Project Associate - Advancing Gender Budgeting in Select States (Open to Indian National Only)

Contract

This is a SB-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Service Board / Service Contract. It is normally only for nationals. More about SB-3 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 and the third gender as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

All human development and human rights issues involve gender dimensions. UN Women globally focuses on key priority areas that are fundamental to women’s equality, and that can unlock progress across the board. UN Women’s priority areas include increasing women’s leadership and participation in political spaces, ending violence against women, enhancing women’s economic empowerment, engaging in all aspects of women peace and security processes, making gender equality central to national planning and budgeting through Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and advancing gender in intergovernmental processes.

UN Women’s work on GRB involves ensuring that national planning, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation processes incorporate a gender perspective. UN Women’s GRB projects at the regional and country level have made significant contribution towards this by building political support, developing technical resources and capacities, generating good practices for improving women's access to services and increasing accountability for Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment (GEWE). At the forefront of global, regional and local advocacy for application of GRB, UN Women has built partnerships with diverse government, inter-governmental and non-governmental partners to further efforts and demonstrate GRB’s relevance to sustainable development, aid effectiveness, public sector reform and financing for development.

In 2004-05, the report of the expert group of classification of government expenditure became instrumental in laying out the road map for GRB in India. This was followed by the adoption of “Budgeting for Gender Equity” as mission statement by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India (GoI). In 2005-06, the Ministry of Finance, GoI introduced Gender Budget Statement (GBS) which aimed to reflect the quantum of budgetary allocations for projects/schemes that substantially benefit women. Another important mechanism institutionalised by the Ministry of Finance was setting up of Gender Budget Cells (GBCs) which serve as focal points for mainstreaming gender through GRB. The rigour has been replicated in at least 19 states, some of which have produced GBS and set up GBCs.

UN Women’s Multi Country Office (MCO), based in New Delhi, India, is currently implementing a project with the objective of identifying strategies and operational approaches to strengthen on-going efforts in the area of GRB. Insights generated from this project will enable key stakeholders at the national and regional level to accelerate their efforts to ensure that women’s priorities are adequately reflected in national budgeting processes, and to make concrete changes for adequate resource allocation towards women’s priorities.

Taking this forward proposes to provide the requisite technical assistance and operational support on GRB at the National level and to the four state governments of Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Manipur. The technical assistance will be for strengthening GRB initiatives over the next two years through establishing relevant gender responsive policy tools for the larger impact of having inclusive and gender sensitive projects and schemes of the government at the national and State level. Leveraging on the institutional capacity, past work and established networks and partnerships, UN Women through this project will create an enabling environment by building capacities of key stakeholders to address gender issues and be instrumental in making the planning and budgeting process in the Government gender responsive.

This project focuses on the following dimensions:

• Create and strengthen institutional structures for GRB and institute methodological changes in Planning-Budgeting and Auditing (PBA) systems for enabling gender responsive actions
  • GRB mechanisms are refined and embedded within the government in the four states
• Enhance capacities of government officials and other stakeholders to implement the gender responsive PBA measures.
  • Knowledge products on GRB are developed, including evidence based sectoral studies and customized training modules.
  • Gender budgeting capacities of government stakeholders are strengthened and training capacities institutionalized in the four states.
  • E-governance tool developed and piloted.

Within this context, UN Women seeks the services of a Project Associate to support smooth management including implementation, monitoring and evaluations of the project.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance and direct supervision of project Team Lead and Gender Budget Expert, the Project Associate will work with the Project team to ensure that the project produces the results in the State to the required standards of quality and within the given time and cost specifications.

The Project Associate will have the following tasks:

Provide administrative and logistical support to the formulation and management of the Project:

• Provide administrative support in the preparation of project work plans, budgets, and proposals on project implementation arrangements;
• Provide technical guidance to the Project team and executing agencies on routine delivery and reporting of project supported activities and finances;
• Prepare information for the audit of the project and support implementation of audit recommendations;
• Identify sources and gather and compile data and information for the preparation of documents, guidelines, speeches and position papers.

Provide administrative support to the financial management of the Project:

• Create projects in Atlas, prepare budget revisions, revise project awards and status; and determine unutilized funds and the operational and financial close of a project;
• Provide support in monitoring budget preparation and the finances of projects/projects; including the finalization of FACE forms/Financial reporting forms;
• Review financial reports; prepare non-PO vouchers for development project;
• Process payment for consultants;
• Maintain internal expenditures control system;
• Create requisitions in Atlas for development projects; register good receipts in Atlas;
• Assist in the preparation and follow up of cost-recovery bills in Atlas.

Provide administrative support to the Project:

• Undertake all logistical, administrative and financial arrangements for organization for meetings, workshops, events, and missions;
• Make travel arrangements for the Project Team, including travel requisitions and claims;
• Prepare public information materials and briefing packets;
• Assemble briefing materials and prepare power-point and other presentations;

Provide administrative support to Resource Mobilization to the Project:

• Prepare cost-sharing and other agreements; follow up on contributions within the project/donor for timely receipt of fund
• Organize, compile and process information from/for donor/s, Project team, and project team, as inputs to various databases and documents.

Facilitate knowledge building and knowledge sharing to the Project:

• Provide administrative support synthesis of lessons learnt and best practices related to project management and finance;
• Provide administrative support to the organization of training for the office staff and partners on project and operations related issues.

Any other tasks assigned by the Supervisor.

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.

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 behaviour 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.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s Degree in Social Sciences/Economics/Social Work /Gender Studies/Public Administration/Policy or related fields.

Experience:

• Minimum 6 years of experience of Analyst and Monitoring expert in domain at the national/state level working with development projects including hands-on experience of design, implementation and monitoring/evaluation of projects preferably on Gender Responsive Governance, Gender Equality and Women Empowerment
• Experience in the use of ATLAS is an asset;

Language:

• Proficiency in English; good command over Hindi in reading and writing.

Application Information:

Interested applicants should apply to this announcement through UNDP jobs site: jobs.undp.org

• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/about-us/jobs
• 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;
• UN Women will only be able to respond to those applications in which there is further interest.

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.