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 centre of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. UN Women provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

UN Women in Bangladesh supports the government to implement commitments to international normative standards on gender equality and women’s human rights. The new UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2022-2026 was launched in 2021 and the corresponding UN Women Bangladesh Strategy Note (2022-2026), defining UN Women’s strategic engagement in Bangladesh, has also been finalized. The country strategy focuses on strengthening the national structures and mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in policies, plans and budgets; supporting efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women; promoting women’s access to decent and safe work; promoting policies and government investment in women’s empowerment and resilience building in the context of climate change, humanitarian crisis as well as other threats to peace and security. UN Women works with a range of stakeholders in Bangladesh including the government, civil society and women’s organisations, youth, UN agencies and donors, to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The Government of Bangladesh recognizes women’s economic empowerment as one of the key goals to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Despite strong policy frameworks and commitments, women remain marginalized and deeply undervalued in social and economic life. This results in low participation in the formal economy, low wages, poor economic resilience and autonomy, and vulnerability to highly gendered risks of exploitation. The economic growth has not been translated into inclusive growth, and women’s labour force participation has not increased as expected particularly in the formal sector. According to the Quarterly Labour Force Survey provisional report 2022, the female labor force participation increased to 42.68 percent in 2022 from 36.3 percent in 2016-17. However, it is roughly half of the male participation that stands at 80.5 percent in 2022. In 2016-17 to 2022 the participation rate in rural areas has risen considerably from 38.6% to 51%. However, in urban areas there has been a decline from 31% to 23.68%. Female employment in this regard in concentrated heavily in relatively low skilled, low paid and primarily informal agricultural activities (74.1%). Moreover, around 12.5% of employed women are unpaid contributing family workers. While informality affects both genders, women are disproportionately impacted. Only 3.4% of employed women held formal jobs compared to 21.6% of men.

UN Women BCO focuses on women’s economic empowerment a key priority of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB). UN Women follows a whole-of-society approach rooted in feminist values to ensure that women have income security, decent work, and are economically empowered.

UN Women Bangladesh’s Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme is aligned with the national priorities reflected in Bangladesh’s 8FYP (2020-2025), UNSDCF (2022-2026), and UN Women’s Global Strategic Plan (2022-2025). The WEE programme implements interventions to ensure that women have income security, access to decent work, and are economically empowered. The programme targets the most vulnerable groups of women – which include women migrant workers, women entrepreneurs, female-headed households, women living in disaster-vulnerable areas, women with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and gender-diverse groups – to enhance their voices and leadership for economic empowerment. The programmatic areas of UN Women Bangladesh are closely interrelated and, as such, there are linkages between the other programmes and the WEE programme. As women become economically empowered, they develop skills and gain resources that allow them to stand up against violence, participate in decision-making spaces, and be more resilient to shocks.

Against this background, UN Women Bangladesh is seeking to recruit a Programme Support Intern to provide the required support to the Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) Programme in line with UN Women’s rules and regulations.

Duties and Responsibilities

Description of Responsibilities

• Assist the team in developing proposals, reports, and programme-related documents, ensuring accuracy and compliance with the organization’s guidelines and donor requirements;
• Develop policy briefs, letters, reports, and briefing papers on WEE.;
• Provide technical inputs to various tasks such as workshops, research, guidelines, strategies, analyses, and publications;
• Maintain liaison with relevant government ministries, private sector, business associations, local government and other stakeholders for WEE;
• Provide inputs to the development of training or capacity-building materials on WEE;
• Prepare briefing notes and speaking points, stories, reports, feature articles, etc;
• Support for the development and dissemination of knowledge products and communications products;
• Support the team in monitoring and evaluating programme implementation, including data collection, analysis, and reporting;
• Support the WEE unit in the conceptualization, organization and coordination of key advocacy / awareness-raising events and trainings/capacity development workshops in close cooperation with the programme staff;
• Work closely with the communications analyst to enhance the visibility of BCO’s efforts on WEE through social media and digital platforms;
• Perform other duties as may be directed by the supervisor and other team members as and when required.

Learning Objectives of the assignment:

• Learning and improving skills such as writing, verbal communication, research, teamwork, and leadership;
• Sharpen deeper understanding on Gender equality and Women’s Empowerment issues;
• Increase knowledge on the government policies/strategies on women’s economic empowerment in the context of Bangladesh;
• Develop interpersonal skills to engage with diverse stakeholders at national, regional and global level;
• Develop in-depth understanding on international policies on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

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 :

• Demonstrates commitment to UN Women’s mission, vision and values;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Produces qualitative, accurate outputs with considerable attention to detail, in a timely manner;
• Manages complexities, shifting priorities, and is able to work effectively without constant supervision;
• Maintains constructive, effective business relationships with clients and partners;
• Adheres to deadlines and follows up on time-bound issues;
• Strong interpersonal and communication (verbal, listening, writing) skills;
• Organization skills (time management, efficient administration, multi-tasking and fast-paced);
• Ability to work under pressure within strict deadlines;
• Ability to adapt quickly to work demands, and changing deadlines;
• Willingness to “inter-change” work functions with other staff within the Unit, when required.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• University studies in one of the following disciplines: Public Administration;Economics; International Relations; Social Sciences or other relevant subjects is required.
• Meet one of the following:

1. Be enrolled in a postgraduate degree programme (such as a master’s programme, or higher);
2. Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (such as bachelor’s degree or equivalent);
3. Be enrolled in a mandatory national service programme of which the internship may form a part;
4. Have recently graduated with a university degree (as defined in (a) and (b) above) and, if selected, must start the internship within two-years of graduation.

Language:

• Excellent communication skills (written and oral) in English are required;
• Working knowledge of another UN language is an advantage.

Remuneration:

Interns who are not in receipt of financial support from other sources such as universities or other institutions will receive a stipend from UN Women to partially subsidize their basic living costs for the duration of the internship.

Application Information:

• All applicants must submit a completed and signed P.11 form with their application;
• Due to the high volume of applications received, UN Women can only contact successful candidates;
• The successful candidate will be required to provide proof of enrollment in a valid health insurance plan at the duty station of the internship, proof of school enrollment or degree, a scanned copy of their passport/national ID and a copy of a valid visa (as applicable).

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.

UNW Statement on 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.)

Application:

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment;

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.