Programme Specialist, Women’s Economic Empowerment

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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.

One of the key areas of concern is the economic empowerment of women. It is expressed in targets and indicators of SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls) and SDG 8 (Promote inclusive and sustainable development, decent work and employment for all). Progress toward it depends not only on the adoption of a set of public policies by governments, but also on the existence of an enabling environment and active engagement of the corporate sector. This is also relevant to the achievement of SDG 1 (Poverty Reduction), SDG 10 (Reduced inequalities) and SDG 17 (Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development).

Women’s economic empowerment in the Asia-Pacific comprises a diverse and complex portfolio, including different thematic focus areas from social protection and unpaid care to SME private sector development and very different country specific contexts from the Pacific (highly informal working with predominantly low-income women) to China (middle-income country with a strong and growing private sector and limited bilateral funding). WEE has become increasingly of relevance in the region, particularly in the wake of the pandemic and economic recovery of post-crisis countries. 

Responding to the diverse contexts, the UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific WEE & Migration Unit has been developing an overall strategic WEE & Migration approach that is strongly linked to the UN Women global Economic Empowerment Strategy, focuses on the key strategic priorities aligned with the SN ROAP Women’s Economic Empowerment & Migration for 2023-2025 and reflecting UN Women’s Global Gender Equality Accelerators (GEAs), namely Women in the World of Work, Transforming Care and Climate Action:

• Advancing Gender-Responsive Business Conduct and Creating More Decent Work Opportunities (WEPs)
• Accelerating Gender-Responsive Entrepreneurship for (M)SMEs (i.e. Gender-Responsive Procurement & strengthening women’s entrepreneurship) 
• Progressing Safe Migration to Decent Employment
• Transforming the Care Economy

These thematic areas are not operating in isolation and are strongly inter-connected and under-pinned by cross-cutting principles, such as: sector-agnostic work (across the Green & Blue -, care, fintech and digital economy); embracing an intersectional and conscious social norms lens into programming, and nexus to thematic areas such as Climate Change among others.

In July 2024, UN Women in partnership with the Government of Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is launching the new initiative “UN Women Gender Action Lab (GAL): Innovation and Impact for Gender Equality in Asia-Pacific, powered by the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs).”

The Gender Action Lab will build on UN Women’s success generating commitment to and implementation of the  Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), a set of 7 principles that provide companies a roadmap to become more gender-responsive throughout their value chain. The WEPs were launched in 2010 by UN Women and the UN Global Compact and is the only framework that encompasses gender equality at all organizational levels, beginning with leadership and providing guidance for the workplace, marketplace and community, underpinned by a strong emphasis on accountability and transparent reporting of progress.

Based on the very strong foundation built through previous programmes, the UN Women’s Asia-Pacific Gender Action Lab (GAL) aims to further advance private sector and government action to accelerate gender-responsive business policies and practices in Asia-Pacific by strengthening, in particular, implementation efforts to contribute to closing the Private Sector  and Government ‘Action Gap’ across the Asia and the Pacific, with a specific regional focus on ASEAN and especially in four priority countries, namely Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia and Cambodia. GAL will aim to incorporate an inclusive and creative problem-solving methodology to enable multi-stakeholder and innovative thinking around specific thematic areas to ideate and prototype new multi-stakeholder solutions. The programme will cover four countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Malaysia. It will also have a regional component under the responsibility of UN Women Region Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP). 

The key outcome is: More private sector companies in Asia – Pacific are implementing gender-responsive business practices and policies to enable more women to equitably lead and participate in the world of work.

The program will achieve this through 3 interrelated pillars:

• Awareness, Commitments, and Capacity built on the WEPs and engagement of key stakeholders for the thematic lab
• Multistakeholder thematic Gender Innovation labs: piloting concrete solutions with innovators and policymakers (thematic areas may include employer-supported care, disability inclusion, transparency & reporting)
• Document Best Practices, generating and disseminating recommendations for action, and recognizing businesses through the Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards and WEPs Forum

Reporting to the Regional Programme Manager and Technical Advisor – Regional Women’s Economic Empowerment in Asia (P4), the Programme Specialist exercises overall responsibility for planning, implementing, and managing UN Women interventions under their portfolio.  The Programme Specialist works in close collaboration with the programme and operations team, UN Women HQ staff, Government officials, multi and bi-lateral donors and civil society ensuring successful UN Women programme implementation under portfolio. In particular, the Programme Specialist will also be responsible for Programme Management of the Gender Action Lab.

Key Functions and Accountabilities:

Design and develop programme strategies in the area of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)

• Design and formulate programme/project proposals and initiatives; 
• Draft inputs to country strategy documents, briefs, policy dialogue and other documents related to Women’s Economic Empowerment and specifically to advance gender-responsive business conduct.

Manage the implementation and management of WEE programmes, including the Gender Action Lab

• Finalize the annual workplan and budget and manage their implementation;
• Manage the technical implementation of the programme/project; ensure synergies with other teams;
• Manage the submission of implementing partner financial and narrative reports;
• Provide guidance to personnel and partners on Results Based Management tools and performance indicators;
• Organize Project Steering Committee, project review and/or evaluation meetings, as needed.

Manage technical assistance and capacity development to project/programme partners, especially the Gender Action Lab

• Manage the implementation of technical advice and guidance. Develop and implement technical tools, and initiatives
• Build and manage relationships with national partners to support implementation and expansion of the WEE programme; respond to any potential problems;
• Identify capacity building needs of partners and lead the coordination of technical assistance, mentoring, training and capacity development initiatives to partners.

Manage the monitoring and reporting of the programme, especially the Gender Action Lab

• Manage the monitoring of programme/ project implementation and finances using results based management tools;
• Undertake field missions and review reports on monitoring missions;
• Write quarterly reports and donor reports, focusing on results, output and outcomes;
• Contribute to office donor and UN Women reports. 

Manage the people and financial resources of the programme, especially the Gender Action Lab

• Manage the programme budget and draft financial reports;
• Supervise Programme Analysts and Technical Specialists or consultants; Mentor and coach personnel and conduct performance assessments;
• Oversee recruitment processes, as necessary.

Build partnerships and support in developing resource mobilization strategies

• Develop and implement partnerships and resource mobilization strategies;
• Finalize relevant documentation on donors and potential opportunities for resource mobilization;
• Analyze and research information on donors, prepare substantive briefs on possible areas of cooperation, identification of opportunities for cost sharing.

Contribute to inter-agency coordination on Women’s Economic Empowerment to achieve coherence and alignment of UN Women programmes with other partners across the region 

• Provide technical support to the Regional Lead, WEE & Migration on inter-agency coordination related activities by attending meetings, events, and participating in groups and committees as needed;
• Coordinate with other UN agencies, government departments, donors and NGOs to ensure the projects’ capacity development programme is harmonized and aligned with other in-country efforts.

Manage advocacy, knowledge building and communication efforts, especially for the Gender Action Lab

• Develop and review background documents, briefs and presentations related to WEE
• Represent UN Women in meetings and policy dialogues on issues related to WEE as necessary;
• Develop advocacy strategies and oversee their implementation;
• Identify best practices and lessons learned to guide programme improvement and strategy planning;
• Develop knowledge management strategies, products and methodologies on women’s economic empowerment

Recruitment Qualifications:

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in social sciences, human rights, gender/women’s studies, international development, or a 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: 

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible work experience at the national or international level in design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development and/or WEE projects; preferably private sector development and engagement for gender equality 
• Technical experience in women’s economic empowerment and promoting gender-responsive business conduct through the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) is required;
• Experience planning, organizing and executing multi-country, multi-stakeholder events and/or dialogues is desirable
• Design and delivery of capacity building and/or training for the private sector in Asia-Pacific is desirable
• Experience coordinating and liaising with government agencies and/or donors is desirable;
• Experience working in the UN System is desirable;
• Experience in leading/managing a team is desirable.

Languages: 

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

Source: https://estm.fa.em2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1001/requisitions/job/20553

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