Senior Consultant, Strategic Partnerships

Contract

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

Background

The 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, the UN Women will lead and coordinate United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It will provide strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

The Liaison Office for the GCC, UAE was inaugurated in 2016 to focus on 3 areas in terms of its mandate. These include advocacy for UN Women to drive its global mandate, resource mobilization for UN Women programs globally, and coordination of partnerships to drive the work and strategic priorities of UN Women in the GCC region. The office acts as a liaison between UN Women globally and stakeholders in the GCC from private sector, government, academia, and non-profits.

Reporting to the Director of the Liaison Office and in close coordination with the Programme Specialist, the Senior Consultant Strategic Partnerships will provide technical support to the development and management of UN Women’s strategic partnerships and relationships, and resource mobilization strategy. The incumbent will work under the supervision of the Director in close collaboration with the Programme Specialist and the Public Partnership Section (PPS) resource mobilization branch at UN Women Headquarters.

UN Women LO for the GCC is working to collect data to strengthen existing relationships with donors/partners and to initiate new engagements. Therefore, UN Women LO for the GCC seeks to hire a consultant to support the office efforts in donor scoping and engagement. The consultant will primarily work with development partners, private sectors, and non-state actors in order to advance this agenda.

Duties and Responsibilities

Deliverables:

Provide and ensure technical direct support for the Liaison Office’ strategic partnership management with the following deliverables:

• Engagement with a variety of donors, including governments, private sector, high net worth individuals and foundations.
• Development of projects and proposals relating to gender equality and women empowerment.
• Oversee analysis of the development landscape and support exploration of viable opportunities and new approaches for UN Women’s strategic engagement with the private sector particularly by focusing on SDG5 advancement.
• Mapping of trends, opportunities and approaches for partnering with diverse donor groups at the GCC level providing guidance and advise to the Liaison office and HQ relevant units, regional bureaus and country offices.
• Manage and coordinate existing relationships with key partners; provide technical inputs to senior management’s efforts to develop new and innovative partnerships to sustain partnerships.
• Contribute to the design of technical proposals/programmes and/or review programme/project proposals and activity reports in accordance with UN Women requirements and procedures.
• In adherence with UN Women Communications policies, and in collaboration with HQ Communications Section, contribute to and oversee all communication activities to increase UN Women visibility in the GCC region in relevant UN Women online platforms.
• Prepare briefing documents, talking points for meetings, reports and presentations to advance partnership and resource mobilization objectives.

Provide technical support to the women economic empowerment agenda and the advancement of the WEPs with the following deliverables:

• Contribute to the Launching and execution of the WEPs in Action campaign in collaboration with the General Women’s Union (GWU), a call-to-action for private sector companies of all sizes to sign and/or extend their efforts on the implementation of the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs).
• Implement joint initiatives with private sector existing partners to address key gender equality issues and showcase successful models of corporate social responsibility.
• Conduct informative sessions to privates sector entities on WEPS in the GCC region.

Provide technical support to the initiatives under COP28, with the following deliverables:

• Provide support to UNWomen global initiatives conducted in UAE during COP 28.
• Organize meetings and events bringing in various experts from UN Women to discuss the gender dimensions and priorities relating to the gender agenda for COP28.
• Support the Launching and execution of the Climate Change and Gender Equality initiative. This initiative is in line with the UAE's preparations to host COP28 and aims to raise awareness about the intersection of gender and climate change through a series of talks.
• Collaborate with other UN agencies, civil society organizations, and government entities to create joint initiatives and activities that promote gender equality in climate change discussions.

Strategic advice to the LO management on engagement with private sector entities and advancing UN Women’s strategic objectives with the following deliverables:

• Coordinate the ongoing activities of the UAE National Chapter of the Unstereotype Alliance (UA).
• Support the Launching and execution of the campaign to reverse harmful gender-based stereotypes through the UA in GCC.
• Contribute to and oversee all communication activities to increase UN Women's visibility in the GCC region on relevant UN Women online platforms.
• Implement the 2023 /2024 annual work plan for the UAE chapter.
• Recruit new members for the UA chapter after conducting due diligence and finalization of the agreement.

Financial arrangements: Payment will be disbursed on a monthly basis upon satisfactory performance.

Travel: This is a consultancy assignment in Abu Dhabi, UAE, no travel is foreseen, however, if there emerges any travel need, UN Women Liaison Office for the GCC will organize the logistics (Airfare, Daily Substance Allowance and Terminal Expenses) separately in line with UN Women Travel Policy for consultants. For local official events and meeting in UAE, the consultant will bear all ground transportation costs and secure transportation at their own arrangements.

Competencies

Core Values:

Core Values/Guiding Principles Integrity:

• Demonstrate consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UN 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

Writing skills:

• Demonstrates strong writing skills, particularly the ability to present persuasive, coherent and well-founded arguments,
• Has ability to write in a style that is accessible to a broad audience of policymakers, academics and activists.

Work ethics:

• Reliably takes action to honor commitments; takes international outlook in decision-making.
• Intellectual Qualities:
• Possesses good grasp of development policy issues,
• Demonstrates analytical rigor, intellectual creativity and contributes original ideas,
• Maintains open-minded attitude towards new ideas.

Working in teams:

• Contributes to team spirit, inspires, and motivates staff and colleagues at all levels,
• Demonstrates willingness to integrate ideas of others into own thinking,
• Remains composed under stress,
• Manages moods and creates positive attitude in the team even in times of crisis.

Results Orientation in Process:

• Demonstrates drive to achieve results in timely manner and to seek and find solutions to any problems encountered,
• Makes efficient use of available resources,
• Demonstrates ability to multitask.

Communication skills:

• Has ability to communicate clearly and persuasively,
• Demonstrates ability to build consensus and expresses own ideas openly and frankly without jeopardizing rapport with colleagues.

Innovation and marketing of new approaches:

• Generates new ideas, seeks new approaches and introduces and promotes them in the workplace.
• Ability to identify opportunities and builds strong relationships with client and external actors.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in economics, business management, social sciences, public administration, international relations, communications, women's studies, or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with 2 additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of professional experience including specialized knowledge and experience with the UN and/or private sector that is required to design and drive partnerships with the private sector, government, and other donor groups.
• Strong networking capabilities and the ability to develop new relationships.
• Proven experience in diversity and inclusion, women’s rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment.
• Strong understanding of the private sector
• Demonstrated understanding of the local GCC development priorities and context
• Strong research, writing and copyediting skills; ability to convey technical and complex concepts for a variety of audiences.
• Demonstrated interpersonal and communication skills suitable for collaborating with multiple stakeholders.
• Experience with partnership design, development and management
• Public speaking and external networking capabilities

Language:

• Proficiency in written and spoken English and Arabic.

Submission of application:

Interested candidates are requested to submit electronic application by the deadline indicated in the post by submitting the following:

• CV.
• Letter of Interest containing the statement on candidate's experience in the field of recruitment.
• All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from P11 form. 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.
• Please note that only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

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.

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, color, 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.

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.)