Background

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.

Globally, UN Women focuses on six priority areas. These include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, supporting women's participation in achieving and sustaining peace, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

With regards to the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, UN Women recognizes that ongoing and emerging conflicts have devastating consequences, including the widening of development gaps between women and men. Women frequently make up the bulk of displaced and refugee populations and are disproportionately targeted for sexual violence. Despite being at the forefront of peace movements, women are rarely part of formal peace negotiations.

UN Women acts to build women’s participation and influence in decision-making to prevent and resolve conflicts and works towards more inclusive and peaceful societies. UN Women’s programmes on women, peace and security are guided by a series of commitments to women’s rights. These include the historic UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and seven supporting resolutions—1820, 1888, 1889, 1960, 2106, 2122 and 2242. Other key reference points are the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), specifically CEDAW General Recommendation no. 30 on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations.

In line with its global commitments to support countries, UN Women in Ethiopia has recently partnered with UNDP and IOM in launching a new project on peacebuilding with funding from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (UN-PBF). The project will be nationally implemented in collaboration with Ministry of Peace and Ministry of Women, Children and Youth and in close partnership with UNDP and IOM as the partner agencies. The overall goal is to assist Government of Ethiopia to develop an inclusive national peacebuilding strategy and to attend to regional peacebuilding challenges and peacefully resolve conflicts contributing and resulting due to displacement.

The projected outcomes of this project are:

1. Government of Ethiopia develops/adopts a national peacebuilding strategy through an inclusive and evidence- based process
2. Peacefully resolve conflicts contributing to and resulting from displacement and thus reduce violence in conflict-prone clusters by facilitating regional dialogues

UN Women Ethiopia is seeking the services of a Project Officer who will provide technical support and lead, coordinate, and monitor the effective implementation the project components including implementation of community mobilization, capacity building and knowledge management related activities that are necessary to achieve the objectives of the project as led by UN Women Ethiopia under Inclusive Governance and Conflict Managment Support Project (IGC-MSP).

Duties and Responsibilities

Duties and responsibilities

Under the overall oversight of UN Women Deputy Country Representative and direct supervision of the Programme Specialist - Women’s leadership and political participation program, the Project Officer will:

• Provide technical support in rolling out and implementation of UN Women’s component of the IGC-MSP.
• Provide technical and financial management, monitoring and reporting support in addition to facilitating strategic partnership, advocacy and knowledge management.
• Provide technical assistant in mainstreaming gender in all components of the IGC-MSP.
• Provide technical assistance, support capacity building of key partners and their coordination for effective implementation of the project.
• Maintain regular contact with partner agencies and government implementing partners through periodic meetings for continued update on field activities, challenges and results.
• Analyze reports from partners for quality control, undertake field missions, identifying challenges, suggest possible solutions and provide advice and support.
• Identification and synthesis of good practices and lessons learnt linked to the project outcomes and incorporating these to refine project strategies.
• Assist in analyzing quality of project design and implementation, and periodically update the project monitoring framework incorporating reviews, lessons learned, and best practices
• Perform other duties as may be directed by the supervisor.
• Support in developing financial and narrative report that will be submitted to the project coordinator for consolidation and submission to UNDP Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office (MPTFO)
• Provide input into briefing and reports to Project Board

Competencies

Corporate competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism

Knowledge Management and Learning:

• Promotes knowledge management in UN Women and a learning environment in the office through leadership and personal example
• Actively works towards continuing personal learning and development in one or more Practice Areas, acts on learning plan and applies newly acquired skills

Development and Operational Effectiveness: 

• Ability to lead strategic planning, results-based management and reporting
• Ability to mobilize resources, lead formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects,
• Ability to formulate and manage budgets, manage contributions and investments, manage transactions, conduct financial analysis, reporting and cost-recovery
• Ability to coordinate the work of others, work on tight deadlines and handle multiple concurrent projects/activities
• Strong analytical and organizational skills and attention to detail
• Strong IT skills
• Knowledge of financial rules and regulations, accounting

 Leadership and Self-management:

• Builds strong relationships with clients, focuses on impact and result for the client and responds positively to feedback
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude
• Demonstrates good oral and written communication skills
• Demonstrates openness to change and ability to manage complexities
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure.
• Ability to make decisions under pressure and to deal with matters that are politically and cultural sensitive.
• Good interpersonal and diplomacy skills

Functional competencies:

• Development/programming skills particularly those that are pertinent to UN Women strategic priorities on of gender, peace and security, development and governance issues in Ethiopia.
• Substantive knowledge and experience in the provision of coordinated support and management of women peace and security programmes in a peacebuilding context
• Ability to support formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes and projects.
• Knowledge of Results Based Management principles and approaches.
• Ability to maintain networks and partnerships with UN agencies and other international partners to promote partnership and build alliances to advance organizational interests and competencies.
• Ability to think conceptually, strategically and analytically
• Ability to carry out research, to contribute to the formulation of policies, procedures and guidelines.

Technical and financial management, monitoring and reporting:

• Coordinate the effective application of results-based management tools, providing guidance to partners on establishment of performance indicators.
• Assist the Programme Specialist in the management of budgets, administration and procurement-related matters and functions in accordance with UN/UN Women rules and regulations.
• Coordinate the contracting of project services to implementing agencies, ensuring compliance with UN procedures; support the release of funds to counterparts, liquidation of funds and other processes.
• Periodic monitoring meetings with government and non-government partners.
• Monitoring, analysis and evaluation of technical and financial reports from partners, including technical and management support.
• Assist in analysing quality of project design and implementation, and periodically update the project monitoring framework incorporating reviews, lessons learned, and best practices;
• Undertake regular field visits and liaison with other Project personnel hired to manage and facilitate the project.
• Preparation of internal technical reports and briefs including donor reports; documentation of activities, outputs and outcomes on a regular basis.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree in Conflict and Peace Studies, Gender and Development, International Relations, Public Administration, Law, Human Rights or equivalent in relevant fields of Social Science.

Experience:

• Minimum two years of relevant experience in implementation of projects related to women’s empowerment and women, peace and security.
• Demonstrable experience in organizing multi-stakeholder meetings and coordinating with a wide range of stakeholders, including government, non-governmental organisations, women groups, and local communities.
• Experience in preparing background documents, agenda and talking points for such meetings.
• Hands-on experience in implementation and evaluation of development projects and programmes will be an advantage
• Knowledge of the governance, peace and security context in Ethiopia and experience working with government partners
• Hands on experience in designing, implementing and monitoring development projects with particular experience in the areas of women, peace and security a distinct advantage.
• Experience in results-based and rights-based development approaches and management of multi-stakeholder programmes.
• Good interpersonal, networking and communication skills;
• Proven advocacy, analytical and writing skills
• Computer skills (i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, social media, and others)

Language:

Good command of written and spoken English and Amharic is required. Knowledge of other local languages is advantageous