Programme Assistant

Organizational Context

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 UN Women Country Programme in Brazil is implemented in line with the national development priorities, as well as in the framework of the international commitments to gender equality and empowerment of women, as well as the UN frameworks and instruments on Human Rights, of which Brazil is signatory, such as the CEDAW, CERD, Beijing Platform for Action, Durban Action Plan, Agenda 2030, as well as the UN Security Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security. It is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Partnerships Framework.

The UN Women Country office in Brazil focuses on three key areas:

• Women lead, participate in, and benefit equally from governance systems.
• Women have income security, decent work, and economic autonomy.
• All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence.

Since June 2019, the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has been partnering with the offices of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Brazil in addressing gender and race inequalities and violations of human rights faced by the Venezuelan women and girls amidst the mixed migration and refugee crisis. The two sequential joint programmes – the “Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection (LEAP) for migrant, asylum seeker and refugee women and girls in Brazil” (2019-2021) and the Moverse – Economic Empowerment of Refugee and Migrant Women in Brazil Joint Programme (2022-2023) were implemented as a direct response to support the Venezuelan refugees and migrants as they continued to struggle to meet their most basic needs, including food, health care, education and housing, with the increasing cost of living, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of documentation or regularized status, and high unemployment rates making them particularly vulnerable.

Thus, in 2023, with a conclusion of the second Joint Programme Moverse with a wealth of good practices and lessons learned, as well as a solid knowledge base of knowledge products the partners seek for institutionalization of the experiences and processes through integration of human rights and gender equality in the new generation of National Policies on Migration, Asylum, and Statelessness and institutional measures for their implementation by the state. These policies will respond to the differentiated needs of refugee and migrant women and girls and other vulnerable groups of people facing multiple forms of discrimination beyond the group of Venezuelan refugees and migrants for the benefit of all groups of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers in Brazil. The “Joint Programme Human Rights and Gender Equality in the National Policies on Migration, Asylum, and Statelessness of Brazil” focuses on ensuring that all capacities developed in the last Joint Programmes evolve into public policies at the national level, reaching refugee and migrant women of all nationalities.

The area of Women’s Economic Empowerment also focuses on Care Economy. Women contribute enormously to the economy, whether in paid work or doing unpaid housework and care work. Yet, care work has been historically unpaid, underpaid, undervalued, and unrecognized. Women are disproportionately affected by the burden of care, since they are expected to perform unpaid care work for their family and their homes and they also compose most of the paid care workers, such as domestic workers and nurses. In Brazil, for instance, women compose 84,6% of all nurses and 92% of all domestic workers – most of them being black and older women. On the unpaid care side, the impact on women is seen by their limited time to focus on other activities, such as participation in public and political life and paid work, thus preventing their equal access to the labour market and affecting their economic empowerment, autonomy, and access to social protection throughout their lives (unemployment benefits, disability and old-age pensions, maternity leave, among other benefits). On the paid care side, the workers tend to be underpaid and frequently occupied in the informal sector, which also affects their economic empowerment and access to social protection. The domestic workers, for instance, compose a category of workers with one of the greatest deficits of decent work in the country.

UN Women recognizes the need to design targeted actions in different levels to reward, represent, recognize, reduce, and redistribute care work, paid and unpaid. The Project “Building pathways towards an integrated care system in Belém do Pará: recognizing, redistributing and rewarding care work” – Ver-o-Cuidado – is an initiative to support Belém municipality in building a municipal participatory care system that recognizes the value of paid and unpaid care work, responds to the needs of women and those who require care and promotes a co-responsibility culture in society to realize women’s economic rights and opportunities. The project aims to ensure that women paid care workers and women who undertake unpaid care work have access to decent work, as well as to promote a co-responsibility culture in society and foster women’s economic empowerment. The project, generously founded by the Open Society Foundations, is implemented in Belém, in the Brazilian state of Pará.

Under the overall guidance of the Portfolio Manager/Head of Women’s Economic Empowerment Thematic Area, the Programme Assistant reports to the Project Manager with matrix supervision of the Head of WEE Thematic Area. The Programme Assistant works with and provides support to the members of the Programme Team in the development and implementation of effective programmes consistent with UN Women rules and regulations. The Programme Assistant provides programme, administrative, and logistical assistance to the team for the smooth programme implementation.

Key Functions and Accountabilities

Provide administrative and logistical support to the formulation and management of programmes

• Provide administrative support in the preparation of programme work plans, budgets, and proposals on programme implementation arrangements, including tracking the delivery of funds;
• Provide administrative support to the executing agencies / responsible parties on routine delivery and reporting of programme supported activities and finances;
• Provide administrative support for the audit of programmes/ projects and support implementation of audit recommendations;
• Identify sources, and gather and compile data and information for the preparation of documents, guidelines, speeches and position papers, in collaboration with the Programme team.

Provide administrative support to the financial management of the Programme Unit:

• Create projects in Quantum system, prepare budget revisions, revise project awards and status; and determine unutilized funds and the operational and financial close of a project;
• Provide administrative support in monitoring and preparation of budget and the finances of programmes/projects, and in the preparation of FACE forms;
• Prepare non-PO vouchers for development projects;
• Process payment for consultants, as deleaged;
• Create requisitions in Quantum system for development projects; register good receipts in Quantum system.

Provide administrative support to the Programme Unit:

• Undertake all logistical, administrative and financial arrangements for organization for meetings, workshops, events, and missions;
• Make travel arrangements for the Programme Team, including travel requisitions and claims;
• Draft minutes in meetings, as delegated;
• Assemble briefing materials and prepare power-point and other presentations, in collaboration with the Programme team;
• Organize and coordinate filing of documents; maintain mailing lists.

Provide administrative support to resource mobilization:

• Organize, compile, and process documentation and information from donors, and programme team as inputs to various databases and documents.

Facilitation of knowledge building and knowledge sharing:

• Provide administrative support to the organization of training for the office staff and partners on programme and operations related issues.

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

• Supervisory/Managerial Responsibilities: The incumbent is not expected to supervise personnel.

Required Skills and Experience

Recruitment Qualifications

Education and Certification:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business or Public Administration or related field or addition 3 years of relevant professional experience to the post beyond the requirement is required.

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience in administrative or programme management/support;
• Experience in working in a computer environment using multiple office software packages is required;
• Experience in the use of ERP systems, preferably Oracle Cloud is desirable;
• Experience in supporting a team is desirable.

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Portuguese is required.
• Knowledge of Spanish is desirable.

Source: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=116953