Project Assistant (Opens only for Kyrgyzstan Nations)

Contract

This is a SC-5 contract. This kind of contract is known as Service Board / Service Contract. It is normally only for nationals. More about SC-5 contracts.

Background

UN Women was established by GA resolution 64/289 of 2 July 2010 on system-wide coherence, with a mandate to assist Member States and the UN system to progress more effectively and efficiently towards the goal of achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women. Since 2001 UN Women (previously as UNIFEM) in Kyrgyzstan has implemented catalytic initiatives on promoting women’s economic, political and social rights. In 2012 a full Country Office was established.

In the Kyrgyz Republic increasing and providing economic opportunities to women, especially those living in the rural areas, has been one of the UN Women’s key areas of work. As part of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) portfolio, UN Women successfully implements a 5-year project “Rural Women’s Economic Empowerment ” (JRWEE) under the global joint initiative launched by the Executive Heads of UN Women, FAO, IFAD, and WFP in October 2012. The Programme uses a Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) modality to ensure transparency, accountability and efficiency.

Together, this partnership between UN Women, IFAD, FAO, and WFP allowed to generate synergies that capitalize on each agency’s mandate, comparative advantage and institutional strength to generate more lasting and wider scale results. In general, JRWEE has been aiming to promote rural women’s economic empowerment in the Kyrgyz Republic to correspond with the Global Programme goal to secure rural women’s livelihoods and rights in the context of sustainable development and SDGs agenda.

To address the devastating consequences for social and economic well-being and livelihoods of rural vulnerable families, especially women, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to actively respond to these unprecedented circumstances, UN Women has also started to implement a one-year emergency project as part of its WEE’s portfolio under leadership of the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECARO). The project, titled as “Responding to the urgent needs of women and girls in marginalized and vulnerable situation exacerbated by the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)” has been launched in Kyrgyzstan and Moldova, which are among the poorest nations in the region requiring emergency assistance amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding, within which the project will operate, will be provided by the Government of Japan.

Due to the nature of the pandemic and its differential impact on women and girls, the project will be focused to benefit women and groups in marginalized and vulnerable situations, with special emphasis on rural women, regular and irregular migrant workers, displaced, elderly women, women with disabilities, and women belonging to ethnic minority and other marginalized groups as well as survivors of gender based violence, pregnant and lactating women.

With the aim to ensure effective implementation of the above mentioned two national projects of the WEE portfolio, which both run till May 2021, UN Women Kyrgyzstan office plans to contract a Project Assistant who will provide programme and administrative/finance support ensuring high quality of work, and accurate, timely and properly recorded/documented service delivery.

The Project Assistant promotes a client-oriented approach consistent with UN Women rules and regulations and commits to high standards of quality, productivity and timeliness in the delivery of tasks. The Project Assistant will meet and apply the highest standards of integrity and impartiality.

Duties and Responsibilities

Summary of Key Functions:

• Programme support
• Administrative and finance support

Under the direct supervision and guidance of the Programme Manager, the Project Assistant will:

1. Provide effective programme support in implementation of the Programme, focusing on achievement of the following results:

Assist in ensuring that all programmatic inputs under the project are available on

• time and in full compliance with the respective UN Women rules and regulations;
• Assist in collecting information from project stakeholders and draft reports;
• Maintain filing system, reports or other documentation related to the project in hard and electronic formats;
• Support the monitoring and evaluations functions;
• Assist in drafting communication materials for the programme, present information on programme activities, as well as ensure dissemination to broader public for the visibility of the programme;
• Draft general briefing notes, official letters, documents, and minutes of meetings when requested;
• Provide written and oral translation between the languages of English, Russian and Kyrgyz;
• Create, edit and present information in clear format (tables, forms, briefing notes/books and reports) using advanced word processing and presentation functions and basic database and spreadsheet software (MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, etc.);
• Engage in reciprocal support and backstopping with team colleagues;
• Perform any other relevant tasks required for the smooth running and success of the programme.

2. Provide effective administrative and finance support in implementation of the programme, focusing on achievement of the following results:

• Administrative and logistical support in organizing conferences, workshops, trainings and other project events;
• Arrangement of travel and hotel reservations, preparation of travel authorizations;
• Support to organization of procurement processes including preparation of RFQs, ITBs or RFPs documents, receipt of quotations, bids or proposals, their preliminary evaluation;
• Creation of requisitions in the financial management system Atlas, registration of goods receipt in Atlas, budget check for requisitions;
• Certifying availability of funds and ensuring that the activities are in line with the approved workplan and budget levels;
• Monitoring regularly the programme budget, provision of timely advice to the programme Manager on fund limitations;
• Provision of information for reports on financial status, procedures, exchange rates, costs and expenditures and potential funding problems;
• Assistance in proper control of the supporting documents for payments and
• financial reports for the programme; payment execution and monitoring payment status;
• Processing of financial documentation (vouchers, supporting documents, etc.) and maintaining internal expenditures control system by ensuring that vouchers processed are matched and completed, transactions are correctly recorded and posted in Atlas; travel claims, monthly payment orders (MPOs) and other entitlements are duly processed;
• Preparation and handling the routine correspondence related to general administration, procurement, financial matters; faxes; memoranda and reports in accordance with UN Women rules and procedures;
• Maintenance of files related to finance, procurement, administrative, logistical, programme matters;
• Performance of other duties as and when required

Competencies

Corporate:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN's values and ethical standard;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional:

• Ability to perform a broad range of specialized activities aimed at effective and efficient functioning of the Project including logistical support;
• Creates, edits and presents information in clear and presentable formats, using appropriate IT functionality;
• Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;
• Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints;
• Ability to establish, build and sustain effective relationships with project partners and stakeholders;
• Ability to administer financial processes and transactions;
• Ability to manage data, documents, correspondence and reports information and workflow;
• Ability to perform a variety of specialized tasks related to Results Management, including support to data management and reporting.
• Maintenance of files and records relevant to office maintenance.

Required Skills and Experience

• University degree in economics or other relevant field;
• Three full years of relevant administrative and accounting/financial experience;
• Proven numeracy skills
• Strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills;
• Competent in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.);
• Fluency in English and Russian language; working knowledge of Kyrgyz;
• Previous work experience with UN Agencies, government agencies and/or international development partners highly desirable;

• Attention:

  All online applications must include (as an attachment) the completed Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment.

  Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.