UN Women: Policy Specialist

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.

The Policy, Programme, and Intergovernmental Division (PPID) drives UN-Women’s positioning as a global thought and practice leader on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Division leverages innovation, knowledge management, and technical expertise to support UN-Women programmes and build partner capacity on gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. UN-Women’s Strategic Plan (2022-2025) features financing for gender equality as one of seven cross-cutting systemic outcomes. It positions financing as a critical driver for transformative change across the four impact areas of the Strategic Plan: Governance and Participation, Ending Violence Against Women, Economic Empowerment, and Peace, Security, and Humanitarian Action; and emphasizes the importance of aligning public and private resources to achieve national gender equality objectives.

The Governance and Participation Section provides intellectual leadership and integrated policy and programme advice on gender responsive governance. Within this Section, the Governance and National Planning team leads UN-Women’s work on gender responsive budgeting and Financing for Development. The team focuses on advancing global norms and standards on financing for gender equality; coordinates interagency efforts to mainstream gender equality in system-wide policy positions; collates and disseminates innovative policy analysis and knowledge; supports country and regional offices with technical advice to strengthen national partner capacity.

Under the overall guidance and supervision of the Senior Policy Advisor, Governance and National Planning, the Policy Specialist contributes to the development, implementation, monitoring and reporting of UN-Women’s financing for gender equality portfolio. The Policy Specialist works in close collaboration with other PPID Sections, country, and regional offices to ensure successful implementation of Outcome 2 of the Strategic Plan; contribute to key intergovernmental processes on Financing for Development; support the Inter-Agency Task Force on Financing for Development; provide high-quality technical advice and organizational reporting on gender responsive planning and budgeting; and oversees knowledge management and exchange on gender responsive budgeting.  

Duties and Responsibilities

1.     Support to intergovernmental processes on financing for gender equality

• Support the Financing for Development follow up process, including spearheading efforts to mainstream gender equality in the annual Financing for Development Forums.
• Support preparations for the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development in 2025 including developing strategy for substantive engagement with Member States, UN agencies and civil society organizations in close collaboration with the Intergovernmental Support Section.
• Provide substantive technical inputs on gender responsive planning and budgeting, and taxation, to intergovernmental and normative processes including CSW, HLPF, UNGA and other global forums.
• Engage in coordination frameworks with UN counterparts to advance the SG’s priorities on reforms of the international financial architecture.
• Support coordination across UN-Women and partners to ensure the UN-Women’s Sustainable Finance work is an integral part of the broader Financing for Development agenda.

2.     Lead inter-agency coordination engagement on financing for gender equality

• Coordinate the gender group of the Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development, to ensure gender mainstreaming in inter-agency dialogues and policy documents, specifically the annual Financing for Sustainable Development Report.
• Support collaboration with Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation Joint-Support Team (JST) on monitoring SDG Indicator 5.c.1, to ensure fully coordinated and sequenced data collection, analysis and reporting process.
• Lead UN-Women’s engagement on global tax cooperation to establish partnerships with UN-system entities working on tax matters, ensure linkages between UN-system efforts and civil society/academia-led communities of practice, and effective monitoring and messaging on gender and taxation under Our Common Agenda.

3.     Lead UN-Women’s corporate planning, monitoring and reporting on gender responsive planning and budgeting

• Deliver on-demand guidance and support on the operationalization of the Gender Equality Accelerator on Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting, supporting COs to apply the framework in their Strategic Note development process and programme planning.
• Lead data validation and analysis for corporate reporting for GRB-related outputs and outcomes under Strategic Plan Systemic Outcome 2 and contribute analysis as part of preparations for the SP mid-term review and final evaluations.
• Review regional/country office strategic documents, including Strategic Notes, gender profiles and contributions to Common Assessments/Cooperation Frameworks.

4.     Technical support and capacity strengthening on gender responsive planning and budgeting

• Provide high-quality technical support and advisory services to UN-Women regional and country offices on strategy and programme development, ensuring coordinated programming and linking normative and technical work at global and country levels.
• Lead data collection on SDG Indicator 5.c.1 providing targeted outreach to countries and ensuring high quality, accurate reporting and data analysis; manage presentation and visualization of the data, develop communication strategy for dissemination in reports, knowledge products and other platforms.
• Develop workstream on gender and taxation with focus on identifying knowledge gaps, building internal capacity, and building awareness of revenue authorities and ministries of finance.
• Support the organization of consultations and roundtables with key Ministries especially the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and sectoral ministries, UN agencies, International Financial Institutions, and other stakeholders, such as the private sector, women leaders, human rights experts, and UN partners, as necessary to identify sustainable financing for gender equality opportunities and the accountability frameworks.

5.     Oversee knowledge management and exchange on gender responsive planning and budgeting

• Provide technical support to regional and country offices to identify and disseminate lessons learned and good practices; provide feedback/substantive knowledge to UN-Women offices on studies and other related knowledge products as requested.
• Participate in and share information on Communities of Practice and web platforms highlighting GRB and financing results and knowledge generated by UN Women regional and country offices.
• Share learning from programming and policy developments in gender responsive planning and budgeting, including through corporate websites, newsletters, blogs, articles and other avenues, and with partners in the UN system, civil society, member states and other stakeholders.
• Convene and/or support trainings and thematic webinars, facilitate peer-to-peer learning and promote knowledge exchange.

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

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:  

FUNCTIONAL COMPETENCIES:

• Ability to provide high-quality policy advice and technical support.
• Ability to work effectively and harmoniously with people from varied cultures and professional backgrounds.
• Ability to produce high quality programme documents and knowledge products demonstrating analytical ability.
• Ability to manage for results, translate strategy into achievable plans, with established priorities, and monitor them, making periodic adjustments, as necessary.
• Excellent knowledge and programmatic experience in gender responsive planning and budgeting and financing for gender equality.
• Ability to establish, build and sustain effective relationships with partners.
• Excellent communication and public speaking skills.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Social Sciences, Economics, Political Science, Gender/Women’s Studies or related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• A project/programme management certification would be an added advantage.

Experience:

• A minimum of 7 years of increasingly responsible professional experience in gender programming, policy research, gender analysis at international level, including at least 4 years focused on financing for gender equality and/or gender responsive planning and budgeting. (required)
• At least 7 years of experience at the national or international level in design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluating development programmes and projects, including on gender equality. (required)
• Sound knowledge of international standards on human rights, women’s rights, financing for development and related instruments. (required)
• Experience with UN Inter-agency and Intergovernmental processes including those related to women’s empowerment, gender mainstreaming and financing for development. (required)
• Proven advocacy, analytical and writing skills. (required)

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language is desirable (French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish).

Application:

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: . 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.

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.

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.