Project Management Specialist

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’s. 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 marginalisation. 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.

Under the guidance and direct supervision of Country Office Representative and in day-to-day coordination with the National Programme Officer, the Project Management Specialist is responsible for managing the project, including relationships with national partners and stakeholders, donor, the monitoring and reporting the activities, the finances and personnel of the portfolio

The Project Management Specialist works in close collaboration with Head of Programmes (NOC), Programme Analyst (P2), Technical Project Analyst (SB4), and the rest of the programme and operations team to ensure successful implementation of UN Women programme implementation.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Manage and lead the overall implementation of Empowering Women for Rural Development in North Albania:

• Manage the overall Project work plan development and implementation according to the project document and UN Women Albania strategic note;
• Design, conceptualize and manage work-plans, periodic narrative progress reports and expenditures status reports to the Project Steering Committee, Cooperation Framework Results Groups and UN Women;
• Lead and manage systems for project planning, implementation and monitoring, in collaboration with partners;
• Ensure project record keeping, documentation and filing of project related files and communications by the project team.
• Manage relations with national partners and other stakeholders engaged in the project
• Manage relationships with national partners to support implementation and expansion of the Project Portfolio, raise potential problems and provide solutions;
• Provide guidance to partners on establishment of performance indicators, and monitoring achievement of results;
• Lead the selection of responsible parties for the implementation of specific outputs/sub-outputs of the project as per the approved project document and budget and in line with UN Women partner selection policy and procedure.
• Oversee identification of capacity building needs and support provided to partners through technical assistance, mentoring, training, cross-partner learning, and capacity development initiatives.

Manage and lead the monitoring and reporting on the Project:

• Coordinate the process of gathering information and preparing progress reports on programme implementation; prepare technical reports; Gather and compile all information necessary for monitoring and reporting on project from the planning to the evaluation stages;
• Lead the preparation of the project annual progress report and final report including other reports/presentations/updates required for each Steering Committee meeting; review and coordinate the submission of responsible parties’ financial and narrative reports;
• Provide inputs from project component activities and results to Country Office and joint UN reporting.

Manage financial resources and supervise project personnel:

• Supervise and manage a team of professional and administrative personnel, including the Technical Project Analyst, review performance and mentor/ coach subordinate personnel;
• Coordinate development and preparation of financial reporting of the Project components including budgeting and budget revisions, and expenditure tracking and reporting;
• Oversee and monitor the allocation and disbursement of funds to responsible parties and other contractors.
• Build partnerships and support in developing resource mobilization strategies
• Provide technical support to the development of partnerships and resource mobilization strategies;
• Identify potential programmatic areas of cooperation, based on strategic goals of UN Women, country needs and donors’ priorities and develop the relevant partnerships.

Advocate and facilitate knowledge building and management and communication:

• Ensure documentation of the project implementation process and products produced are in accordance with UN Women guidelines;
• Contribute to the exchange of information and knowledge products internally and externally of the project;
• Lead major advocacy campaigns, events, trainings, workshops and knowledge products.

Required Skills and Experience:

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in public administration, law, human rights, gender equality, management, social sciences or other related areas 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 experience in progressively responsible experience in programme management, including programme design, programme coordination, monitoring and evaluation, donor reporting and capacity building is required.
• Experience in working in a gender related area is required, including in areas such as Women Economic Empowerment, EVAW, human rights and others.
• Experience in setting priorities, budgets, work plans, participating in programme development and programme writing is required.
• Experience in leading teams effectively is desirable.
• Previous experience working with international organizations, or the UN system is desirable.
• Previous experience in Albania or the Western Balkans is desirable.

Languages:

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

Source: https://jobs.undp.org/cj_view_job.cfm?cur_job_id=117126