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.

Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, the UN Women leads and coordinates the United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world.

While Albania has made significant progress in promoting gender equality, women continue to face barriers in fully enjoying their human rights. Women are less likely to participate in the labour market, with a labour force participation rate of 15.9% lower than men.

Stereotypes and gender norms continue to be pervasive and contribute to the persistent marginalization of women, especially those belonging to minorities, including rural women. Young people also face specific challenges: at 27.1%, their unemployment rate is about twice as high as that of the working-age population.

Most of the young professionals and students leaving Albania look for opportunities to stay in the host country, rather than returning.

Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment is a key priority for Albania, underpinning all actions listed in the recently adopted National Strategy for Sustainable Development and European Integration 2022-2030.

The Strategy also recognizes rural development as key for Albania’s sustainable development. Agriculture is the sector that employs the majority of Albanian citizens, accounting for approximately 33.8 % of the employees during 2021, however, agricultural activity is challenged by increased transport and production costs, limited maximization of investment limited efficiency of distribution channels.

Meeting national and international quality and food safety standards and building an administrative capacity to support these processes also remain a challenge.

Women play an important role in agriculture and rural development in Albania, making up 40% of the agriculture workforce, although in most cases invisible and informal.

Male gender roles in agriculture are predominantly associated with tasks that involve control over agricultural assets and implements, mobility, decision-making and access to market, whereas female gender roles are associated with manual work, including pre-harvest and post-harvest activities, food processing, quality control, and household tasks.

Furthermore, women’s access to technical and financial resources and information through agricultural extension service remains very limited, and women represent only 10 % of all beneficiaries of extension services. Women are rarely members of, or represented in, formal associations or committees.

Their limited access to transportation in rural areas has direct implications for their access to health and social services, education, employment, and participation in decision making, making them dependent on male relatives and putting them further at risk of marginalization.

This is especially alarming with the persistence of patriarchal attitudes in rural areas, which often result in GBV.

Women are also strongly discriminated compared to men in term of access to property, while existing legislation guarantees women’s property rights and co-ownership, the implementation of the legislation has been too often hindered by discriminatory cultural and social attitudes, practices at the institutional and community levels, and women’s lack of knowledge of their rights.

This has affected women’s inheritance rights as well as entitlements.

To address these challenges, UN Women with the support of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and funding from the by the Directorate General for Development Cooperation of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation will implement a project aiming to improve the empowerment of women in Northern Albania and promote their role as active contributors to sustainable rural development.

The region of intervention was selected based on latest data on poverty rate and persistency of gender inequalities and stereotypes.

Overall, this project will contribute to the realization of SDG targets 2.3, 5.a, 8.3. The intervention is aligned with the EU Gender Action Plan III, The National Strategy for Gender Equality (NSGE) 2021-2030 and the National Strategy for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries.

Reporting to the Project Management Specialist and under day to day coordination with the Project Coordinator, 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.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide administrative and logistical support to implementation of program portfolio activities, ensuring quality of business processes:

• 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.
• Support procurement procedures for the projects’ activities according to SOPs ;
• Assists in the organization of field visits, missions, workshops, training, roundtables and conferences within the project;
• Updates all administrative and financial files and records related to the project in the electronic systems;
• Assists in the recruitment processes for program’s /portfolio consultants, including drafting of interview minutes and preparing the supporting documents attached to requests for contracts.

Provide administrative support to the financial management:

• 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;
• Prepares all documents for the payment of consultants and other suppliers for project related activities and process payment, as delegated;
• Create requisitions in Quantum system for development projects;
• Supports periodic and ad-hoc financial reporting to UN Women and other parties, as needed.

Provide administrative support to project/programme planning and implementation:

• Collects, analyses and presents information for monitoring, reporting and evaluation of project implementation against targets;
• Compiles and designs background information for formulation of project work plans, draft annual/quarterly budgets, proposals on implementation arrangements, draft of quarterly reports;
• Monitor the timeline of the submission of deliverables as stipulated in the contracts, by reminding the suppliers in a timely manner and ensuring that payments are processed within the payment schedule set in contracts.
• Maintains timetables for the Project Advisory Board meetings and provides support to organizing and holding the meetings, including the preparation and dissemination of information and follow-up.
• Undertake all logistical, administrative and financial arrangements for organization for meetings, workshops, events, and missions;
• Draft minutes in meetings, as delegated;
• Assemble briefing materials and prepare power-point and other presentations, in collaboration with the project team;
• Organize and coordinate filing of documents; maintain mailing lists.