of programme activities related to gender
• Provides technical guidance to programme activities related to gender
• Ensures policy and advocacy support to programme activities related to gender
• Maintains current and establish new strategic partnerships focusing on gender
• Facilitates knowledge management and sharing focusing on gender

1. Leads the implementation of programme activities related to gender:

• Responsible for overseeing the implementation of EFA gender-related activities in Myanmar working very closely with the Government and various public and private sector players to ensure timely achievement of results
• Manages effectively gender-related aspects of the programme according to the annual work plan of the programme, ensuring targeted achievement of expenditures, delivery of activities and outputs
• Contributes to and/or writes quarterly, annual and other relevant reports capturing the results of gender-related activities and ensure timely submissions
• Provides the overall vision to the implementation of gender-related activities within EFA

2. Provides technical guidance to programme activities related to gender:

• Technically leads the organization of gender-related seminars, workshops, peer learning exchanges, trainings for regulators, policymakers and senior management of private sector organizations
• Technically leads the organization of focus groups discussions in the conflict-affected areas of Myanmar
• Provides technical advice in line with his/her expertise in inclusive finance for women and women economic empowerment to strategic partners and local counterparts
• Offers updated and accurate country intelligence to the team especially in the areas of Financial Inclusion for women and women economic empowerment

3. Ensures policy and advocacy support to programme activities related to gender:

• Participates to technical discussions around women in country and ensure that the gender-related activities within EFA contribute to the National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women (NSPAW) and its objectives
• Liaises with identified stakeholders advocating for issues relevant to the programme such as strengthening women financial inclusion particularly for women and girls in IDPs camps and conflict affected areas
• Guides the drafting and dissemination of case studies focusing on the demand-side constraints to women’s financial inclusion as well as on the supply-side to encourage FSPs to tailor products/services to women and girls living in IDP camps and conflict affected areas.           
• Works closely with government institutions, private sector, donors and other relevant stakeholders to support financial inclusion for women in country

4. Maintains current and establishes new strategic partnerships focusing on gender:

• Engages key public, private and civil society organizations to ensure they focus on women’s financial inclusion in their business/work plans 
• Creates and consolidates partnerships with Government, private sector, think tanks, CSOs, other international organizations to provide wider support to financial inclusion for women in country
• Keeps abreast with key changes in policy environment, regulations, strategic focus of development partners and market developments that affect women’s financial inclusion
• Supports activities scale up to ensure the programme successfully supports stakeholders in their efforts to create an enabling environment for women financial inclusion

5. Facilitates knowledge management and sharing focusing on gender:

• Contributes to increase programme visibility by ensuring the wide dissemination of case studies and other knowledge documents developed by the programme
• Ensures that the findings from the research work are intensively communicated using various channels, including face-to-face dissemination events, print and digital media
• Increases stakeholder’s knowledge on gender and women financial inclusion while working with them in the implementation of the gender-related activities within EFA programme

Compétences

Core Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modeling UN values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UNCDF and UNDP
• Promotes ethics and integrity, creating organizational precedents
• Builds support and political acumen
• Builds and promotes effective teams
• Creates and promotes enabling environment for open communication
• Creates an emotionally intelligent organization
• Shares knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning
• Ability to address gender equality and empowerment of women considerations in strategic and operational activities of UNCDF.

Leadership:

• Serves as a role model that other people want to follow
• Empowers others to translate vision into results
• Is proactive in developing strategies to accomplish objectives
• Establishes and maintains relationships with a broad range of people to understand needs and gain support
• Drives for change and improvement

Managing Performance:

• Delegates the appropriate responsibility, accountability and decision-making authority
• Makes sure that roles, responsibilities and reporting lines are clear to each staff member
• Monitors progress against milestones and deadlines
• Regularly discusses performance and provides feedback and coaching to staff

Judgment/Decision Making:

• Identifies the key issues in a complex situation, and comes to the heart of the problem quickly
• Gathers relevant information before making a decision
• Proposes a course of action or makes a recommendation based on all available information
• Determines that the actions proposed will satisfy the expressed and underlying needs for the decision

Functional Competencies:      

Results-Based Programme Development and Management:

• Ensures timely and efficient implementation of a complex programme that requires strong leadership and stakeholders’ engagement
• Conceptualizes and promotes more effective approaches to programme implementation, and mobilizing and using resources
• Creates an environment that fosters innovation and innovative thinking
• Proven ability to manage programmes and programme teams, preferably with UN experience

Job Knowledge/Technical Expertise:

• Understands financial inclusion as well as the fundamental concepts of related financial market development
• Understand the importance of promoting financial inclusion for women

Advocacy/Advancing A Policy-Oriented Agenda:

• Creates effective advocacy strategies around women financial inclusion and women economic empowerment
• Performs analysis of political situations and scenarios, and contributes to relevant regulations refinements

Building Strategic Partnerships:

• Effectively networks with partners seizing opportunities to build strategic alliances relevant to the programme
• Identifies needs and interventions for capacity building of counterparts, clients and potential partners
• Promotes UNCDF’s agenda in inter-agency meetings

Qualifications et expériences requises

Education:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Management, Economics, Banking and Finance, Development Studies or other related fields.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience at the national or international level in providing management advisory services, hands-on experience in design, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and establishing inter-relationships among international organization and national governments
• Working knowledge of financial inclusion with a focus on women financial inclusion
• Experience of stakeholder engagement preferably related to financial inclusion for women applying market systems approaches
• Prior experience working with the Myanmar Government on Financial Inclusion for women, and women economic empowerment
• Prior experience working with the UN would be an advantage
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages. Expertise in the use of ICT tools
• A demonstrated ability to take initiative, work independently and with minimum guidance and oversight

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in spoken and written English a must and national language of the duty station required.

***Please note: Paper-based applications will not be accepted. Candidates must apply on-line through UNDP job website.  The one who previously applied for this post needs not to apply.