UN Women: Policy Specialist, Protection

Advertised on behalf of :
Location : New York, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Application Deadline : 15-Jul-21 (Midnight New York, USA)

Time left : 11d 7h 53m

Type of Contract : FTA International

Post Level : P-3

Languages Required :
English

Duration of Initial Contract : 1 year

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

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 center 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. It provides strong and coherent leadership in support of Member States’ priorities and efforts, building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.

In the area of protection, UN Women contributes to building peaceful and inclusive societies by supporting protective environments and mechanisms and support civil society to advocate for access to justice and reparations for survivors.

UN Women provides technical expertise to support gender mainstreaming across protection processes; and enables knowledge generation through documenting good practices, research and policy development. UN Women is often uniquely positioned to provide a space to facilitate women’s civil society access to decision-makers.

The Peace, Security and Humanitarian Section leads UN Women’s work to fulfill its mandate in the area of peace, security and humanitarian action, as well as UN system efforts towards improved implementation, and monitoring and reporting of global commitments on women and peace and security, including as set out in the Beijing Platform for Action and in Security Council resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), 2467 (2019) and 2493 (2019); relevant Statements by the President of the Security Council, and related accountability frameworks established by the UN system. UN Women is a founding member of the UN Action network Against Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Under the supervision of the Deputy Chief, Peace, Security and Humanitarian Action Section, the Policy Specialist, Protection will reinforce the development of work within the area of gender-sensitive protection, including policy development and coordination, capacity building interventions and strategic partnerships, learning and knowledge production and management, and technical assistance to UN Women Country offices and Partners. The Policy Specialist will act as an important channel between country and regional offices, and global policy-related work in the areas of protection and gender-based violence in emergencies. The Policy Specialist will also contribute to the broader work of the Peace and Security Section.

Duties and Responsibilities

Provide research and analytical support on Protection issues to the Unit:

Lead UN Women’s policy development, implementation and quality assurance on initiatives related to conflict-related sexual violence and protection of civilians;

Establish systems for documenting and analyzing the conditions enabling successful outcomes in implementation of initiatives to prevent, and respond to, conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence;

Liaise with Humanitarian leads and EVAW team to develop and roll-out of a corporate strategy to address gender-based violence along the humanitarian-peace-development nexus;

Organize expert preparatory meetings, panels and other interactive events on conflict-related sexual violence, protection of civilians, sexual exploitation and abuse, and other related topics;

Provide technical assistance and ensure an effective information flow between field-(including UN missions) and HQ on lessons learned, promising approaches, and good practice on protection-related areas;

Manage the process of contracting consultants for commissioned research;

Travel regularly on field missions.

Provide technical guidance and support to inter-agency and international coordination mechanisms:

Provide technical guidance regarding UN Women’s engagement in other inter-agency and international coordination mechanisms relevant to protection, such as UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict, Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies, Protection of Civilians (PoC) Informal Experts Group, PoC Working Group and other related forums as required;

Represent UN Women in in relevant interagency coordination processes addressing protection and GBV challenges;

Identify on an on-going basis key policy and operational niches for UN Women in protection and that supports coherence and comprehensiveness across the UN’s responses in these areas;

Identify cross-regional needs and strategic entry points for coordinated and coherent efforts to enhance the UN’s response to conflict-related sexual violence and other protection issues, under the auspices of UN Action against Sexual Violence in Conflict; provide input into the drafting of the Secretary-General’s report on sexual violence in conflict, and other related reports as requested by the supervisor;

Maintain on-going watching brief on policy developments related to protection of women and children during and after conflict, including in the work of intergovernmental bodies such as the Security Council, Peacebuilding Commission, General Assembly, regional organizations, humanitarian and civil society organizations.

Provide technical assistance to UN Women Country office and other partners:

Provide technical assistance to UN Women Country Offices to implement activities across a range of Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) elements, including in particular protection and security elements;

Advocate and coordinated with UN, Government and Civil Society Organization partners on protection of civilians (with a gender focus), conflict-related sexual violence, and other related topics as required;

Develop global programming initiatives and mobilize resources for policy development, technical assistance and knowledge creation;

Capture and communicate results and good practices of protection of women and girls, including preparation of briefs and guidance notes, managing production of knowledge resources, participation in appropriate global knowledge events.

Build partnerships and participate in advocacy efforts:
Design interventions to raise awareness about and redress implementation challenges in and across the range of WPS resolutions;

Strengthen partnerships with other UN agencies and international policy making forums to highlight and reinforce accountability mechanisms for the implementation of UN mandates on the protection of women and girls;

Participate in the development of strategic approaches to policy dialogue, partnerships, and outreach.

Knowledge management:
Conceptualize and develop quality knowledge products and capacity development tools, and support their dissemination;

Provide feedback to UN Women offices on case studies and other related knowledge products and publications as requested and needed;

Recruit, monitor and assess performance of consultants and other service providers hired to design and develop knowledge products related to the programme;

Establish and nurture relationship with academia, research institutes, civil society and experts in women and peacebuilding to expand and share knowledge, exchange views on latest findings, incorporate cutting-edge thinking in UN work on gender-responsive peacebuilding and keep supervisor informed.

Key Performance Indicators:
UN Women demonstrates global leadership on preventing conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence and improving the responsiveness of security systems to women’s protection needs. High quality technical assistance on gender-responsive protection systems during and after conflict is made available via knowledge products and hands-on advice to UN Women ROs/MCOs/COs. The incumbent could increase the smooth implementation rule of law and SGBV prevention and response activities in selected country offices.

Quality research and analysis of Protection and other WPS elements;

Quality reports, briefing notes, and other documents;

Quality support to field offices in implementing activities and on case studies;

Quality inputs to the development of knowledge products;

Strong partnerships with policy making intergovernmental forums and other UN entities.

Competencies

Core Values:
Integrity;

Professionalism;

Respect for Diversity.

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 Values and Competencies Framework: https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies:
Strong knowledge of gender related issues including in the area of protection and security;

Ability to undertake policy research and prepare quantitative studies, utilizing statistical methodologies, knowledge of database applications for statistical analysis;

Ability to organize and complete multiple tasks by establishing priorities;

Ability to handle a large volume of work under time constraints;

Establishes, builds and sustains effective relationships with clients, demonstrating understanding of client’s perspective;

Ability to draft policy papers, speeches, briefings, etc.;

Ability to develop and maintain roster of experts, and a databank of research institutes, academics, civil society experts, etc. of direct relevance to protection and GBV prevention.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:
Master’s degree (or equivalent) in development related disciplines, gender issues, economics, political science, human rights, law or other social science fields, of direct relevance to rule of law, protection, security sector reform; a first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:
A minimum of 5 years of increasingly responsible professional experience in gender, protection and peacekeeping, policy research and gender analysis and at country and international level.

Field experience in a conflict, post-conflict or peacekeeping context highly desirable.

Languages:
Written (excellent drafting skills) and oral proficiency in English;

Proficiency in another UN language is highly desirable.

Application:
All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558. 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.

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