UN Women: Internal Governance Specialist

Contract

This is a P-4 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 7 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 171,387 USD and 220,969 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

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 Executive Office supports the Executive Director in providing vision, establishing priorities, fostering coherence amongst the senior management team, leading advocacy, ensuring overall management, oversight and accountability for the organization.

Under the overall guidance of the Deputy Chief of Staff, the Internal Governance Specialist is responsible for serving as the Secretariat for the organization’s governance bodies, mainly the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), the Senior Management Team (SMT) the Advisory Committee on Oversight (ACO) and others that may be established at the executive level. The Internal Governance Specialist serves as the central coordinating space for maintaining the organization’s internal governance structures, and leading efforts to ensure that these functions take place on time and are of strategic relevance to the organization. The Internal Governance Specialist will also manage the EDO strategic planning and reporting processes and supports the EDO in clearing reports and briefs relevant to their areas of expertise.

Duties and Responsibilities

Maintain the Governance Secretariat within UN Women

• Oversee the management of UN Women’s governance bodies.
• Ensure the organization’s governance bodies meet as planned, and that discussions are strategic in nature – advising on agenda items and topics for collective discussion and decision making.
• Ensure relevant documents – agenda, background documents etc.– reach members of different bodies in sufficient time for strategic decisions.
• Lead on quality assurance of all materials submitted to UN Women’s governance bodies.
• Address challenges with governance bodies in real time, advising senior management on changes needed to make governance bodies more effective collective decision-making spaces within UN Women.
• Manage global retreats, as required.
• Monitor and evaluate the efficiency of UN Women’s governance bodies to support relevance and efficiency.
• Ensure minutes and documents are accurately maintained and stored.
• Manage governance secretariat colleagues as relevant.

Ensure close linkages inside of UN Women with other departments that manage sub governance structures, such as the BRC, BAC and other bodies

• Work across the organization to bring clarity and coherence to global and regional governance bodies, serving as the thought leader within the organization as to how different bodies feed into each other and ensuring the organization’s governance mechanisms are coherent and complementary.
• Serve as quality control for different governance bodies, addressing in real time – with colleagues – instances where issues of quality need to be addressed, to ensure effective governance structures.

Manage and lead the EDO annual (biannual) planning process

• Lead the EDO’s annual/bi-annual planning and budgeting process.
• Coordinate across EDO colleagues to ensure the production of a strategic and realistic strategic plan.
• Lead the reporting of the EDO strategic plan.

Contribute to knowledge building and knowledge sharing

• Serve as EDO lead in the coordination and work around organizational reporting (organizational effort to enhance the quality of corporate reporting).
• Review, comment on and clear reports, briefs and other communications materials on behalf of the EDO on issues related to coordination, planning, gender mainstreaming and other issues as requested.
• Develop briefing materials on issues of coordination, planning, gender mainstreaming and other issues as requested.
• Provide leadership for effective knowledge management and sharing on issues of internal governance within the office and other offices/HQs;
• Support the overall functions of the Executive Office, including the ED’s team, as needed.

The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the Office and the Organisation.

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:

https://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment/application-process#_Values

Functional Competencies

• Ability to manage multiple governance bodies
• Ability to direct organizational thinking and decision making
• Ability to perform work of confidential nature

Required Skills and Experience

Education and certification:

• Master’s degrees in a social science, business administration or public administration.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• At least 7 years of relevant progressively responsible experience working on issues of women’s rights and supporting/managing internal governance process.
• Experience undertaking strategic planning processes is required.
• Experience working in a front office is desirable.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of another UN official working language is desirable (French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish).

Application:

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-P11-Personal-History-Form.doc. 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.

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.

Diversity and inclusion:

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.)