Consultancy - Programme Associate

Consultant

Overview

Provide administrative support for budgetary and operational activities.

You have:

• Completion of secondary education is required.
• Bachelor's degree in Business or Public Administration is an asset.
• At least 6 years of progressively responsible experience in administration or programme management/support.
• Experience in budgetary and procurement processes; quantitative and qualitative analysis as well as proven written ability to draft reports and memoranda.
• Experience in working in a computer environment using multiple office software packages.
• Fluency in oral and written English is required.
• Working knowledge of another official UN language is an asset.

Contract

This is a National Consultant contract. More about National Consultant contracts.

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 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.

Care work is a crucial element for human well-being as well as an essential component for a vibrant, sustainable economy with a productive labour force. Care work ensures the complex and life-sustaining web on which our very existence depends on. Women around the globe take on a disproportionate share of unpaid care work, and gender imbalances in the distribution of care work constitute a root cause of women’s economic and social disempowerment. In South Africa, Budlender (2008, p.16) finds that women spend almost ten times as much time on care as men (48 minutes compared with five minutes per day), Further, this gender difference may manifest at young ages. In South Africa, for example, Budlender (2008, p.30) finds that “[young] girls were three times as likely to do unpaid care work as young boys”. For women living in rural areas these figures can vary widely, particularly in areas with limited access to regular basic services such as energy, water and sanitation, as women and girls tend to bear the brunt of the unpaid labour to collect and manage these resources and services for daily household consumption.

UN Women developed the ‘Transforming Approaches to Recognize, Reduce, and Redistribute unpaid Care Work in Women’s Economic Empowerment Programming’ Programme, dubbed the 3R programme, being implemented in Rwanda, Senegal, and South Africa. The overarching goal of the programme is to remove the structural barriers to women’s full and equal participation in the economy by recognizing, reducing, and redistributing unpaid care work. Although the programme was initially developed to focus on the 3Rs, UN Women equally realizes the importance of rewarding and representing paid care workers by ensuring decent work and social protection, including migrant workers.

Governments should ensure that core economic and social policies include concrete commitments to establish, finance and sustain universal care systems and invest in affordable, accessible, quality care services (health care, education, childcare, elder care, disability care) infrastructure (sustainable energy, water, and transport and information and communications technologies) for all. Governments and international financial institutions (IFIs) must ensure that fiscal consolidation and austerity measures in response to social and economic crises do not restrict investment in and the quality of public care systems. We must also guard against privatization of public care services, which disproportionately harms women and girls, who are most likely to fill the gap in care services through their unpaid care work and are least able to pay out-of-pocket for privatized care services

• The private sector has an important role to play in the care economy, for example, by providing decent care jobs, enacting care policies that further gender equality, such as paid maternity, paternity, and parental leave, and investing in care services and infrastructure in companies. The private sector should align with the public sector in applying and enforcing care-related laws, regulations, and policies, especially labour standards, to further the 3R framework.
• Improve data and statistics on care. A key priority is to strengthen the production, dissemination, and use of data and statistics on care work, both paid and unpaid, and on care-related policies and investments. Improved measurement of the amount, kind, and distribution of unpaid care work between men and women within families and communities (through time-use surveys and other instruments) and of paid care work, decent work deficits, and occupational segregation will help shape better and more gender-responsive care policies and systems. Incorporating measures of paid and unpaid care work in national and international statistics and in measures of economic progress is crucial for recognizing the value of care and its contributions.

Although pre-primary education is a policy priority in South Africa and has been for a few decades, sufficient provision of affordable and high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) is still inadequate, even for children from age 3 to the age they enter primary school. This is reflected in public spending on pre-primary education, which is a tiny fraction of gross domestic product in the country.

Investing in childcare (increased provision) will increase employment by creating more opportunities in the childcare industry; increased the available time for women to engage in the economy; other jobs will be created through such social enterprise business model, which in turn will result in a better workforce. High-quality ECCE is central to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals. from improving children’s health and development to reducing gender inequalities in employment and unpaid care.

It is crucial to recognize the link between climate change and unpaid care work. As we are in a constant changing world enduring various climate fluctuations, women and girls’ responsibility of unpaid care and domestic work intensifies.

It has proven that COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated women and girl burden of the unpaid care and domestic work. The pandemic continues to deepen pre-existing inequalities and exposing vulnerabilities in social, political and economic systems. There is therefore an urgent need to further enhance women’s economic empowerment in the form of investments in care work and early child-care to both counter these negative impacts, and to energize the drive towards the ‘’great re - set’’ as we also focus on building back better for women empowerment in the post-COVID 19 period.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide administrative support on budgetary/financial and operational activities:

• Provide administrative and coordination support in the recruitment of gender parity and equality related consultants and processing contracts and timely payments for consultants, vendors and other service providers;?
• Submit financial reports to the Senior Advisor for management monitoring and/or action as needed;?
• Review the Office’s operating budget to monitor expenditures for timely use as allocated and ensure compliance, completeness, and accuracy of transactions according to rules, regulations, allocations and objectives.;?
• Coordinate review and clearance process of publications with editors, designers, translation services, printing, etc. on finalization and publication of reports, as requested;?
• Prepare and/or recommend budget revisions to the Senior Advisor’s budget;

Provide administrative support:

• Provide administrative and coordination support in organization and implementation of meetings and webinars, as and when needed;?

• Preparation of official letters and similar communications materials, as requested, according to appropriate protocol procedures;

• Review and verify completeness of required documentation and/or clearances prior to submission for the supervisor’s approval/signature, if necessary;?

• Provide other support as requested by supervisor.

Expected deliverables****:

• Timely payments for consultants, vendors and other service providers. Office budgets monitored and maintained;
• Timely and quality procurement services provided;
• Administrative, HR, reporting, finance processes coordinated and supported;
• Travel requests supported and processed;
• Online events logistics coordinated;
• Team’s generic mailbox and online databases monitored, actioned and maintained;
• Timely and quality scheduling support to Team provided.

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

• Excellent organizational skills. Ability to perform a broad range of specialized activities aimed at effective and efficient functioning of the Office, including schedule/calendar management, maintenance of protocol, information flow and organization of events and webinars;
• Ability to process budgetary, travel and procurement related information and requested processes in a timely and accurate manner;
• Ability to organize a wide range of materials and information in a manner that is user-friendly and follows UN protocols; Ability to create, edit and present information in clear and presentable formats, using appropriate IT functionality;
• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities and demonstrating flexibility, particularly in light of last-minute requests;
• Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints;
• Accuracy and attention to detail in the analysis and presentation of data, policies and other information;
• Ability to work well, proactively and in a collaborative manner in a team;
• Ability to provide input to business process re-engineering, elaboration and implementation of new data management systems;
• Accepts constructive feedback in a positive manner and is able to cope with setbacks and maintain a proactive and positive attitude;
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and discretion.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Completion of secondary education is required;
• Bachelor’s degree in Business or Public Administration is an asset.

Experience:

• At least 6 years of progressively responsible experience in administration or programme management/support;
• Experience in budgetary and procurement processes; quantitative and qualitative analysis as well as proven written ability to draft reports and memoranda.
• Experience in working in a computer environment using multiple office software packages;
• Experience in the use of ATLAS is an asset;
• Experience in supporting a team.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in oral and written English is required;
• Working knowledge of another official UN language is an asset.

Note:

Please note that applications without a completed and signed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment. UN Women Personal History form (P-11) can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application. At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect****. UN Women recruits, employees****, trained, compensate, and promotes regardless of race, religion ,colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualification, competence, integrity and organizational needs.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

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Potential interview questions

Added 3 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: jobs.undp.org