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UN WOMEN: CHIEF, FUND FOR GENDER EQUALITY

Grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, UN Women 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 coordinate 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 Fund for Gender Equality provides grants, on a competitive basis, for government and civil society efforts to advance women's economic and political empowerment in line with national development plans and priorities. It promotes effective programme country management of and donor harmonization and alignment around national development priorities and aims to implement and oversee grant-making, monitoring and evaluation.

Duties and Responsibilities

Reporting to UN Women Deputy Director of Programme Division, the Chief (Fund for Gender Equality) will be responsible for Fund Management, and specifically:
  • Fund Development/ Implementation
  • Monitoring, Evaluation, and Donor Reporting
  • Management of the Gender Equality Trust Fund Unit and its staff
Fund Development and Implementation:
  • Convene the meetings of the Fund's Steering Committee, ensuring an appropriate balance between government, non-governmental and UN organizations.
  • Work with colleagues in UN WOMEN and the Steering Committee to regularly review the Operational Guidelines that determine the programmatic, administrative and financial procedures of the Fund.
  • Maintain and further develop a full programme document that outlines the substantive focus, strategies, results framework and monitoring mechanisms to guide the fund and ensure that its impact is measured against agreed indicators.
  • Manage the Call for Proposals and oversee its distribution to ensure that it is received by the widest possible constituency.
  • Review and improve the design of systems to: document, analyze and process all applications received by the Fund; collect and track technical experts and consultants that can be called up by the Fund to support grantees application and programme implementation.
  • Work with an independent evaluation team to regularly review and further strengthen the evaluation design that enables the Fund to report on its performance and the impact of its grantmaking activities, as well as to stimulate learning about effective strategies for advancing women's economic and political empowerment in the context of national development plans.
  • Maintain ongoing contact with Steering Committee members to ensure their full involvement in approving proposals to be supported.
  • Oversee all communications with and technical support to potential grantees.
  • Ensure coordination between the Fund team and colleagues in UN WOMEN geographic and thematic sections, as well as colleagues from other UN organizations, to involve them in providing substantive guidance as appropriate and to build on the knowledge, partnerships and programmes that UN WOMEN and UN Country Teams are supporting on the ground.
  • Liaise and foster the coordination with UN and other multi-donor trust funds of a similar nature to share lessons, coordinate practices, and enhance complementarity.
  • Participate in strategies to mobilize resources and involvement in the Fund by a wide range of donors, including governmental, non-governmental and private sector partners.
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Donor Reporting:
  • Oversee that all reports on the activities, achievements and financing of the Fund are completed in a timely manner, are of high quality, and are available to key constituencies (e.g., donors, partners, UN organizations, etc.)
  • Ensure that the Fund has the capacity and guidelines necessary to commission strategic, timely and independent evaluations that generate key lessons about advancing women's economic and political empowerment, as well as ensuring that these lessons feed into the ongoing operations of and Management Response to the Fund. 
  • Work closely with UN WOMEN Administrative and Finance staff to ensure high quality financial management and efficient transfers and tracking of funds for grants and contractors.
Management of the Gender Equality Trust Fund Unit and its staff:
  • Oversee recruitment of staff for the Fund for Gender Equality.
  • Provide guidance and support to the Fund for Gender Equality Unit’s staff, including performance feedback.
  • Ensure regular completion and appropriate use of the RCA system for staff of the Fund for Gender Equality.
Impact of Results:
  • The Fund for Gender Equality Programme Manager impacts on success of the efforts to develop and implement the grant making mechanism of UN Women. The Gender Equality Fund Programme Manager is responsible for developing, implementing and managing the Fund to help national partners achieve gender equality and advancement of women.

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles: 
  • Integrity: Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN Women in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
  • Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity: Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.
Core Competencies:
 
Ethics and Values
  • Promoting Ethics and Integrity / Creating Organizational Precedents
Organizational Awareness
  • Building support and political acumen. 
Planning and organizing
  • Proven ability to plan strategic direction and ability to organize and service intergovernmental bodies and international technical meetings
Developing and Empowering People / coaching and mentoring
  • Building staff competence, creating an environment of creativity and innovation
Working in Teams
  • Proven record of building and managing teams and creating an enabling and collaborative work environment, including the ability to effectively lead, supervise, mentor, develop and evaluate staff.
Communicating Information and Ideas
  • Creating and promoting enabling environment for open communication
Self-management and Emotional intelligence
  • Creating an emotionally intelligent organization
Conflict Management / Negotiating and Resolving Disagreements
  • Leveraging conflict in the interests of the organization & setting standards. Ability to interact and negotiate with high-level government officials are required
Knowledge Sharing / Continuous Learning
  • Sharing knowledge across the organization and building a culture of knowledge sharing and learning.
Appropriate and Transparent Decision Making
  • Fair and transparent decision-making; calculated risk-taking
Commitment to continuous learning
  • Willingness to keep abreast of new developments in the field of gender equality thematic areas Leadership - Proven track record of excellent management and technical leadership skills and ability to delegate appropriate responsibility, accountability and decision-making authority.
Functional Competencies:
  • Strong planning, goal setting and prioritization skills.
  • Results based management and quality delivery of outputs in accordance with time and budget.
  • Ability to lead and inspire staff and partners towards shared goals.
  • Ability to build strong relationships with clients.
  • Good interpersonal and diplomacy skills.
  • Capacity to write clearly and concisely.
  • Ability to make decisions under pressure and to deal with matters that are politically and cultural sensitive.
  • Ability to work in a multi-cultural context and build partnerships to ensure achievement of results.
  • Proven analytical and problem solving skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
  • Advanced university degree in Political Science, International Development Studies, Gender/ Women's Studies, Economics or Sociology
Experience:
  • At least 10 years of professional experience, including experience in formulation, management and evaluation of programmes in developing countries with a gender approach.
  • Previous experience at the management level in a grant-making organization, with proven experience in devising programmatic and operational guidelines that enhance grant-making.
  • Previous experience in strengthening gender equality mechanisms.
  • In-depth knowledge of programming on women's human rights and gender equality.  
  • Familiarity with bilateral and multilateral donor organizations and civil society organizations.
  • Proven experience in financial and administrative management functions.
  • Excellent organizational and writing skills  
Language Requirements:
  • Fluency in English required, and in at least one additional UN language a distinct advantage
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.
Click here for important information for US Permanent Residents ('Green Card' holders).
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.