Background

UN Women South Sudan is implementing a 2 year humanitarian assistance programme- responding to emergency needs of displaced women and girls impacted by the ongoing conflict, and their host communities. The project is co-funded by the Government of Japan and, it is a continuation and expansion of UN Women’s 8 month pilot-response project started in 2014, designed to address critical gender gaps in the ongoing humanitarian response programmes in South Sudan. Over the year (April 2018- March 2019), the programme will enhance resilience and wellbeing of women and girls in 4 IDP settlements and their host communities through: improving access to livelihood opportunities and preventing GBV and mitigating its effects on women and girls in the target communities. In addition, it will strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Gender and Humanitarian Affairs, and other international and national humanitarian actors, including the coordination system (especially the HCT and the Cluster system) to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment needs and rights are adequately and sustainably integrated into the ongoing and all future humanitarian response and recovery strategic plans and programmes.

Organizational Context:

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 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.

UN Women in South Sudan has been working on the ground since 2011, implementing long term development programs particularly; Women's Leadership and Participation; Women’s Economic Empowerment; Violence against Women and Girls and Women's engagement in Peace and Security.    

UN Women is working in partnership with NGOs, UN agencies, local and national government entities and community based organizations (CBOs) to implement the humanitarian programme activities in South Sudan. The key objectives are to integration gender equality and women’s empowerment considerations in the development and implementation of normative, policy and procedures in humanitarian action; and to fill critical gender gaps in in the programming of humanitarian assistance.  In order to ensure effective and efficient delivery of programme results, UN Women is seeking the services of a programme assistant to support the work its Humanitarian Assistance Team in the Country Office.

Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of the Deputy Representative, the Programme Assistant will perform the following functions in South Sudan:

  • Provides support to the Programme Team including participation and assistance to preparation and conducting of programme meetings, annual reviews and other relevant Programme meetings and events;
  • Prepares briefing materials as necessary for programme staff to use on official trips, monitoring visits and meetings, etc;
  • Assists in the financial management of projects by generating financial reports, preparing requisitions and budget spreadsheets, raising requisitions, etc;
  • Drafts correspondence, takes dictation and instructions on a variety of programme related subject-matters;
  • Establishes and maintains project files in a systematic order. Archives closed files and maintains accurate log of archive files;
  • Keeps list of names, addresses and telephone numbers of Programme counterparts and other stake holders including government officials;
  • Ensure that UN Women security and safety standards are followed within the area of responsibility; 
  • Ensure visibility of the Donor(s) and UN Women in programme locations and among stakeholders including beneficiaries, local government authorities and communities;
  • Support local capacity building through organizing training and knowledge sharing events targeting local government authorities, NGO partners and community members;
  • Manage M&E Data base for all the beneficiaries and other stakeholders; 
  • Organize computer and adult literacy trainings for beneficiaries;
  • Assist in programme monitoring visits;
  • Provides administrative and logistical support, for travel arrangements for the Programme team and counterparts for all incoming and outgoing missions;
  • Performs other duties as required.

Competencies

Integrity/Commitment to mandate:

Acts in accordance with UN WOMEN values and holds himself/herself accountable for actions taken. Demonstrates personal commitment to UN Women’s mandate and to the organizational vision.

Knowledge sharing/Continuous learning:

Takes responsibility for personal learning and career development and actively seeks opportunities to learn through formal and informal means. Learns from others inside and outside the organization adopting best practices created by others. Actively produces and disseminates new knowledge.

Valuing diversity:

Demonstrates an international outlook, appreciates differences in values and learns from cultural diversity. Takes actions appropriate to the religious and cultural context and shows respect, tact and consideration for cultural differences. Observes and inquires to understand the perspectives of others and continually examines his/her own biases and behaviors.

Managing Relationships:

Working in teams;

Works collaboratively with colleagues inside and outside of UN WOMEN to allow the achievement of common goals and shared objectives. Actively seeks resolution of disagreements and supports the decisions of the team.

Communicating information and ideas:

Delivers oral and written information in a timely, effective and easily understood manner;

Participates in meetings and group discussions actively listening and sharing information;

Frankly expresses ideas with the intent to resolve issues, considers what others have to say and responds appropriately to criticism.

Conflict and self-management:

Manages personal reactions by remaining calm, composed and patient even when under stress or during a crisis and avoids engaging in unproductive conflict. Expresses disagreement in constructive ways that focus on the issue not the person. Tolerates conditions of uncertainty or ambiguity and continues to work productively.

Working with people:

Integrates himself/herself into the work unit seeking opportunities to originate action and actively contributing to achieving results with other members of the team. Knows his/her limitations and strength, welcomes constructive criticism and feedback and gives honest and contractive feedback to colleagues and supervisors. Seeks new challenges and assignments and exhibits a desire to learn. Accepts responsibility for personal performance participating in individual work planning and objective setting seeking feedback and acting to continuously improve performance. 

Required Skills and Experience

Minimum Qualification and Skills Required:

  • Completion of secondary Education is a requirement with very strong knowledge and experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS World, Excel, and Access.) and ICDL certification.  However Bachelor of Development Studies, Social Science, Bachelor of Science in ICT preferable with very strong knowledge and experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS World, Excel, and Access.) and ICDL certification is an added advantage;
  • At least 1-2 years of relevant experience with International organizations and the Knowledge of UN system and/or international organization procedures will be an asset;
  • Good knowledge of development issues in South Sudan;
  • Ability to work in a multi-cultural setting, initiative, sound judgement, good organizational skills and ability to work under pressure to meet deadlines;
  • Excellent communication skills both written and spoken;
  • Knowledge of gender issues;
  • Fluency in both spoken and written English and knowledge of local language (Arabic at the duty station).

Experience

  • Minimum of 2 years of relevant professional experience in designing, managing and implementing programmes/projects  in conflict and/ post-conflict environment;
  • Excellent communication skills, including strong drafting ability in English;
  • Professional experience in addressing gender equality issues and women’s empowerment.

Language Requirements:

  • Fluency in English (written and spoken) and Local Arabic.

Application Information:

  • Interested applicants can apply online or by submitting their application to UN Women Office in Juba in a sealed envelope by indicating the title of the position on the envelop; 
  • All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
  • Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment, scan your documents into one single file. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and may not be considered for further assessment.

Qualified women candidates are highly encouraged to apply.

    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.