UN WOMEN: GRANT-MAKING SPECIALIST AND ASIA PORTFOLIO OFFICER

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. Placing women's rights at the centre 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. The UN Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women (“UN Trust Fund”) was established through UN General Assembly Resolution 50/166 with UN Women as its Administrator on behalf of the UN system. The UN Trust Fund is a leading global multi-lateral mechanism supporting national efforts to end one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world. The UN Trust Fund’s annual grant-making process, through its widely publicized Call for Proposals, operates on core principles of ensuring an open, fair, transparent, competitive and merit-based process. Since 2008, the UN Trust Fund has received over 2,000 applications per application cycle with total funding requests exceeding US$ 1 billion. The UN Trust Fund focuses on implementation of laws, policies and action plans to address violence against women at country and local levels, while maintaining flexibility in terms of responsiveness to a wide range of forms of violence, national and emerging priorities and needs, and diverse approaches. By 2011, the UN Trust Fund had supported 339 programmes in 127 countries and territories with over US$ 78 million.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the UN Trust Fund Chief and in close collaboration with UN Women colleagues from the field, the Grant-Making Specialist and Asia Portfolio Officerwill be responsible for coordinating the grant-making programme including managing the technical review process and collaborating with UN Women’s regional and country programme offices in all aspects of the review, grant-making and implementation of grantee programmes. The Specialist is also responsible for the management of the Fund's Asia portfolio of active grants, including full substantive, financial, and administrative support in accordance with UN Trust Fund and UN Women procedures. Grant-making Programme: Provide strategic and substantive support in the conceptualization, development and oversight of the overall grant-making programme, in alignment with the UN Trust Fund’s programmatic strategy; Support the design and execution of grant-making systems to facilitate high-volume, multi-lingual and regionally-based application review, including design and production of assessment criteria and deployment of statistically-sound scoring and ranking procedures; Develop dissemination plan for grant application and related materials, including outreach to strategic networks to increase the innovation of the applicants pool; Develop and refine external/public programmatic guidance, including Call for Proposals, Concept Note, and Frequently Asked Questions; Serve as the focal point for UN Women Regional Centers and Country Offices in all aspects related to the UN Trust Fund’s annual grant-making process, including providing substantive support related to applicant appraisal and selection processes; Ensure adherence to established selection criteria across the Regional Centers and their inter-agency programme appraisal committees (PACs), through timely guidance to UN Trust Fund focal points, technical review group members and independent consultants; Conduct yearly assessments of Fund’s processes and compile lessons learned, best practices and results to increase the Fund’s efficiency and efficacy; Collaborate with Knowledge Management Specialist and Call for Proposals Analyst to update online grant application and grants database after each grant-making cycle; Provide technical assistance to potential grant applicants to support the completion of applications, including Concept Notes and Full-Fledged Proposals, to ensure compliance with Fund’s policies and use of application technologies in close consultation with the UN Trust Fund Chief; Contribute to the coordination and alignment of grant-making procedures with UN WOMEN grant-making programmes (such as the Fund for Gender Equality); Facilitate the gathering of inter-agency PAC members input on grant-making priorities prior to the grant cycle; Ensure adherence to specified timelines, including via timely review and submission of shortlisted concept notes, and convening of Regional and Global PACs. Support the UN Trust Fund Chief in backstopping and liaising on inter-agency related work. Grant-Management of Asia Regional Portfolio, with a Focus on Monitoring and Reporting: Manage grantee reporting system for the Asia region, including via regular process monitoring based on grantee progress reports by liaising with and guiding UN Trust Fund focal points in the field in report review and provision of feedback to grantees; Maintain centralized regional portfolio matrix of active grants, and provide quarterly portfolio updates to the UN Trust Fund Chief; Oversee monitoring and evaluation of active grantees, including project management, supporting implementation, and monitoring and evaluation plans in collaboration with the UN Trust Fund’s M&E Specialist; Coordinate and monitor the regional portfolio of active UN Trust Fund grants in Asia, including through monitoring missions, conducted together with UN Women focal points; Support and organize knowledge sharing and capacity development events for grantees, including annual regional capacity development workshop on evidence-based monitoring and evaluation, in liaison with Regional Centers and Country Offices (COs); Prepare application feedback letters and summaries of all new grantees for the Asia region and systematically update these summaries based on progress reports and monitoring missions, in liaison with UN Trust Fund Communications Specialist; Support the Fund’s Communication Specialist and Report Writer through direct engagement with grant recipients to gather knowledge products, media, etc. and ensure communications accurately reflect grant programmes; Keep systematic track of noteworthy grantee achievements and communicate to colleagues for possible visibility, such as special features on the website; Extract critical lessons learned and good practices from monitoring reports and identifying potential areas for further research, communication strategies and/or resource mobilization campaigns; Provide administrative support to SROs and grantees to ensure adherence to UN WOMEN policies, administrative and financial procedures. Provide support to UN Trust Fund team on policy and operational issues through providing feedback and information from the field.

Competencies

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.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: Masters degree or above in International Development, Social Sciences or other relevant field. Experience: Five years of relevant work experience in international development, gender equality or women’s empowerment issues; Proven track record in the development of grantmaking systems, grants management and familiarity with funding databases; Experience with independent research and statistical analysis a plus; Experience in the United Nations, a governmental, other multilateral or civil society organization focused on international development and/or philanthropy highly desirable. Language: Fluency in English required. Technological Skills: Proficiency in MS Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint and electronic media applications. Experience working with databases highly desirable. 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. 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. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

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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.