Sub-regional Gender Specialist

Contract

This is a IPSA-10 contract. This kind of contract is known as International Personnel Services Agreement. It is normally internationally recruited only. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education. More about IPSA-10 contracts.

Background

UNDP’s presence in the Bangkok Regional Hub delivers a full range of policy, programme, and operations support to 24 Country Offices (COs) in the Asia-Pacific region. As part of the Country Office Support and Quality Assurance (COSQA) function, strategic management oversight and advisory support is provided through the Management Advisory Services Team (MAST). The Global Policy Network (GPN) Asia-Pacific team aims to be a cutting-edge provider of timely development advice, providing support to COs and programme countries in an integrated and coherent manner— to instantly connect countries to the world of knowledge, resources and networks of best practice they need to achieve development breakthroughs.

The UNDP Asia-Pacific region has committed to support all COs achieve the UNDP Gender Seal in the next two years, while also increasing the ambition of UNDP’s gender-focused programmatic interventions and impact on gender equality and women’s empowerment. To support this aspiration, 4 Sub-regional Gender Specialists will be placed in selected UNDP COs – when travel will be allowed and home-based until then - to support a portfolio of 4-5 countries each in strengthening UNDP’s contribution to gender equality. Under matrix reporting lines to the Bangkok Regional Hub and the COs, the Sub-regional Gender Specialists will advise and provide technical support to CO management and staff on the implementation of the Gender Seal across all dimensions – management, in-house capacities, programmes, communications, partnerships, enabling environment and gender equality impact. The Sub-regional Gender Specialists will enure strategic advice and oversight for the implementation of the existing gender-related prorgammes, with a particular emphasis on the Spotlight Initiative in the Pacific countries and Afghanistan, while also ensuring the effectiveness and impact of UNDP’s interventions in all areas aligned to the UNDP’s gender equality agenda. The outposted Sub-regional Gender Specialists will also focus on supporting CO management in strategically positoning UNDP as a partner of choice on gender equality and women’s empowerment, by promoting programme formulation, strategic partnerships, and resource mobilization.

With close coordination to the regional gender team in the Bangkok Regional Hub, reporting lines will be to the Cluster Lead in COSQA, Bangkok Regional Hub. The Sub-regional Gender Specialists will work closely with the GPN team in Bangkok - particularly the Regional Gender Advisor, the CO support team – COSQA, and the strategic oversight team – MAST. The Sub-regional Gender Specialists will also work closely with CO senior management, CO Gender Specialists and Gender Focal Points, CO’s prorgamme and operations staff, and local stakeholders.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Sub-regional Gender Specialist will cover a number of selected countries (4 to 5) and will be responsible for following scopeof work, across the portfolio of COs:

a) Advice and support to UNDP management, programme, and projects on gender issues focusing on the following results, in collaboration with the CO Gender Specialists/focal points and Regional Gender Team:

• Hands on support and advice to CO management, programme, operations and project staff on the implementation of the UNDP Gender Seal,
• Analyze, monitor and report on Gender Seal and Gender Marker progress in the assigned countries,
• Mobilize regional and technical support to the COs, if and when needed, including designing training modules and support regional webinars to enhance understanding of the Gender Seal.

b) Advice on the management of COs’ gender programme focusing on the following results:

• Technical advice and guidance to COs on the implementation of existing gender equality and women’s empowerment programmes – with particular focus on the Spotlight Initiative - by quality assuring annual work plans, budgets, procurment plans, terms of reference, deliverables by contractors and partners, alignment to donor requirements, and ensuring that implementation is aligned to the agreed targets,
• Identify opportunities and facilitate UNDP’s strategic collaborations with UN agencies and task teams that respond to the concerns and needs of women and men in promoting women’s empowerment,
• In coordination with the BRH Gender team and the economist network, monitor political, economic and social development trends and issues affecting women’s rights in the assigned countries, to inform strategic response to opportunities and challenges, in the context of the countries’ CPDs and government priorities,
• In coordination with the BRH Gender team, advice to the COs on the effective application of gender mainstreaming throughout CO’s programme, monitoring and evaluation frameworks and results reporting,
• Advice COs on the collection of gender data, contribute to evalutions of gender-related programme interventions, and quality assure results reporting with focus on gender impact.
• In coordination with the BRH Gender team, assist COs in design of gender sensitive CPD designs, in particular; support in development of targets and indicators in the RRF.

c) Support the creation of strategic partnerships for resource mobilization, focusing on the following results:

• Support CO senior management identify and follow up on strategic opportunities for resource mobilization for implementation of the UNDP and CO’s gender targets,
• Provide technical inputs into the formulation of concept notes and programmatic offer on gender issues and women’s empowerment to build strong partnerships with donors and in coordination with government, and design project documents of gender-related programme interventions for resource mobilization,
• When required, provide substantive inputs for UNDP’s representation in exchanges with government, donors, UN agencies, private sector and civil society advocating for the integration of key gender equality and women’s rights into strategies and programmes.

d) Facilitate knowledge management, capacity building and coordination across the organization, focusing on the following results:

• Organize and conduct training for CO staff on gender advancement, gender equality, women’s empowerment, women’s issues, and social development,
• Coordinate with the Gender Advisor in the Bangkok Regional Hub and support the roll out of the RBAP online gender mainstreaming training package,
• Identification and formulation of lessons learned and recommendations to strengthen UNDP’s gender equality efforts,
• Contribution to regional initiatives, regional and global knowledge networks, peer to peer exchanges, communities of practices, and regional and intra-regional exchanges.

Competencies

Required skills and competencies:

• Demonstrated, substantial experience in design, monitoring and evaluation of gender equality and women’s empowerment projects,
• Demonstrated experience in design and organisation of gender equality advocacy and communication campaigns, including online actions,
• Experience in the use of office software packages, and handling web-based management systems and web-based interactive conferencing tools.

Desired additional skills and competencies:

• Demonstrated experience in researh and policy development on gender equality and gender mainstreaming is an advantage,
• Previous experience in the Asia-Pacific region is desirable,
• Previous engagement with UNDP and other UN agencies, or non-UN development organisations, in the areas of gender equality and women’s empowerment is a strong advantage,
• Good knowledge of UNDP’s rules and procedures is desirable.

Required Language(s) (at working level):

• Fluency in English, including excellent drafting and presentation skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Masters Degree in Social Science, Gender or Women’s Studies, Development Studies, or relevant disciplines.

Work experience:

• Minimum of 5 years of professional experience in advocacy and programme/project management addressing the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment.