Background

UN Women was established by GA resolution 64/289 of 2 July 2010 on system-wide coherence, with a mandate to assist Member States and the UN system to progress more effectively and efficiently towards the goal of achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women. Since 2001 UN Women (previously as UNIFEM) in Kyrgyzstan has implemented catalytic initiatives on promoting women’s economic, political and social rights. In 2012 a full Country Office was established.

After signature of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) 2018-22, UN Women is currently finalizing its Strategic Note for the same period which guides the activities of the UN Women Country Office and itself is informed by the UNDAF, development strategies of the Kyrgyz republic, the SDGs and the UN Women mandate and global Strategic Plan. 

Development Results Framework 3 on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls 
The Country Office works on EVAWG and contributes to the Impact Area 3 “Women and girls live a life free of violence”. Overcoming deeply rooted gender stereotypes and EVAWG is a precondition for Kyrgyzstan’s social and economic development and remains a priority. UN Women draws on its acknowledged leadership role to effectively coordinate civil society and development partners in order to inform public policy in favor of EVAWG. The Country Office serves as a knowledge hub and a catalytic resource for evidence-based planning and advocacy in EVAWG programming, including with respect to LGBTIQs, HIV affected and minority women. Rights restriction of the latter is a human rights violation and gender based discrimination, which overlap and intersect with multiple forms of oppression experienced by women and will be addressed within the UNiTE campaign. The CO provides evidence-based policy advice to decision makers and monitor the compliance of the state parties with their international and national commitments. In order to effectively support EVAWG, the Country Office takes the lead in work related to attitude change in favor of gender stereotypes and EVAWG among the general public by focusing on three components: 

The UN Women country presence includes offices in Bishkek and Osh, staffed by 20 personnel in total. UN Women works at national level in in all oblasts and many rayons and municipalities on political participation of women, women’s economic empowerment, Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls, Women, Peace and Security, and in supportive of the normative agenda. Working with youth and rural women is a featured across our work. UN Women works closely with state authorities and parliament, with civil society and development partners.

The position is in support of the UN Women Kyrgyzstan Country Office’s and the following work:

-    Finalisation of Reports under the Gender in Society Perception Study
-    Development of a behavior change strategy to support the UN Women Kyrgyzstan Strategic Note 2018-2022
-    Coordination and oversight of the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls project

Duties and Responsibilities

The position is in support of the UN Women Kyrgyzstan Country Office’s and the following work:

-    Finalisation of Reports under the Gender in Society Perception Study
-    Development of a behavior change strategy to support the UN Women Kyrgyzstan Strategic Note 2018-2022
-    Coordination and oversight of the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls project

Under direct supervision and guidance of the National Programme Officer, and in regular interaction with the Representative and other Country Office staff and on relevant subject matters with the Advisor on Women, Peace and Security at the Regional Office, the Project Coordinator will work on the following broad issues:

Finalisation of Reports under the Gender in Society Perception Study 

Currently, two pillar reports on migration and religion are finalised, with three remaining pending. By generating a substantial, reliable evidence base on the forms of gender discrimination and community-level trends that pose risks to women’s empowerment and prevent women’s participation in peacebuilding, the GSPS will create the conditions for significantly more gender-sensitive and evidence-based policy making and programming pursued by state institutions, the United Nations Country Team, development partners and civil society. 

Elaboration of a Behaviour Change Communication Strategy

The most significant challenge for preventing violence remains the persistence of attitudes and behaviour of men and also women in society with a strong patriarchal discourse that assigns limited, gender-stereotypical roles to women and girls. While a number of initiatives to prevent and address VAW have been undertaken in Kyrgyzstan, all of them have suffered for a lack of evidence and data. With the recently completed nation-wide Gender in Society Perception Study (GSPS), the Research on Youth and other researches, the CO plans to implement attitude change initiative in favour of EVAWG as one of the key strategic areas for the office. The objective is that the society and the majority of individual view violence against women and girls as unacceptable and shameful behavior. The expected result is that women and men are informed and aware about the negative consequences of gender violence on socio-economic developments of their families, communities, and on the country overall. 

Specifically, the Behavior Change Communication (BCC) approach will be used to inform the Behavior Change Strategy. This approach is often used in other areas, however piloting this tool on prevention of VAWG will demonstrate innovative approach and significant potential for meaningful positive impacts on people. This is a catalytic project that promotes cross-cutting sustainability outcomes not only for VAWG area but across other programmes of the CO on economic empowerment, peace and security, and governance and national planning. 

The Project Coordinator will identify, source and oversee experts to draft the BCC Strategy.

Coordination of activities on the protection of the rights of women and girls against Sexual Gender-Based Violence  

The initiative is a seed-funded project. It aims to protect SGBV survivors’ rights by providing access for women and girls to information and services using ICT tools and innovations, by strengthening capacities of Civil Society Organizations on SGBV case identification, monitoring of state processing and management of reported cases. The expected results of this project is that:
1.    Women and girls will receive access to user-friendly and easy-to-find information in Kyrgyz and Russian languages about their rights and procedures of SGBV cases reporting and participation in pre-court and court processes
2.    Minimum 15 CSOs from all regions will be trained on using comprehensive and user-friendly guidelines on SGBV case identification, monitoring of state processing and management of reported cases
3.    Cooperation with ICT-experts and practitioners will be built to develop and promote innovative ideas about women’s and girls’ rights to the life free of violence

UN Women announced the Request for Proposals to procure services in relation to implementing this seed-funding project. A contract is likely in place by the time the Project Coordinator joins.
  

Specific Tasks
1.    Coordinating GSPS activities 

The incumbent will be responsible for coordinating follow-up activities on GSPS. This includes providing support in operational implementation of the project and overall support to financial management. More specifically, the incumbent will be responsible to support:

1.1    Finalization and approval process of economics, politics and VAWG pillar reports and the Introduction Chapter for GSPS: Three pillar reports on economics, politics and VAWG and Introduction Chapter for GSPS were drafted and are currently pending specific comments from the Regional Office prior them being revised if necessary, approved and accepted as final versions for further publication. The incumbent will support coordinating this revision and approval processes between the Regional Office and relevant researchers. This entails inter alia supporting to coordinate the process via email, draft ToRs and contracts for review of colleagues, assists with procurements for goods and services in line with UN Women rules and regulations, obtain inputs and approvals from RUNO partners, and organize final version for editing, translation and being put into publication across three languages – English, Russian and Kyrgyz. 

1.2    Anonymization of research data: GSPS collected qualitative data on above mentioned VAWG, politics and economics pillars with more than 500 interviews, case studies and FGDs (exact figures and pillar to be additionally confirmed). The consultant will support coordinating activities of researchers who will be responsible for data anonymization. This will include developing a Plan for Anonymization of the primary qualitative data with details on anonymization methods and rules on dataset cleaning process to ensure that potentially identifying data is anonymised before it is published and/or released to third parties and subsequent anonymization of data based on this plan.

1.3    Preparing research data for transfer to a depository unit: Once the research qualitative data is anonymised, it will be ready to be transferred to a selected depository unit, who will manage, store and share GSPS data as per its procedures and rules. Data will need to be prepared in the format required by the depository unit. Anonymized qualitative data that was collected by the NSC and managed by UNFPA will also need to be transferred to a depository unit along the qualitative data. Ongoing discussions with the UK Data Service and a University in Kyrgyzstan will be followed-up. 

1.4    Producing communication products on GSPS and disseminating its reports: the incumbent will support the work on overseeing production of communication materials on GSPS, such as info graphics per each pillar of GSPS, photo brochure of GSPS respondents, and other communications products. In addition, the consult will support dissemination of GSPS reports and communication materials among relevant government stakeholders, civil society and private sector partners for dissemination and visibility purposes. 

2.    Coordinating drafting of BCC Strategy

BCC aims to change knowledge, practices, attitudes and behaviors of individuals, families and communities, as well as stimulate and facilitate wider social change at local and national levels. It is a comprehensive process that uses integrated approaches, such as community mobilization, interpersonal communication, community empowerment, public relations, public policy and media advocacy, entertainment-education, social marketing, with the following stages: Unaware => Aware => Concerned => Knowledgeable => Motivated to change => Practicing trial behavior change => Sustained behavior change. The incumbent will provide support to the following activities on BCC:

2.1    Developing Behavior Change Strategy using BCC approach: a Behavior Change Strategy will be developed based on collected data and GSPS results and with the use of BCC approach. The strategy will inter alia outline the goals, map the stakeholders, identify target populations, define behavior change objectives, identify barriers, develop communication products with a specific set of advocacy and awareness raising efforts and activities, and other. The consultant will support facilitating the necessary recruitment process and coordinating the development of BCC strategy. 

2.2    Strengthen capacities of national partners on BCC and evidence based advocacy for development and implementation of laws and policies on EVAWG: after the strategy is developed, it will be important to conduct a series of capacity building trainings for relevant national partners as well as for the CO staff. In parallel to strengthening capacities of stakeholders on BCC, they will be also requested to consult and provide feedbacks and suggestions on ways to contextualize and improve the strategy.  The consultant will support coordination and logistics of the trainings and consultations on BCC. 

2.3    Production of communications products and piloting advocacy and awareness raising campaign: community-based advocacy and awareness raising efforts and activities proposed in the Behaviour Change Strategy will be pilot tested prior to broad scale implementation to determine not only their efficacy in changing behaviour, but also their cost-effectiveness. These pilots will include community mobilization targeting both men and women, boys and girls, and other stakeholders, including traditional and faith leaders; specific focus on groups of women and girls who face multiple forms of discrimination, use of the media, theatre, and other forms of entertainment, outreach by civil society, set up of peer-to-peer groups, finding influential ‘champions’. Prior piloting all communications products will need to be produced, such as inter alia infographics, videos, brochures, documentary, TV program, tailored messages, radio materials and other. The consultant will provide administrative, logistical and programme support in organizing these tasks. 

3.    Coordinating “Protection of the rights of women and girls against SGBV” seed funding project

Key activities of this seed funding project include development of the user-friendly information, guidelines in local languages about the rights and key procedure steps on reporting of SGBV cases and participation in pre-court and court processes according to national legislation in this area; strengthening capacities of CSOs on SGBV case identification and monitoring; and organizing a session on ICT-tool and innovation for protection of women and girls rights for the life free of violence at the national Safe Cities Hackathon in Kyrgyzstan.

The Project Coordinator will coordinate activities in relation to implementation of this seed-funding project by the selected service provider. This will include overall coordination of the implementing service provider, ensuring project activities are successfully implemented and expected results are achieved. For this the incumbent will monitor all project activities and identify any challenges in the implementation process and propose solutions on addressing these problems, advising UN Women management early. 

Generic tasks under the assignment: 
The incumbent will perform general tasks related to providing administrative and financial support per each activity-specific tasks described below on GSPS, BCC and SGBV. 
-    Draft and amend annual work plans and budgets (AWP) and enter these into ATLAS, acting as Project Manager, this including the drafting of project documents, work plans, budgets, proposals on implementation arrangements and reports required for the purposes of annual work planning, resource mobilization, collaboration with partners, reporting to donors, as well as drafting official letters 
-    Support drafting quarterly monitoring and annual programme reports
-    Ensure timely and quality implementation of activities under the relevant AWP, monitor budget utilization/implementation in lieu of AWP and project log-frame, enter project into Atlas, prepare for required budget revisions
-    Timely preparation of all requisite substantive and financial reporting under the projects and/or activities
-    Ensure that all inputs under the projects and/or activities are available on time and in full compliance with the respective UN Women rules and regulations
-    As required identify, source and arrange for contracts and for partnerships under the Responsible Party modality or use other contractual modalities
-    As required, liaise with government stakeholders, civil society and private sector partners to ensure proper coordination and partnership in common development efforts, present information on project activities, as well as ensure dissemination to broader public 
-    Draft ToR and contracts for review by colleagues
-    Participate in recruitment of (Inter)national Experts/Consultants and assists with procurements for goods and services in line with UN Women rules and regulations
-    Ensure facilitation of knowledge building and sharing through synthesis of lessons learnt and best practices under the project supported; sound contributions to knowledge networks and communities of practice; assistance in maintenance of a calendar of the most relevant regional/national fora related to the project activities and assistance to facilitate access to that information by partners and relevant UN Women staff; keeping abreast of technical development in Women, Peace and Security
-    As necessary, conduct regular field missions
-    Provide analysis and document same as lessons learned, best practices piloted, etc.
-    Organise workshops, trainings and events
-    Identify suitable researchers and other partners, both individuals and institutions, after first developing transparent assessment tools
-    Accept deliverables and work performed and prepare for payment or cash replenishment
-    Participate in review committees and take minutes
-    Provide visibility to UN Women
-    Engage in reciprocal support and backstopping with team colleagues
-    Any other relevant tasks assigned by management.

Competencies

Competencies

Corporate:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN's values and ethical standard
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Functional: 

Knowledge Management and Learning

• Shares knowledge and experience
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills
• Ability to analyse complex situations from a position of impartiality
• Ability to concisely and to the point document information and findings, targeting a specific audience 

Development and Operational Effectiveness

• Ability to perform a variety of specialized tasks related to Results Management, including support to design, planning and implementation of projects, managing data. and reporting
• Good knowledge of Results Management Guide and Toolkit

Leadership and Self-Management

• Focuses on result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure, uses skills of diplomacy
• Ability to prioritize and manage competing priorities, grasping the situation quickly
• Ability to conduct advocacy on sensitive issues, not avoiding but processing conflict

Required Skills and Experience

Required Skills and Experience 

Education:

• Master’s (postgraduate) degree in the social sciences, in economics, in politics or a related discipline
• Fluency in English and Russian; working knowledge of Kyrgyz.

Experience:

• Minimum of two years of relevant experience in Kyrgyzstan
• The minimum years of work experience must be for managing or coordinating projects and programmes, with a focus on either/or gender equality promotion; peace-building; social development; or women empowerment. According to UN rules, a Master’s may possibly be substituted for by an additional year of fully relevant experience.
• Demonstrated substantive knowledge in the thematic area of gender equality and/or women’s social, political or economic empowerment, 
• Proven experience in writing project documents or project reports; strong analytical skills
• Good numerical skills
• Competent in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.)
• Experience on conflict prevention and peace-building methodologies highly desirable
• Experience in conducting sociological research a distinct advantage
• Work experience at field level and interaction with communities as well as local self-government desirable
• Experience with ERP or certification such as PRINCE or equivalent an advantage.

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. 

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted! All online applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women, UNDP or UN Personal History form (P11) in English. Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment which must be the P11. Applications without the completed P-11 form are incomplete and will NOT be considered !!!