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.

Since 1996, the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund), administered by UN Women on behalf of the United Nations system, has awarded USD $225 million to 670 initiatives in 140 countries and territories to date. The Un Trust Fund has been a pioneer in resourcing and amplifying civil society efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls (VAW/G) worldwide. It is the only global multilateral grant-making mechanism dedicated exclusively to addressing this issue. As outlined in its Strategic Plan for 2021-2025, the UN Trust Fund’s vision is a world where all women and girls live free from violence and exercise their human rights. Its mission is to support and strengthen civil society initiatives that prioritize inclusive, sustainable, and locally driven approaches to ending VAW/G. The UN Trust Fund provides more than just grants. It offers technical expertise, capacity development, access to global platforms and participation in a global community of activists and practitioners committed to learning and sharing solutions to end violence against women and girls.

The Advocacy, Coalition Building and Transformative Feminist Action (ACT) programme has been developed in partnership with the European Union, UN Women and the UN Trust Fund to accelerate efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. The programme focuses on action at the global, regional, and sub-regional level, with a focus on Africa and Latin America. Its overall objective is to accelerate efforts to eliminate all forms of VAWG, under two outcomes: strengthened coalition building, networking, leadership, and resilience of global and regional feminist women’s rights movements and Increased and enhanced advocacy, campaigning, policymaking on EVAW through multistakeholder partnerships and coalitions. The UN Trust Fund aims to build on its many years of support to WROs and CSOs by contributing to the ACT programme through direct investments in women’s rights and other-constituency-led organizations in Africa and Latin America. To do so, the UN Trust Fund will notably award grants to women’s rights networks, coalitions and movements implementing projects at sub-regional, regional and cross regional levels to end VAW/G, of which capacity development and learning will be an integral part.

To support the grant selection process, the UN Trust Fund is seeking gender experts with thematic expertise in building or supporting women’s rights and feminist movements in Latin America and Africa, preferably in the context of ending violence against women and girls. The gender experts will be members of the Technical Review Group (TRG) that will help facilitate the Fund’s independent, transparent, and competitive review of all applications received in response to its call for proposals process. Experts are expected to have a minimum of 7 years of experience in the field of women’s rights and ending VAW/G, and be fluent in English. Fluency in Spanish and/or French are considered an asset. Experience in Latin America and/or Africa is required, and expertise in intervention research and practice-based knowledge and learning is considered an asset.

The UN Trust Fund launched its 2024 ACTC all for Proposals on 2 May 2023 and will close it on 13 June 2024.

Duties and Responsibilities

Time sensitive assignment: The selection of proposals is a very time sensitive process and will require experts in the Technical Review Group (TRG) to follow very strict deadlines for each step of the process. Selected TRG members will be informed of the exact timeline prior to their acceptance of the assignment. The assignment is compatible with other professional activities but does include intense periods of 3 weeks where a full-time commitment will be expected to meet the deadlines [approximately mid-June-mid-July].

Full fledge Proposal review:

• Each Technical Reviewer must familiarize themselves with the UN Trust Fund’s application and funding criteria through (1) a review of the 2024 ACT Call for Proposals and accompanying guidelines and (2) a review of the assessment criteria.
• Participating in a virtual training session.
• Provide (1) narrative assessment and (2) quantitative scoring for up to 20-30 Full Fledged Proposals that match to the extent possible with the Expert’s respective regional expertise, using an objective set of assessment criteria provided by the Fund (3) reassess its appraisals in case of major discrepancies with the peer-reviewer.
• Enter narrative and quantitative assessments of each full fledged proposal directly into the Fund’s online grants management system if requested.
• Advise and provide feedback to the Fund’s Secretariat on technical, regional, and/or thematic issues related to full fledged proposals assessment as needed.

This is a very time-sensitive exercise and strict adherence to requested timelines is expected.

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles:

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modelling UN values and ethical standards;
• Demonstrates a commitment to UN Women’s mission and vision;
• Demonstrates professional competence and is conscientious and efficient in meeting commitments, observing deadlines and achieving results;
• Display cultural, gender, nationality, religion and age sensitivity and adaptability;

Functional Competencies:

• Capacity to self-organize and deliver tasks on time complying with strict deadlines;
• Excellent understanding of gender equality and women’s empowerment and its policy implications;
• Very strong analytical skills;
• IT literacy and ability to operate with on-line web-based applications and tools.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• An advanced university degree in Gender, Development Studies or related field and a minimum of 7 years of experience in the field of women’s rights, including at least 3 years in the field of ending VAW/G; or
• A Bachelor’s degree with over 10 years of experience in the field of women’s rights, including at least 3 years in the field of ending VAW/G.

Experience:

• Knowledge of women’s rights and gender issues globally with specific expertise on building or supporting women’s and feminist movements, preferably in the context of ending violence against women and girl.
• Experience in the field of ending violence against women and girls in Latin America and/or Africa
• Prior experience in project concept/proposal review and scoring is an asset.
• Expertise in the field of intervention research and practice-based knowledge is an asset.

Language:

• Excellent written and spoken fluency in English is required, fluency in Spanish and/or French is an asset.

Conflict of Interest:

• If you are currently employed by UN Women on staff contract, you are not eligible to become a Technical Review Group Member.
• If you are a current donor of the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, you are not eligible to become a Technical Review Group Member.
• If you are currently an employee of a government, bilateral, or multilateral agency or institution (including the United Nations system) on staff contract, you are eligible to apply as a pro-bono Review Group Member but will not qualify for an honorarium.
• If you have been involved in the development of a Proposal that is applying for a grant under the UN Trust Fund’s 2024 ACT Call for Proposals, you are not eligible to become a Technical Review Group Member.

Application Procedure:

• Qualified candidates are requested to apply online via the UNDP website by uploading their P11 and resume in English. Please clearly explain your experience in the field of:

A) building or supporting women’s and feminist movements, preferably in the context of ending violence against women and girl

B) ending violence against women and girls in Africa and/or Latin America.

• Selected candidates will receive a deliverable based honorarium in US dollars for the delivery of all duties and responsibilities mentioned under the Phase they have been assigned to.
• Roster members may be solicited by the UN Trust Fund or UN Women for future assignments.
• Due to the large number of applications we receive, we are only able to inform the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.
• Please group all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.