Spotlight Research Intern with Civil Society Global Reference Group

Contract

This is a Internship contract. It usually requires 0 years of experience, depending on education. More about Internship 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.

The European Union and the United Nations launched the Spotlight Initiative in September 2017. This global partnership, with €500 million of dedicated funding, is aimed at eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls, as well as harmful practices. It follows a transformative and evidence-based approach, addressing unequal power relations between men and women and focusing on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Initiative follows a human rights-based approach and takes into consideration the specific needs of women and girls who experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and uphold the principle of “leaving no one behind”. This work is embedded in the broader normative framework of the sustainable development goals and builds on decades of work, existing initiatives, and accelerated momentum.

The Spotlight Initiative aims to support transformative change on the ground to end violence against women and girls globally. The Initiative covers five regions, Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Pacific, and the Caribbean. The Initiative adopts a comprehensive approach to violence, implementing interventions under 6 outcome areas: legislation and policies; strengthening institutions; violence prevention; the provision of available, accessible, and acceptable quality services; quality and reliable data collection, and the support of the women’s movement and relevant civil society organizations.

The Spotlight Initiative intends to work closely with women’s movements and relevant human rights-based civil society organizations (CSOs) on the design and implementation of the Initiative and its Country and Regional Programmes in a mutually supportive and reinforcing way, and wishes to be accountable to survivors of violence, women’s and feminist movements, and human rights civil society organisations, deploying and building upon their vast knowledge and experience, developed at community, national, regional and global levels.

To this end, the Initiative has established Civil Society Reference Groups (RGs) at national, regional and global levels as institutional mechanisms to harness civil society expertise to strengthen the Initiative’s effectiveness and accountability to the women’s movement. The Civil Society Global Reference Group (GRG) has a dual responsibility — to advocate to and to advise the Spotlight Initiative, informed by the women’s and feminist movements, as partners for the realization of the Spotlight’s objectives.

The Initiative is supported by a Secretariat to ensure coherence, alignment, quality, and strong technical support for a programme of this size with regional specificities. The Spotlight Secretariat’s technical unit is specifically accountable for the technical quality and coherence of the Initiative. It responds to requests from the Initiative’s Strategic and Operational Committee for support and assistant with: providing key technical support and guidance in development of country programmes; collaborating with and provide support to technical officers of UN Agencies at country and regional levels to guarantee the technical quality and coherence of the Initiative; regularly briefing and consulting with all relevant UN Agencies; serving as a liaison to civil society at the global level to build partnerships and ensuring inclusion; ensuring timely deployment of technical capacity to country programmes as needed; initiating and supporting regional programming where there is no regional structure; making the linkages between programming and policy outputs; providing on-going monitoring support for quality assurance; coordinating the evaluation of programmes; and ensuring public information, communication and visibility for the Initiative and Conduct analysis and management of the Initiative’s knowledge .

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance and direction of the Global Reference Group (GRG), and supported day-to-day by the GRG Coordinators, the intern is responsible for providing supporting research for our advocacy area on Government Accountability.

The intern will be responsible for researching tasks such as:

• Country mapping;
• Data gathering through desk review and key informant interviews;
• Distilling data and highlighting trends; and
• Drafting a final research paper.

More specifically, key tasks include:

• Gathering and analyzing data that will contribute towards developing an advocacy strategy.
• Examining the following in relation to Spotlight countries:

1. Discriminatory laws existing in Spotlight countries
2. Implementation and follow up of Recommendations in Spotlight countries from several committees and rapporteurs mandated to report on violence against women and girls, human rights, and gender equality issues
3. Strategy on EVAWG (through interviews with experts on VAWG)

• Highlighting trends and distilling data for recommendations on advocacy

Learning Objectives:

• Increase knowledge of women’s rights, gender equality and the prevention of sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women,
• Gain experience in creating global advocacy strategies with the Civil Society Global Reference Group,
• Obtain further understanding of discriminatory laws and how civil society in Spotlight countries are working to end EVAWG.

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

Functional Competencies:

• Exceptional research skills in sourcing and providing information, including guidance and advice to stakeholders and decision-makers.
• Excellent writing skills, including the ability to produce a range of different kinds of high-quality written materials and translate complex information into plain language and actionable strategies.
• Critical thinking skills in distilling and analyzing key learnings.
• Organizational skills, including determining priorities and urgency in a practical way, using goals to guide actions, securing the agreement with stakeholders, creating, and implementing detailed project plans.
• Project management skills: identifying and prioritizing tasks, planning and developing schedules, communicating with all relevant stakeholders, anticipating and adjusting for potential barriers and problems.
• Skills and/or knowledge in advocacy and monitoring in the field of violence against women and girls.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• University studies in one of the following disciplines: Human Rights, Social Sciences, International Development, Gender/Women’s Studies, and Public Policy or other relevant subjects is required.
• Meet one of the following:

1. Be enrolled in a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher);
2. Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum Bachelor's level or equivalent);
3. Have graduated with a university degree and, if selected, must commence the internship within a one-year period of graduation, or
4. Be enrolled in a postgraduate professional traineeship program which is part of a degree programme and undertake the internship as part of the program requirements.

Language:

• Excellent communication skills (written and oral) in English are required;
• Working knowledge of another UN language is an advantage (especially French and Spanish)

Remuneration:

Interns who are not in receipt of financial support from other sources such as universities or other institutions will receive a stipend from UN Women to partially subsidize their basic living costs for the duration of the internship.

Application Information:

• All applicants must submit a completed and signed P.11 form with their application. https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558
• Due to the high volume of applications received, we can ONLY contact successful candidates.
• Successful candidate will be required to provide proof of enrollment in a valid health insurance plan at the duty station of the internship, proof of school enrollment or degree, a scanned copy of their passport/national ID and a copy of a valid visa (as applicable).
• A selected candidate unable to report to the advertised duty station due to the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may be approved to undertake this internship remotely.

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.