The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) was created by the United Nations General Assembly in July 20100 to accelerate the United Nations goals on gender equality and women’s empowerment. It is grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and 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 centre of all its efforts, the UN Women is mandated to lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It is also mandated to provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
The UN Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Programme for Eastern and Southern Africa Region targets women, in both rural and urban areas, who have entrepreneurial potential but who lack assets, the requisite skills, or access financial services in order to productively access and engage in economic opportunities. The overall objective of the programme is the attainment of an inclusive access and effective participation of marginalised women in economic and leadership opportunities, by addressing barriers that limit their access and engagement.
The specific objectives of the Programme are:
- To enable women to attain economic security through increased access to economic and financial resources and services.
- To raise women entrepreneurs as leaders in Agri-business and Agro-industry (across specific value chains) within both domestic and international markets;
- To address structural, systemic and policy-related bottlenecks to women’s economic empowerment and leadership;
- To upscale a women’s economic empowerment approach that builds positive gender relations at household, community and societal levels.
- Establish a regional platform for knowledge and experience-sharing on innovations, women's economic rights.
UN Women has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Equity Foundation as a key strategic partner in the WEE programme. As part of the arrangement, Equity Foundation and UN Women will establish a Programme Implementation Unit (PIU) that will provide coordination and advisory services to the programme. Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Deputy Regional Director, the Programmes Manager will head the unit and be responsible for ensuring effective programme implementation and for management of its staff.
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Duties and Responsibilities
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Summary of Key Functions:
- Advisory Technical Support on Economic Empowerment Program Management.
- Programme Planning, Results Based Reporting, Monitoring and Evaluation.
- Knowledge Management and Communications.
- Support Partnerships Development and Resource Mobilization.
- Capacity Development.
1. Advisory Technical Support on Economic Empowerment Program Management
- Develop a plan for the inception phase of the Programme Implementation Unit which will include mapping of needs and resources, and the development of a detailed road map with strategies for engagement with partners and UN Women country offices.
- Establish and maintain partnerships and alliances with various strategic partners from development organizations, private sector and civil society to ensure active participation and promotion of the Women Economic Empowerment programme.
- Provide technical support directly or through the provision of experts to the country offices implementing the Women Economic Empowerment programme, with a particular focus on agriculture, agro business and specific value chains.
- Provide oversight and coordination of the Women Economic Empowerment programme activities at country level (currently, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda) with an expected expansion to Malawi and Tanzania in 2013 and other countries in the region in 2014.
- Ensure the development/duplication, integration and application of gender sensitive tools to all programme activities.
2. Programme Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Results Based Reporting
- Ensure individual project interventions are developed within the overall programme document contributing to the achievements of both the immediate and overall Women Economic Empowerment Plan.
- Manage the women economic empowerment portfolio for on-going and future programmes in the region.
- Ensure overall programme and individual work plans and budgets are developed and implementation modalities agreed upon.
- Initiate and lead capacity building programmes for Women Economic Empowerment Partners.
- Oversee, monitor and assure quality control in the implementation of the Women Economic empowerment Programme.
- Supervise and assess work in progress to ensure compliance and delivery of high quality results and achievements of overall programme objectives. This will include financial management, provision of overall guidance and problem solving, and identifying and utilization of lessons learned and best practices to ensure consistently improved programming.
- Ensure that programme reviews are undertaken timely and all reporting requirements are met.
3. Knowledge Management and Communications
- Collect, and share best practices and lessons learned from the country programmes and in particularly on gender equality and women’s empowerment strategies for the purpose of scale-up and replication.
- Lead in the development and implementation of the communications strategy in line with the UN Women and Equity Foundation corporate communications guidelines that promotes the Women Economic Empowerment Program.
- Ensure effective documentation of best practices and the lessons learnt.
- Produce knowledge products based on the implementation experiences and interactions with various stakeholders and players.
4. Support Partnerships and Resource Mobilisation.
- Develop and maintain effective partnerships with various stakeholders at regional, national and local levels, for delivery of the Women Economic Empowerment Programme
- Identify and follow-up opportunities for resource mobilization for Women Economic Empowerment in consultation with UN Women and Equity Foundation.
- Manage activities and other promotional events to engage bilateral and multilateral institutions/donors, private sector and civil society to expand and/or sustain interest and resources for the Women Economic Empowerment
- Represent the Programme in stakeholders forums and other key partnership meetings and events
- Perform any other duties as may be requested by the UN Women Country Representative and the Regional Director.
5. Staff management and Capacity Development
- Identify and recruit personnel for the Program Implementation Unit using multiple recruitment UN modalities such as UN Volunteers and South-South as well as North- South exchange options, for example, provision of technical expertise from MASHAV.
- Supervise and monitor the work of PIU staff including performance evaluations and appraisals.
- Lead and guide the Program Implementation Unit and foster collaboration within the team entrenching a client-oriented approach.
- Promote team work to ensure harmonization, linkages, collaboration and synergy and ensure staff members are provided with sufficient information, guidance and support to perform optimally and deliver results according to corporate and professional standards of efficiency, accountability and integrity.
- Provide capacity development interventions such as training, technical assistance, development of resources and accessibility of information, among others.
- Build entrepreneurial skills and competencies for a critical mass of women and youth.
- Provide close guidance to programme staff who perform adjunct operations functions, ensuring that such staff are knowledgeable of rules and procedures governing programme finances, donor reporting, and personnel.
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Competencies
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CORE VALUES / GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Integrity: Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
Professionalism: Demonstrate professional competence and expert knowledge of the pertinent substantive areas of work.
Cultural sensitivity and valuing diversity: Demonstrate an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrate an international outlook, appreciating difference in values and learning from cultural diversity.
CORE COMPETENCIES
- Ethics and Values: Demonstrate and safeguard ethics and integrity
- Organizational Awareness: Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment
- Development and Innovation: Take charge of self-development and take initiative
- Work in teams: Demonstrate ability to work in a multicultural, multi ethnic environment and to maintain effective working relations with people of different national and cultural backgrounds.
- Communicating and Information Sharing: Facilitate and encourage open communication and strive for effective communication
- Self-management and Emotional Intelligence: Stay composed and positive even in difficult moments, handle tense situations with diplomacy and tact, and have a consistent behavior towards others
- Conflict Management: Surface conflicts and address them proactively acknowledging different feelings and views and directing energy towards a mutually acceptable solution.
- Continuous Learning and Knowledge Sharing: Encourage learning and sharing of knowledge
- Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making: Demonstrate informed and transparent decision making
· FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES
- Substantive experience and record of accomplishment in the area of Gender and Women Economic Empowerment;
- Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development to experience;
- Ability to lead strategic planning, programme development and implementation, results-based management and reporting;
- Ability to formulate and manage budgets, manage contributions and investments, manage transactions, conduct financial analysis, reporting and cost control;
- Ability to develop and maintain strong partnership and resource mobilization;
- Demonstrated negotiating, cultural sensitivity and diplomatic skills;
- Well-developed people management skills;
- Provide information, tools, resources to support work achievement;
- Effectiveness orientation and pro-activity;
- Ability to leverage information technology, executive information systems, management techniques and tools for optimal office performance;
- Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills
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Terms of Service
The Service Contract is a modality of hiring of UNDP development project personnel, where UNDP at the request of an executing entity, or implementing partner under the harmonized operational modalities or where UNDP itself serves as executing entity/implementing partner of a development project provides personnel contracting services to support execution or implementation of the project.
This is a non-staff contract under the Service Contract modality of hiring of the UNDP. Individuals engaged under a SC serve in their individual capacity and not as representatives of a government institution, corporative body or other authority external to UNDP. Therefore the incumbents shall not be considered as staff of UNDP, the UN system or the Government and therefore are not entitled to any diplomatic privileges, or to any other special status or conditions.
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Required Skills and Expertise
Education: |
Master’s degree (or equivalent) in International Development, Economics, international relations or in other related Social Sciences.
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Experience: |
At least 5 years of progressively responsible development experience that combines strategic and managerial leadership in development cooperation, international relations, public administration or other related field, some of which should be in the area of economic empowerment, gender equality and women’s rights at the international level, preferably in developing countries within the UN system, Agencies, Funds or Programs.
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Language and IT Skills: |
Fluency in written and oral English while French is an added advantage
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UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.
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