Gender Coordination Specialist – Micronesia

Details

Mission and objectives

.UN Women’s Fiji Multi-Country Office (MCO) works with governments and civil society organisations across 14 Pacific Island countries and territories to address gender inequality, empower women and build more inclusive societies.
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 Fiji Multi Country Office (MCO) covers 14 Pacific countries, with field offices/presence in 6 countries, and five ‘focus countries’ (Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Samoa). Each field presence is led by a national Country Programme Coordinator. UN Women, in partnership with Pacific Islands Governments, regional organizations, CSOs, donors and UN agencies, focuses on delivering within four interlinked programme areas:
• Women’s Political Empowerment and Leadership (WPEL)
• Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)
• Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG)
• Gender and Protection in Humanitarian Action (GPiHA) and Disaster Risk Reduction

Context

UN Women is establishing a post within the joint UN premises in the UN Micronesia MCO located in Pohnpei, FSM. The post will cover UN Women’s role in gender coordination and provision of gender analysis and technical assistance to the Micronesia MCO covering FSM, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau and Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).
The UN Women Micronesia Gender Coordination Officer’s role will ensure that UN Women’s priorities in the Micronesia UNCT Member States as well as in alignment with the Pacific UNSDCF (2023-2027) and UN Women’s Pacific Strategic Note (2023-2027).
The position will be supervised by the Representative of the UN Women Fiji MCO, with matrixed reporting through the Resident Coordinator’s Office in Micronesia and the UN Women Fiji MCO Gender Coordination Specialist.
Key objectives will focus initially on:
1. UN Coordination: UN Women will actively contribute to normative work and UN coordination activities as part of the UN Micronesia MCO to support implementation of the UNSDCF and UN coherence and coordination. This will be done in consultation with the regional specialists (as appropriate).
2. Partnerships and coordination: Ensuring strategic partnerships with key external stakeholders and UN entities under the UN Micronesia MCO are established and maintained to support pro-gramme development and implementation and resource mobilization.
3. Gender and Protection: Supporting UN Women in contributing to ensuring that gender equality, women’s empowerment issues and protection concerns are effectively integrated in disaster preparedness and response efforts through coordination and linkages with the Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster of the UN Women Fiji MCO.
Once the Micronesia MCO UN Women Gender portfolio grows, the position will also be responsible for the following:
1. Programme Management: UN Women programming in the UN Micronesia MCO is designed and implemented in a coherent and well-coordinated manner through the provision of timely advice and programming support to UN Micronesia MCO and in-country programme teams.
2. Office Management: The UN Women presence, once established, is well managed, and any project staff recruited are supported to perform their duties in line with UN Women policies and procedures.
This IUNV position of Gender Coordination Specialist will assist UN Women in the Pacific in establishing a presence in the UN Micronesia multi-country office (MCO) in Pohnpei, FSM.
The UN Micronesia MCO covers countries in the North Pacific (Nauru, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), Kiribati). The purpose of the presence is to ensure that coordinated support on advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment in and that through the catalytic role of the Resident Coordinator (RC ) will serve the Micronesia states by working with resident and non-resident agencies, funds and programmes (AFPs) to identify needs, assess services currently provided and consider changes that improve UN support to governments in their pursuit of Agenda 2030 and the 2050 Blue Pacific Continent Strategy.
The initial focus of the position is to establish a UN coordination and programmatic presence, and to support the UN Micronesia MCO with gender coordination and technical support.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Representative UN Women Fiji MCO, the IUNV will undertake the following tasks:
1. Gender Situation Analysis – the first task will be to develop a stock take, or situation analysis of gender equality programming under the UN Micronesia MCO. Utilizing the UN Women Country Gender Equality Briefs for data, the Joint UN Common Country Analyses, the Micronesia country strategic plans, as well as UPR and CEDAW reports to develop a clear picture of the key priorities, stakeholders and gap areas that exist in the Micronesia MCO countries in progressing gender equality.
2. Establish a Gender Coordination Mechanism – Based upon the regional Gender Coordination group, establish and support a Micronesian gender coordination mechanism with key partners including Government Women’s Machineries, CSOs, UN agencies, donors and development partners to share and jointly plan efforts on gender equality. Support provided is both as secretariat as well as technical and coordination support. MCO level coordination and support to national coordination mechanisms.
3. Develop Joint Proposals (Resource Mobilization) – Based upon the situation analysis progress and in consultation with the technical specialists in the UN Women Fiji MCO, to lead on the development of program proposals (including for potential joint programmes) that will address key gender equality priorities and gap areas under the UN Micronesia MCO. This will require the IUNV to engage and coordinate with other UN agencies on the development of joint proposals for resource mobilization.
4. Establish the UN Women office and presence in the Micronesia MCO – Support the establishment of a UN Women desk initially, and if funding and resource mobilization is successful, to establish project presence in the Micronesia MCO premises / country premises.