Programme Management and Partnerships Specialist

Contract

This is a International Consultant contract. More about International 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.

UN Women works to economically empower diverse women in Lebanon, at micro, meso, and macro levels. Since 2016, when UN Women established its office presence in Lebanon, the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme has predominantly focused on increasing the resilience of vulnerable women and girls in refugee and host communities, under the Resilience Unit. The programme’s overall goal is to, empower vulnerable women, girls and their communities, and strengthen their resilience to conflict and displacement. The project design is based on two pillars of intervention: 1) Economic Empowerment and 2) Protection. The economic empowerment interventions, skills training, paid opportunities in the private sector, and entrepreneurship support, combined with protection interventions at the individual, institutional and societal levels to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. The programme targets refugees and nationals together, as a method of fostering understanding and trust between their communities.

Objective of the Assignment:

Reporting to the Women’s Economic Empowerment Programme Manager and the Planning and Coordination Analyst based in Beirut, the Programme Management and Partnership Specialist supports the planning and implementing UN Women WEE interventions under the direct supervision of WEE Programme Manager (duties related to progrogramme advisory services and research below) and supports officewide Monitoring & Evaluation, reporting, partnerships and Resource Mobilization under the direct supervision of the Planning and Coordination Analyst. She/he works to support the UN Women Lebanon office as a whole, and in close collaboration with the WEE programme team, to support successful UN Women programme implementation.

Duties and Responsibilities

Programme Advisory Service

• Provide programme development advisory services, design and formulate programme/project proposals and initiatives. Identify programmatic areas for support and interventions within the women’s economic empowerment.
• Draft programme/project proposals, briefs, policy dialogue and other documents related to women’s economic empowerment.
• Support in analyzing of project budgets and support in ensuring alignment of budgets with logical framework matrices and work plans.
• Implement and support capacity building opportunities and initiatives. Provide partners with advanced technical assistance, training, and capacity development initiatives.

Research

• Develop relevant research and policy briefs within the topics of the women’s economic empowerment programme and other topics when needed.
• Conduct desk reviews on thematic areas related to women’s economic empowerment, refugees, and gender as needed to support the Resilience Unit.
• Draft relevant research and policy briefs to both better inform the programme with best practices, as well as raise substantive gender issues, including the needs of women and girls, to humanitarian stakeholders.

Monitoring & Evaluation and Reporting

• Draft reports on activities, outputs, outcomes and impact level; and compile information to support the preparation of the CO’s donor reports and UN Women’s internal reports.
• Facilitate the process of the CO meeting internal and external reporting requirements and deadlines, including quarterly internal reporting and donor reports.
• Contribute to the monitoring and tracking of results against UN Women’s output and outcome AWP indicators and project indicators.
• Coordinate the process of monitoring the programme/ project implementation of activities and finances using results-based management tools
• Provide support to the CO in the implementation the UN Women Evaluation Policy.

Resource Mobilization and Partnership

• Support in developing resource mobilization strategies by drafting relevant documentation on donors and support the development of potential opportunities for resource mobilization.
• Analyze and research information on donors, finalize substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation, identification of opportunities for cost sharing.
• Represent UN Women in related working groups as assigned by the program manager.
• Act as a secretary of the local Project Appraisal Committee (LPAC) by coordinating meetings, distributing documentation, preparing reports and maintaining a permanent record of all documentation and reports.

Perform other duties as required.

Deliverables:

Deliverables

Timelines

Draft activity and output reporting for UN Women’s quarterly report

Quarterly

Updated indicator tracking tool

Quarterly

Updated list of reporting deadlines

Monthly

Updates list of potential donors/ soft and hard pipeline

Monthly

Documentation and filing of relevant documents of the LPAC

Monthly

Minutes of working group meetings

Monthly

Programme/project proposals, briefs, and policy dialogue

Quarterly

Project budgets analysis and support

Weekly

Technical assistance and capacity building to partners

Monthly

Draft research and policy briefs

Monthly

Developing resource mobilization strategies

Quarterly

Draft activity and output reporting for the donors of WEE

Monthly

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.

Functional Competencies:

• Substantive experience in the area of gender equality and women’s empowerment
• Strong monitoring and evaluation skills
• Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports to inform management and strategic decision-making
• Strong analytical skills
• Strong knowledge of Results Based Management
• Good knowledge of UN programme management systems;
• Ability to develop and maintain strong partnerships and mobilize resources;
• Familiarity with the region and women's rights organizations and networks in the region considered an asset.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in Human Rights, International Affairs/Development, Sociology, Public Administration, Economics, Gender and Women’s Studies, and/or with strong knowledge of gender issues, or related discipline.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• A project/programme management certification (such as PMP®, PRINCE2®, or MSP®) would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience in programme/project management in gender equality, development humanitarian response or related fields.
• Experience in working on issues of women’s economic empowerment in Lebanon;
• Monitoring and evaluation and report writing experience, particularly within the Lebanese context.
• Experience in partner and donor relations in cross-cultural settings is an asset.
• Experience with UN agencies is an asset.
• Computer skills, internet communication and command of MS Office

Language Requirements:

• Proficient in written and oral English is required.
• Working knowledge of Japanese is an asset

Evaluation Criteria:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology: Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for the financial evaluation.

Criteria Weight Technical: 70% (70 points)

Consultants will be evaluated using a cumulative analysis method taking into consideration the combination of qualifications and financial proposal. Contract will be awarded to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable, and;
• Having received the highest score out of below defined technical and financial criteria.

Technical Evaluation (70%) split such as:

• Education: 10%;
• Language: 10%;
• Professional Experience & background: 50%; should detail work experience, specifically experience which is relevant to the consultancy requirements indicated above;

Financial: Lowest Financial Proposal: 30% (30 points) The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula:

• Contract will be awarded to the technically qualified consultant who obtains the highest combined score (financial and technical);
• The points for the Financial Proposal will be allocated as per the following formula: (Lowest Bid Offered*)/ (Bid of the Consultant) x 30;
• 'Lowest Bid Offered' refers to the lowest price offered by Offerors scoring at least 49 points in the technical evaluation

Interested Individual Consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• A cover letter with a brief presentation of your consultancy explaining your suitability for the work and link to portfolio of work;
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment;
• Personal CV; and Financial proposal; Proposed inclusive daily rate.

The above-mentioned documents should be merged in a standalone file including all them, since the online application submission does only permit to upload one file per application. Incomplete submission can be a ground for disqualification.